Majority of planning and legal departments facing workforce issues, district councils warn

District councils have reported that planning and legal roles are the two most difficult to recruit for, according to new data from the District Councils' Network (DCN).

The DCN survey found that 84% of district councils suffered recruitment and retention issues in their planning departments, while 68% experienced recruitment and retention issues in legal services.

The respondent councils reported that finance came third, with 58% of district councils experiencing staffing problems.

Commenting on the findings, the DCN raised concerns that there will be too few planners to guide the housebuilding boom sought by ministers.

There are also fears that less planning expertise could "open the door to suboptimal developments", the network said.

Building control and housing services are other areas of councils' work that contribute to new homes, but they are experiencing significant personnel shortages, according to DCN's survey.

On the workforce shortages in finance and legal services departments, the DCN said such roles were "essential to ensure services operate affordably and legally".

The research revealed that 169 DCN member councils, on average, had to budget an additional £881,000 each in extra pay for 2024-25 – an increase of 5.2% across the district council sector as a whole.

Cllr Jeremy Newmark, DCN's finance spokesperson, said: "For too many years councils' funding has either fallen or failed to keep pace with demand for services and we seek urgent support from the Government in the Budget to ease difficulties which impact gravely upon our valued staff.

"As councils have had no option to make cuts and services become increasingly threadbare, the burden on their remaining staff grows and the danger is that careers here become less attractive.

"Local government is about place leadership and driving change in communities and it should offer prospective staff a rewarding career – but at the end of the day unless we get adequate funding that allows departments to function properly and staff to be paid fairly we will see more of our workforce leave to more lucrative roles elsewhere."

Cllr Newmark also warned that local services and national policy goals depended on properly functioning councils – "but deepening shortages of finance officers and lawyers have the potential to paralyse councils, or even lead to their collapse. It’s in the Treasury’s interest to act now to ward off far worse problems later".

Cllr Richard Wright, DCN's planning and growth spokesperson, meanwhile said: "Planning departments have been among the most impacted in recent years as shrinking budgets have forced councils to reduce spending but if the Government's housebuilding revolution is to succeed we need a step change in the recruitment and retention of planners.

"Properly resourced planners can help ensure the Government's housebuilding plans will bring about hundreds of sustainable and well-sited new communities that provide housing which will stand the test of time."

Adam Carey