Planning Skills Delivery Fund (year 1): Guidance for applicants
A fund for local authorities to help clear backlogs of planning applications and address skills gaps. Now closed for applications.
Applies to England
Planning Skills Delivery Fund (year 1): Guidance for applicants
1. Context
Many local planning authorities, as well as the wider planning sector, are facing capacity and capability challenges. To ensure that local authorities are well equipped and supported to deliver development now, as well being ready to deliver the changes set out in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, we have developed a programme of support with partners across the planning sector. The Capacity and Capability Programme aims to provide the direct support that is needed, getting planners in to local government now, deliver upskilling opportunities for existing planners, and further develop the future pipeline into the profession.
The Planning Skills Delivery Fund (PSDF), which is part of the Capacity and Capability Programme, will provide £24 million over two years to local authorities to help with the implementation of the proposed reforms in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. To ensure that local authorities are ready for change, we recognise that support is needed to help planning services deal with a variety of issues in the current system. We are therefore providing funding for the improvement of development management services by clearing backlogs of planning applications, as well as funding for addressing planning skills gaps.
This is an opportunity for local planning authorities to apply for funding for up to £100,000 to provide support with clearing backlogs of planning applications. It is also an opportunity for local authorities to apply for funding specialist and expert resource in preparation for implementing the proposed planning reform for both plan-making and decision-making.
2. What we are looking for
For year one of this fund (2023/24), we are inviting local authorities to submit proposals to address one or both of the following:
Backlog funding – the rise in the number of planning applications that are under consideration by local planning authorities following the pandemic is creating a backlog. This is slowing down decision-making resulting in a lowering of quality of service and increased uncertainty for both developers and the community relating to the delivery of development. Local planning authorities with large backlogs of planning applications are therefore invited to consider the causes of their backlog and identify ways in which the backlog can be cleared.
We are looking for local planning authorities to understand the nature and scale of their planning applications backlog including the number of live (undetermined) applications and whether they have a build-up of unvalidated applications. To ensure that backlogs do not return following the award of funding and implementation, we are looking for applications that clearly demonstrate how this funding would clear the backlog by addressing the root causes.
We encourage deliverable proposals with the overall objective of clearing planning application backlogs. Examples could include hiring additional planning officers to work on minor or householder applications, discharging conditions or validating applications. Local planning authorities will need to be mindful of their performance statistics when addressing their backlog and seek extension of time agreements where appropriate.
Skills funding - where there are skills gaps in local authorities, this can cause delays to both plan-making and decision-making. To ensure that local authorities are able to work effectively both now and in advance of the introduction of the proposed planning reforms, we are inviting local authorities who have identified skills gaps to bid for support.
We are looking for local authorities to identify which planning specialism(s) they are seeking expertise in, which could include transport planning, urban design, strategic planning, conservation, heritage, landscape, ecology, minerals and waste and viability assessment. Proposals should be clear on how the specialist resource would deliver skills support and knowledge transfer to achieve identified planning outcomes.
For both types of funding, we expect to issue grants of up to £100,000 per local authority to be used for initiatives which are over and above work that the authority already intends on undertaking. Where more than one local authority is submitting a joint application, the total funding available will be capped at £100,000 per local authority. For example, a local authority submitting an application on behalf of three local authorities can apply for up to £300,000.
Applications that have an element of match funding from the local authority and / or demonstrate collaboration between authorities are particularly encouraged, but are not compulsory.
The intention of the year one application process is to focus on projects and change that could be delivered within 6 months.
3. Eligibility
The eligibility criteria for each element of funding is as follows:
Backlog funding - this is only available to local planning authorities in England who are decision-makers on planning applications. It is the responsibility of each authority to demonstrate the nature and scale of it planning applications backlog.
Skills funding - this is available for all local authorities in England involved in plan-making and decision-making to apply for, which includes upper tier authorities such as county councils.
Only applications submitted via the Microsoft Form provided will be considered. Please email capacityandcapability@levellingup.gov.uk if you experience technical issues.
4. Criteria
Applications will be considered against the following criteria:
- Evidence of need
- Outputs of the proposal
- Outcomes of the proposal
- Costs and value for money
- Deliverability
Applications should demonstrate how they meet the criteria through the questions in the Microsoft Form, which are also set out in Annex A.
