The recent Local Government Workforce Survey published in January 2023 highlighted some of the recruitment issues being faced by local government. The study found more than half (58 per cent) of all county, district and unitary councils said they were experiencing difficulties recruiting planning officers. The hardest to recruit roles aren’t usually the graduate or junior planner spots, it’s the senior/principal/team leader type roles which makes up the biggest resource gap in local government.
The difficulty in recruiting experienced planners is certainly something that crops up in most conversations I have with councils; and it not just recruitment, it’s the ability to keep experienced staff from leaving local government too.
There are no quick fixes and getting new people into planning or keeping those already in it will require a collective effort from the industry.
How can more people be attracted to public service, planning particularly? If local government wants to draw people into Planning, there is a need to think about what are the drivers and motivations people have for leaving and what are the unique selling points (USPs) that can attract people back to local government, or into it for the first time.
So, I decided to find out. It all started with a relatively innocuous LinkedIn post saying I was interested in speaking to anyone who had left a local planning authority in the last two years to go into an agency, consultancy or private sector work. What were the drivers and motivations for leaving? And had the grass really been greener? I certainly wasn’t expecting the level of response I got! Within two hours, I had over thirty direct messages and forty comments from people wanting to explain why they had left local government. I’d initially thought I’d speak to only one or two people, but given the level of interest, I decided to get more scientific about it.
I then set off on a round of quantitative and qualitative research interviews with thirty planners and place-making professionals. There was a mix of those who had left for the private sector (developers/consultancies/housebuilders) and those who had taken up agency or interim work within the public sector. There was a reasonable mix of levels of seniority too. Not a very big sample size by academic standards I know, but it gave me some insights into reasons and potential solutions.
As someone passionate about local government, some of the conversations were hard to hear; however, all but two ended on a hopeful, even optimistic note that all we need to do is reinvigorate the local government USP to coax people back. 100% of respondents who had gone into the private sector stated they would return to local government in the future, if the reasons for leaving were redressed.
So why had people left? And how can local government reinvent its USP?
The first thing people I spoke to mentioned was salary difference; unsurprising really as a rule of thumb, private sector salaries are higher than local government. The recent Interim State of the Profession 2023 RTPI survey supports this and found that 68% of local authority planners saw competitive salaries as a key challenge for local authorities keeping staff. 13% of the people I spoke to had moved to a lower-level position without taking a cut in pay, less responsibility and workload for the same money. Heartbreakingly 6% of respondents said they had pleaded with managers to stay at their council if they could come close to matching the salary difference, around 5K per annum more.
The research also involved speaking to recruiters of agency staff for local government positions. They reported that salaries in the private sector and with hourly rates for agency roles hitting £65-£70 an hour. Increased pay motivates people to get on their books.
Let’s be practical local government is unlikely to match private sector pay, and the local government USP can only be partially monetary based. My research found that the increase in income from leaving local government was between £20-£35K, and for some, that meant a 25% pay increase. Figures, I’ll agree, would be hard to say no to.
The gulf between public and private pay scales is too wide; although increasing public sector wages would help narrow that gulf. There are things in the toolbox being used but not widespread. Local Government Workforce Survey shows that over 20% of councils found market supplements an effective tool for tackling retention. Still, it’s only used by 10% of respondents surveyed.
The second biggest (89%) reason given was a lack of career progression from mid roles such as ‘senior planner, principal, deputy team leader’ into the next step of more managerial & leadership roles. The phrase ‘dead man’s shoes’ was a reoccurring joke within the interviews. Yet councils are good at career progression; the Local Government Workforce Survey found about half (49 per cent) of counties, districts and unitaries have career framework/grade systems for planning jobs. However, this data isn’t broken down by type of role but I bet it’s for graduates going up to planner roles rather than for more senior roles. Most planning teams have a triangular organisation structure with fewer opportunities to climb the tree upwards. One respondent stated, “Local authorities are bad at showing what the more senior career choices are”. If local government Planning is going to revamp the USP, we need to get creative around senior career progression.
We need to think about
- The potential for other organisational structures, expanding routes to senior roles and non-managerial career routes,
- More, and at a higher frequency, legacy & succession Planning for leadership roles,
- Expanding career graded roles to higher roles, an approach being taken by Lake District National Park Planning Team already,
- More opportunities for shadowing and mentoring by managers and senior leaders,
- Opportunities for loaning people between councils to gain senior role experience,
- Genuine career development at all stages and seniority of roles,
- Expand the practice of shared job descriptions to move people sideways and upwards, keeping the talent inside.
Local government USP has been eroded; it used to be seen as the best work/life balance on offer with the benefits and flexible working, particularly attractive to parents for part-time opportunities and parental leave benefits. The pandemic has led to widespread homeworking and surprise; surprise productivity wasn’t affected. The myth that all homeworkers are slackers has been well and truly busted. The private sector has upped its game, and the gulf between those benefits has narrowed; however, local government still has the edge, which should be capitalised on. Councils have also been behind the curve in encouraging people back to workplaces, with some no longer having an office to work from. One respondent, who was in that situation, said: “Working at home all the time, it becomes a lonely place.”
