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RTPI conference: Planning faces skills shortage

29/01/10 3:30 pm By Nick Johnstone

Planning authorities need to recruit more young people if the UK is to avoid a skills shortage, the chief planner at government department Communities and Local Government has warned.

At the Royal Town Planning Institute annual conference Key Planning Issues 2010 in London this morning, Steve Quartermain said the number of planners in high positions nearing retirement was a problem for the public sector. A skills shortage could also mean more delays for developers as they struggle to get planning consent for developments.

Quartermain said the UK planning service faced a repeat of the so-called “lost generation” of planners it experienced during the downturn of the early 1990s. He said this resulted in outdated approach to planning in councils.

“If you look around, we have a problem that many of our top planners in the highest roles are in their 50s,” he said.

“A lot of people are saying we need to sweep them away and bring in all the young Turks who understand modern planning.”

Quartermain told the conference that older planners were less confident with new planning policies: “There is a view that slow delivery of local development strategies is due to lack confidence with new policies,” he said. “I say to planning teams that they should just go for it.”

Yesterday, the planning skills shortage was labeled a threat to development during a debate in the Scottish Parliament on Skills Strategy.

Marilyn Livingstone, Member of the Scottish Parliament for Kirkcaldy and convener of the cross-party group on construction, warned against proposals to cut funding for architecture, the built environment and planning courses in universities and colleges.

She said: “The construction sector has told me that such a move will make graduate training unsustainable and one can well imagine the impact that that will have on our targets for climate change, housing and, in particular, planning.”

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2 Comments »

  • Bertram Ulatunji said:

    When you use the phrase “labor shortage” or “skills shortage” you’re speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: “There is a labor shortage at the salary level I’m willing to pay.” That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.

    Some people speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.

    If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you’ll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.

    And if you think there’s going to be a shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: Guess again: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.

    Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.

    There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices — and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.

    Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the “going price” has been held below the market-clearing price.

    # 30 January 2010 at 10:41 AM
    • Richard Heap said:

      Thanks for your comment Bertram. I think the problem for planning departments is that the government is looking to stop wage increases for public sector employees, including planners. How can planning departments pay more – and thus attract more planners – when their hands are tied? If anyone else has a view on this, just leave us a post. Thanks, Richard

      # 1 February 2010 at 1:40 PM

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