DLUHC will review and assess the applications against the criteria and consider:
- Whether the organisation meets the eligibility criteria and the assessment criteria set out above
- Prioritising certain assessment criteria over others (noting this must be applied consistently to all cases)
- Aiming to ensure a diversity of local authorities are supported in terms of nature, size and location
- Whether the applicant(s) agree to participate in a learning programme aimed at sharing insight and best practice about how to improve service delivery
DLUHC may also take into account relevant contextual information, such as published statistics on planning applications.
Priority will be given to awarding funding to local planning authorities that meet the criteria for backlog funding. A maximum of 75% of the total fund will be available for backlog funding. The remaining funding will be awarded to local authorities applying for skills funding.
5. Successful local authorities
The programme will provide funding for successful applications up to the value of £100,000 per local authority. Local authorities are expected to provide regular progress updates to DLUHC, where appropriate, to help DLUHC monitor the progress and impact of the funding.
Successful authorities will also be invited to participate in a learning programme to help identify useful, practical solutions that could be shared with a wider cohort of local authorities. For local authorities with backlog funding, the learning programme would focus on the issues that led to the backlogs, the interventions applied and how to avoid this reoccurring. For local authorities with skills funding, this would focus on how planning teams have learnt from the specialist resources and retained that knowledge to ensure that the fund has impact and that learning is disseminated among other local authorities.
6. Further guidance
Both DLUHC and local authorities have obligations under the Equality Act 2010 aiming to ensure that any possible equality impacts have been considered. It is expected that local authorities who apply for funding and are successful will have met these obligations before any PSDF-funded work commences.
Both DLUHC and local authorities have obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 aiming to ensure that any possible subsidy control impacts have been considered. It is expected that local authorities who apply for funding and are successful will have met these obligations before any PSDF-funded work commences. If funding from the PSDF is used to provide a subsidy, expenditure must be compliant with the United Kingdom’s obligations on subsidy control.
Local authorities have obligations under Section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972 to make arrangements for the proper administration of their financial affairs and appoint a S151 Officer to have responsibility for those arrangements. It is expected that local authorities who apply for funding under the PSDF will have confirmation from the relevant S151 officer before an application is submitted to DLUHC.
7. Timeline
The envisaged timeline is:
24 July 2023: application process launches
11 September 2023: application process closes
September 2023: applications assessed by DLUHC
October 2023: announcement of successful local authorities
Annex A: questions for PSDF application process
Please answer questions in section 1 and either section 2 and / or section 3 depending on whether the local authority is bidding for support with a planning application backlog or to address a skills gap or both.
Section 1: information about the local authority
1. Please provide the name of the main point of contact.
2. Please provide the job title of the main point of contact.
3. Please provide the email address of the main point of contact.
4. Which local authority is submitting this proposal?
5. Please select your region. (Drop down options: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, Other).
6. What type of authority is the applicant? (Drop down options: County council, District / borough council, London borough, Unitary authority, Mayoral combined authority, National park, Development corporation, Other).
7. Are you submitting a bid on behalf of a group of two or more local authorities? (Drop down options: Yes or No).
8. If you selected ‘yes’ for question 7. Please state the names of these local authorities.
9. Has this application been approved by the authority’s Section 151 Officer (or deputy)? For joint submissions, please reply for the lead council / applicant. (Drop down options: Yes or No).
10. Please state the type of support you are bidding for: backlog funding, skills funding, or both. (Drop down options: Backlog funding, Skills funding, Both).
11. If you have applied for both kinds of funding, which would you prioritise? (Drop down options: Backlog funding, Skills funding).
Section 2: planning application backlog funding
With reference to questions 12-21 please see guidance, in particular, the section entitled ‘PS1, Questions 1 and 2’ which provides information about the types of applications that should be included. If you are applying on behalf of a group of two or more local authorities, please provide total figures for the group, rather than for the individual local authorities.
12. How many live (undetermined) planning applications (outstanding decisions including conditions) do you have overall? Please only state the number and provide this in numerical figures. Also, please only include applications that have been validated and exclude any that have been determined, withdrawn, called in or turned away. You may find it helpful to draw on the most recent published planning applications data which includes information about the number of applications that are ‘on-hand’, by local authority, both at the beginning of January 2023 (based on information provided by each local authority (column K)) and at the end of March 2023 (based on information provided by each local authority and also subsequent calculations by DLUHC (column M)).
