Agency staff put council £900k over planning budget

A shortage of planning professionals is one of the reasons a Kent council has overspent by £900,000 in the past year, a report has found.

Swale Borough Council, covering Sheppey, Sittingbourne and Faversham, spent £1.24m on planning in the past financial year, despite budgeting £337,000 for the department.

Officers told the council's policy and resources committee meeting on 12 June that the overspend was "largely driven" by the cost of agency staff paired with a drop in income.

Councillor Angela Harrison said she was getting "déjà vu" over the high costs despite other departments "shaving to the bone".

Local authorities receive money from developers when they submit planning applications but Swale council's head of place Joanne Johnson said it was "very hard to predict" planning income.

Some councillors thought the issues were predictable and the authority should have planned properly for them, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A shortage of planning professionals has caused issues for councils nationwide for some time.

In January, the Home Builders' Federation reported 80% of the 134 councils it asked were operating below full capacity.

"An estimated 2,200 planning officers are needed across England and Wales to address the gap," it said.

A Swale council spokesman said its planning department should have 34.3 full-time equivalent roles and there were currently five vacancies.

Other reasons for the overspend included over-budget appeals process costs.

For 2024-25, Swale set aside £23,600 for paying appeal costs, but overshot this by £139,000.

Councillor Mike Baldock said: "Even though we have a very high success rate at appeal we can expect there to be a high level of appeal costs. Any appeal is going to cost a considerable amount of money."

A Swale spokesman said in 2024-25 there were 45 appeals against council decisions, of which 31 were ruled in favour of the local authority.

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