The flexibility and work/life balance in the private sector was a mixed bag for those interviewed. Over 70% reported having less flexibility in choosing the frequency of going into the office than in their previous local government role. Many said they had core hours and there was the expectation that some events outside of working hours would be mandatory. Some respondents stated they had very flexible working arrangements; one person said, ‘I’m treated like an adult, as long as the work is done, and deadline met, I can do it at whatever time I want’. So a mixed bag and perhaps dependant on how flexible the employer is. Of those interviewed who had gone into an agency or interim work, a significant proportion, 75%, were doing work for local authorities and reported very little difference in the flexibility offered. Based on the limited dialogue I’ve had; local government still has the edge in providing work/life balance and flexible opportunities. Still, it’s been watered down, and we need to reset the dial. The Local Government Workforce Survey found that just over a quarter (27 per cent) of councils considered flexible working the most effective recruitment and retention tool. We need to get that up to 100%
Work/life balance will need to be part of the answer if we are to attract new talent into local government too. Recent involvement in the Pathways to Planning graduate programme has made me realise that flexible working is one of the first things graduates seek in their first planning job. So if ultimate work/life balance is the answer to reinvigorate the local government USP, how do we go about it?
Well, we could take a leaf out of South Cambridgeshire District Council and Swale Borough Council, who have moved to a four-day week, and Swale has also introduced some additional annual leave days at Christmas time. When Swale asked its employees about the measures, it highlighted support for improving work-life balance, better productivity and being a more modern organisation.
Ultimate flexibility does need to be tempered with the fact only some people like to work at home as much as they like. My personal opinion is that Planning requires a degree of team discussion and learning-by-doing with more senior officers. So how do you balance being flexible and retaining the team’s camaraderie? It is about finding a balance and being clear about what that is. Recent job adverts (including a recent one for Sevenoaks District Council) were clear about how often attendance at the office is expected.
Establishing the balance of ‘being all together’ and WFH is critical to returning one of the most fundamental USPs of working in local government (in my humble opinion). In the words of Sister Sledge, ‘We are family; I got all my planners with me’. Working at a council really is like being part of a family and making connections for life. I still have contact with many people I’ve worked with over the years, and I’ve heard many a planner tell me they met their spouse at a council. Of the recent leavers I questioned, 93% said they missed the family feel that local government working gives, which made leaving such a hard decision. One respondent said, “It’s a sense of pride for the borough; the team was fiercely loyal to the borough and communities in a way that the private sector won’t understand”. Another stated, “Private work is not the same culturally; the family feel of a council is so unique”.
Getting the right balance of working flexibly will need to go hand in hand with a reinvigoration of the ‘nurturing’ element of getting the family vibe back. Of those who have left local government to go into agency/interim, 100% reported that their learning & development opportunities were significantly reduced in their new roles but also that a decline in personal development support had been a reason for leaving.
Respondents who left local government for the agency said – “I’ve had to make my own CPD, and that takes my own money and time”, and “I get no support for growing my skills.”
Over half of the respondents who had left for the private sector also mentioned a lack of learning and development had been behind their departure. On numerous engagements with planning officers, I’ve heard tales of budget cuts, no paid-for events or travel funding, and no time off for networking opportunities. One respondent said, “There were only two people in the team who were RTPI as they were the only two willing to pay their own subs every year.”
A vital element of the family vibe is the camaraderie and supportive environment local government gives an individual. Getting that back isn’t as simple as making everyone get back to the office full-time; things have changed, and working practices are better – plus, if local government is to boost its flexible working USP, then it should be heading that way. The nurturing needs to happen in the current working practices context, The nurturing won’t happen by osmosis anymore, and we need to get more structured about it. I can almost hear the naysayers now ‘I haven’t got time to do all this’ and ‘This is all well and good, but..’. My point is we need to make time to nurture people by
- Programming in more formal communication and setting diary appointments,
- Lining up mentors or shadowing opportunities,
- Recognising the importance of training and more informal CPD by allowing people to engage with others and learn via networking.
Getting the family vibe USP of working in local government is going to be key if we want to attract people into the sector. Growing your own in local government works but it requires dedication on behalf of the council to provide that nurturing environment that local government is famous for.
One thing I was surprised to unearth through my micro research project was the shift in risk appetite. I’m well aware that the job for life days are long gone, but working at a local authority was, until recently, viewed as a secure job environment. Local government positions are typically permanent and offer job security, and that isn’t necessarily seen, at least at the moment, as being the significant benefit, it once did. Respondents agreed with the statement, “The pandemic has made people have a higher risk appetite”. The recruiters involved in the research agreed that risk appetite for less secure positions is something they see anecdotally too.