13. Following on from question 12, please provide the date on which this data was extracted.
14. As a comparison, please provide the same data requested for question 12 for 5 years before the extraction date. Again, please only state the number and provide this in numerical figures.
You may find it helpful to draw on the historic planning applications data (see link below) which includes information about the number of applications that are ‘on-hand’, by each local authority at that time, both at the beginning of January 2018 (based on information provided by each local authority (column I)) and at the end of March 2018 (based on information provided by each local authority and also subsequent calculations by DLUHC (column K)). Information at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/historical-and-discontinued-planning-live-tables, ‘Historical live tables, January to March 2018, Table 133’.
15. To help to understand the breakdown of question 12. How many ‘major’ planning applications do you currently have outstanding? Please only state the number and provide this in numerical figures. Also, please only include applications that have been validated and exclude any that have been determined, withdrawn, called in or turned away. If the data is not available, please give your best estimation.
16. Following on from question 15, please provide the date on which this data was extracted.
17. To help us understand the breakdown of question 12, how many ‘minor’ applications do you currently have outstanding? Please only state the number and provide this in numerical figures. Also, please only include applications that have been validated and exclude any that have been determined, withdrawn, called in or turned away. If the data is not available, please give your best estimation.
18. Following on from question 17, please provide the date on which this data was extracted.
19. To help us understand the breakdown of question 12, how many ‘other’ applications do you currently have outstanding? Please only state the number and provide this in numerical figures. Also, please only include applications that have been validated and exclude any that have been determined, withdrawn, called in or turned away. If the data is not available, please give your best estimation.
20. Following on from question 19, please provide the date on which this data was extracted.
21. In numerical figures, please provide an estimation of how many applications have been received but have not yet been validated.
22. What are the causes of the backlog? Select as many options that apply. (Drop down options: staffing levels, budget levels, adequacy of income to cover costs, Pandemic, increase in applications over time, increase in complexity or scale of applications, increase in stakeholder interest in decisions, lack of timely responses from statutory consultees, poor quality / invalid applications, IT systems, other).
23. Following on from question 22, please explain further and state how long this has been building (250 words maximum).
24. Please explain why this backlog cannot be resolved by current available resources (100 words maximum).
25. What impact is this backlog having on wider planning functions? (250 words maximum).
26. What is the total cost of your proposed approach to clearing the backlog? (Please use this numerical format and ensure you use a ‘£’ sign: £100,000).
27. How much funding is your local authority / group of authorities requesting from the Planning Skills Delivery Fund to deliver the proposal (allocations up to £100,000 per authority)? Again, please use the numerical format presented in the question and ensure you use a ‘£’ sign.
28. Following on from question 27, please provide a suitable breakdown and justification for the level of funding you are requesting (250 words maximum).
29. How will this funding be used to address the backlog? (Drop down options: Appointment of consultants, Appointment of temporary staff, Other).
30. Please set out the expected outcomes from the provision of potential support from the PSDF and the intended benefits of those outcomes (250 words maximum).
31. Please specify how development management performance will continue to be monitored within your local authority, how this links to the PSDF funding requested and who will be responsible for monitoring (150 words maximum).
32. Please set out the type of caseload you would allocate to the additional resource (e.g. major applications, minor applications, other applications), the expected number of planning applications you expect to be cleared as a result and in what timescale the work will be undertaken in (250 words maximum).
33. How will any benefits be sustained beyond the period for which any PSDF funding is available? (100 words maximum).
34. What are the biggest risks to this proposal and how do you propose to mitigate them? (200 words maximum).
35. Have you already or are you planning to engage the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) in a peer review of your development management services and do you have an improvement plan in place? (Drop down options: Already engaged, with improvement plan in place. Planning to engage and set up an improvement plan. No engagement planned, and no improvement plan in place, Other).
36. Do you agree to participate in a learning programme aimed at sharing insight and best practice arising from use of the PSDF (Drop down options: Yes / No).
37. Please confirm your proposal will not give rise to any subsidy control issues. (Drop down options: Our proposal will not give rise to any subsidy control issues, Our proposal will / may give rise to any subsidy control issues).
38. Have you undertaken a Public Sector Equalities Duty assessment for your proposal? (Drop down options: Yes, No).
39. Are you also applying for skills funding? (Drop down options: Yes, No).
Section 3: skills funding
40. Which planning specialism are you seeking to procure resources for? Select as many that apply. (Please note, separate funding is available for support on nutrients). (Drop down options: transport planning, urban design, strategic planning, conservation, heritage, landscape, ecology, minerals and waste, viability assessment, other).
