New clause 51 - Chief planning officer
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
10:15 am
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause concerns the employment and role of chief planning officers, which it will be useful to spend a few minutes discussing. The Town and Country Planning Association has given us a briefing, and I am grateful to it for helping us to draw up the new clause. It tells us:
''Chief Education Officers, Directors of Social Services, Chief Treasurers and Chief Solicitors (described as 'Proper' officers) all benefit from statutory recognition''.
The wording of the new clause is based on the part of the Education Act 1996 that deals with the statutory recognition of chief education officers.
We would all agree that chief planning officers need to be of the highest calibre and sensitivity to deliver the future vision of their authority and local community. The Town and Country Planning Association continues:
''Their delegated authority can also be great; for example the granting or refusing of planning permission can create or remove millions of pounds of land value at the stroke of a pen.''
Agricultural land worth a few thousand pounds an acre can often be turned into development land worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, so the decisions of planning officers and their recommendations to their committees can be hugely important, not only to the people developing the land but to the community and surrounding area. One big development can shape the whole future of a town or city.
The new clause would give the officer responsible for planning statutory recognition similar to that of other local authority chief officers. It would not prevent local authorities from combining the post with others, nor would it prevent them from using a variety of job titles to suit local wishes. The Town and Country Planning Association comments:
''Unless planners are given the status and ambition they need candidates of calibre will not come forward.''
That is a serious and worrying problem, given the changes that the Government are making. If I were currently a planning officer in a county council, whose strategic role was being diminished by the Bill, and I received an offer from the private sector, I would be very tempted to move, particularly as my future would be so uncertain.
That is a problem at the moment. There are not enough trained planning officers in this country. The competition from the private sector for good ones is huge. Some are paid vast sums. I was with some big developers yesterday, and some of their principal planners are paid a very great deal of money indeed.
This is not only about money, it is about statutory status: status in the council and among councillors, and status with the general public. We need to ensure that planning officers are given that status, that they are paid properly, that we have more trained planning officers, and that there is proper career progression and development. All those are lacking at present. I hope that the Minister will give the matter serious consideration. My concern is not only with chief planning officers, but with the number of planning officers in general. Most authorities are struggling even now to carry out all their planning functions. With all the additional functions that the Bill gives them, I do not see how they will be able to do that unless a large number of extra people are recruited.