AI Won’t solve Planning Officer Shortages

Just one in five planning departments in England is currently fully staffed, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) data collected by UNISON.

Such a shortage of planning officers could “derail” efforts to tackle the housing crisis and hit the government’s target to deliver 1.5 million homes this Parliament, the union warned, with planning approval delays meaning that many families, first-time buyers, and low-paid public sector workers are struggling to find a home.

When it took office in July 2024, the Labour government pledged to recruit 300 planning officers for councils across England, but the research suggests that an additional 600 workers will be needed on top of this. This is despite commitments to use artificial intelligence.

Last week , prime minister Keir Starmer announced that a new AI tool – Extract – will be available to local planning authorities to reduce the amount of time officers spend manually checking documents.

Figures compiled by UNISON over the past few months suggest there were 884 vacancies nationally, and one in nine (11 per cent) planning posts were unfilled. The union noted councils’ reliance on temporary or agency workers to fill roles.

A separate survey by UNISON of planning officers found:

• 76 per cent said the Treasury’s hiring plan won’t “get Britain building again”.
• 70 per cent said understaffing is one of the main barriers to local development.
• 81 per cent said low staffing is resulting in delays to new homes, shops, schools, roads and other projects.
• 76 per cent said their council has reduced the number of officers over the past five years.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Councils must be able to recruit more planning staff if communities are to get the homes, schools and services they need.

“Local planning teams have been hollowed out by a decade and a half of cuts by successive Conservative governments, yet staff still handle around 350,000 planning applications each year.

“The Treasury’s pledge to recruit more planning workers is a boost, but won’t be enough to ease the pressure, clear backlogs or support the country’s future growth.”

If the government is to hit its housing target, she added, it “must provide the extra resources to recruit and retain staff”.

“Authorities need long-term, sustainable funding if communities are to get the homes they need and the economy is to thrive,” said McAnea.

The research by UNISON comes after the 2025 Planner Jobs Career Survey  found that recruitment of suitably experienced and qualified staff is among the biggest challenges facing planners.

Resourcing of planning teams was cited as the top professional challenge (74 per cent, up from 48 per cent in our 2023 survey), with the recruitment of qualified and capable planners cited by 60 per cent, up from 57.6 per cent previously.

Like UNISON, the RTPI has highlighted that planning officer shortages in local authorities could derail housing delivery and economic growth.

According to analysis by the RTPI , 25 per cent of planners left the public sector between 2013 and 2020, with local authorities struggling to recruit and retain staff.

Further, in May , the RTPI expressed “deep concern” about the government’s decision to restrict funding for level 7 apprenticeships to those aged 16 to 21. This includes the level 7 chartered town planner apprenticeships.

The institute warns that as a result, the future pipeline of planners is at serious risk even though it is “crucial” to meeting the government target to deliver 1.5 million homes during this Parliament and meet its growth agenda.

RTPI chief executive Dr Victoria Hills wrote  that the policy risks doing “real damage to an already struggling planning system” and that it undermines the government’s ambition to inject 300 additional planners into local planning authorities.

Having met with officials at the UK Government’s education and housing departments recently, Hills said that although “communication lines remain open, with no skills strategy coming in the foreseeable future, it’s not clear to us how the government is going to reach their 300 planners target anytime soon”.

Source: The Planner