70% of respondents said that before the pandemic, they were not considering a move to the private sector or agency, but as one respondent said,’ I thought if not now then when, what have I got to lose’. The risk appetite has increased, but perhaps it is due to the security provided, not from a permanent local government job but from the knowledge there’s a lot of work out there for those seeking it. 86% of agency & interim respondents stated they felt secure that there was available work from local councils to negate the loss of a permanent contract, a quote ‘ I’m never out of work’.
But is the abundance of work available for agency & interim staff a symptom of there simply being too few planners in planning departments to do the workload, especially in development management caseloads. FYI – the highest I’ve come across this year was one officer who had 292 applications with their initials next to them. After financial reasons the second highest (89%) motivator for leaving local government was the high workloads and linked to that ‘burn out’. There’s not much I can say about this, other than its gnarly out there and we all know it.
What is compounding the matter and leading to officers feeling harassed is the current working practises and how members of the public and councillors engage with officers. I heard terms like ‘bombardment’, ‘relentless’, ‘incessant’, ‘demanding’, and ‘harassment’. Has the next-day-delivery mindset embedded itself? One respondent commented, “People are moving for a break from the burnout”. For local government to reinvent its USP, we need to reset the expectations of all the stakeholders and the public on what Planning is and what it can and cannot achieve. This is a hard nut to crack, and a national rebranding of ‘Planning’ is needed? This blog isn’t going to be able to cover the multitude of issues causing the burnout and so it focussed instead on some practical things councils could do and are doing. We need;
- Some clear comms on what Planning is. I enjoyed the recent example by Wandsworth and the South Warwickshire Development Plan Youtube channel.
- Reaffirming and maintaining trust between Councillors and officers. However, maintaining relationships and a structured approach to communication takes a lot of work.
- Setting clear expectations for the public around how to contact people and timescales for applications & enquiries
I recently lectured at Leeds Beckett University to a group of post-grad students. The students were enthusiastic and got stuck in to the workshop task I set of ‘If I could change the planning system, what would I do’. However, whilst they knew the council’s role in the planning system. Scarily they seemed unaware of the varied and exciting local government career options. Most were only considering private sector opportunities, apart from two students already at councils. All of us, including Planning schools, must do better in bringing practitioners’ voices into the classroom to estoile the virtues of local government careers.
So what are the USPs of working in local government that we need to provide for future planners and coax those who have left?
Family vibes – As mentioned, local government needs to find its family vibe again; that camaraderie and team support is still there we just need to make it happen a bit more structured and less organically than before. Even in desperate overworked times, we need to make the time for personal development and bringing back the nurturing of internal talent. Whilst the training budgets might not be available anytime soon, allowing people the time to undertake learning away from staring at a screen needs to make a comeback.
Variety – There is a considerable amount of variety in local government, and this isn’t shouted about enough. No days are ever the same. In development management, each case is different; there are different scales and types of stuff to get your teeth into. You can flip from being a transport planner to an urban designer to an environmental specialist, all within a single application. Plan making is immensely varied with the development of evidence base, strategies, and community engagement. You can flip in a single day from demographer to site assessor to facilitator and policy writer in an afternoon! Councils are really good at providing opportunities to get straight into the big and exciting stuff; there’s so much opportunity for learning and personal growth within local government. One respondent reflected, “It’s exciting working in a local authority; there are opportunities to be exposed to so much variety of work across the councils; it’s really interesting”. This is something that respondents in the research missed, “I’ve been put back into a box; just do the policies and nothing else”.
There are things only a local authority can do – It’s pretty unique in local government to have a private sector counterpart of the profession; however, the simple fact is that there are elements of the planning system and implementing a national policy that can only be done by councils. You can’t make a Local Plan unless you’re in a local authority, and it’s the only place with the agency to be the decision maker on development proposals.
For plan making, it’s the only place where the strategy gets developed, and that involves making some critical bits of evidence around the need and community demographics (I loved that) without any agenda; it’s all about finding solutions for community benefit and being the voice of the community within the council.
Working in local government is the only way to improve a scheme and champion the community’s needs. Respondents agreed, “It’s so exciting having the autonomy to be the decision maker at a council; now I’m private, there’s always the client’s angle to include.”
Talking to people – Councils are the first port of call to discuss an issue. Working in local government allows conversations and genuine engagement with residents and stakeholders; plus, it is the only forum in which that engagement can result in decisions being made. Councils are good at talking to their communities, but perhaps Planning departments lag behind their councils regarding reach, methods, and available engagement tools. Local government is the best place to do it if you want a meaningful discussion with communities.
Politics – If you have an interest in politics and democracy, then start working in local government. It is the only place you can interact and view democracy up close. Seeing how local elections & appointing members work, taking part in the cut and thrust of the Planning Committee, and seeing how members bring the communities perspective to the development of a local plan are all absolutely fascinating.
Working in local government is so varied and fulfilling for hundreds of reasons, and this article won’t be able to capture them all. Getting the USP of working in local government will be vital to attracting people into the planning profession and luring those that left back into the family.
Collectively, councils and the industry need to sell that USP. Let’s get the local government mojo back.