41. Following on from question 40, what are the reasons for choosing this / these specialisms? Is it to address an existing skills gap, prepare for the introduction of planning reform, or both? (Drop down options: Addressing the skills gap, Prepare for the introduction of planning reform, both).
42. Following on from question 41, please provide an explanation of the reason for choosing the specialism(s). If this to address an existing skills gap, please explain why this gap cannot be addressed by current available resources and the impact this is having on planning outcomes. If this is to prepare for the introduction of planning reform, please explain which element of the reform(s) (350 words maximum).
43. What is the total cost of the proposal? (Please use this numerical format and ensure you use a ‘£’ sign: e.g. £100,000).
44. How much funding is your local authority / group of local authorities requesting from the Planning Skills Delivery Fund to deliver the proposal (allocations up to £100,000per authority)? Again, please use the numerical format presented in the question and ensure you use a ‘£’ sign.
45. Following on from question 44, please provide a suitable breakdown and justification for the amount of funding you are requesting. (250 words maximum).
46. Please set out the level of resource this funding would provide including number of officer hours, the number of weeks and the timescale within which the work will be undertaken.
47. Please set out the expected outcomes from the provision of potential support from the PSDF and the intended benefits of those outcomes. (250 words maximum).
48. Please select whether this proposal will support plan-making, decision-taking or both. (Drop down options: Plan-making, Decision-taking, Both).
49. Following on from question 48, please provide further details about how the proposal will support these activities. (250 words maximum).
50. How will any benefits be sustained beyond the period for which any PSDF funding is available? (100 words maximum).
51. What are the biggest risks to this proposal and how do you propose to mitigate them? (200 words maximum).
52. Do you agree to participate in a learning programme aimed at sharing insight and best practice arising from use of the PSDF? (Drop down options: Yes / No).
53. Please confirm your proposal will not give rise to any subsidy control issues. (Drop down options: Our proposal will not give rise to any subsidy control issues, Our proposal will / may give rise to any subsidy control issues).
54. Have you undertaken a Public Sector Equalities Duty assessment for your proposal? (Drop down options: Yes / No).
Annex B: Common questions
What can the funding be used for?
The funding can be used to hire additional planning officers and other specialist resources either on a temporary basis or to act as start-up funding for a permanent post.
Can local authorities apply for multi-year funding?
Under this application, the bid cap is £100K. Applicants should clearly state how much funding is required over the full duration of their project. If the project runs beyond the end of this financial year, there is no guarantee that funding will be available to the same local authority in the financial year 2024/25.
Could DLUHC withdraw funding from a selected bidder?
Yes. DLUHC reserves the right to withdraw further funding if the recipient is deemed to no longer meet the objectives of the fund and /or the local authority does not comply with the funding criteria outlined by DLUHC.
When will the first grants payments be issued?
We anticipate notifying successful local authorities in October 2023. No grant payment shall be made in advance of need.
Do applicants have to use Microsoft Forms to submit their bid?
Yes. To ensure consistency in format and to ensure all questions are answered, the Microsoft Form must be used for all applications. If any local authority experiences difficulties with the Microsoft Form provided, they should use the contact details provided in section 3 of the guidance.
Can national park authorities apply for funding through the Planning Skills Delivery Fund?
If a national park authority meets the eligibility criteria set out in section 3 in terms of their role in the planning process, they can apply for funding.
Can neighbourhood planning organisations, such as Parish Councils, apply for funding through the Planning Skills Delivery Fund?
No. See specific details of the support that is available to neighbourhood planning organisations.
Can backlog funding be used to clear minerals and waste applications?
Yes. If a local planning authority has a large backlog of minerals and waste applications, they can apply for backlog funding.
Can backlog funding be used to pay for improvements to IT systems?
No. We expect local authorities to use the fund for additional staff or specialist resource. Separate funding is available at regular intervals through the DLUHC Digital Planning Programme.
Can skills funding be used for support with nutrient neutrality?
Skills funding is available for specialist ecology resource. However, if the proposal is mainly for support with action to address nutrient neutrality this will not meet the criteria on evidence of need. As announced in the Spring Budget, DLUHC is providing funding to LPAs to help address the challenges of nutrient neutrality by boosting the supply of mitigation locally through the Local Nutrient Mitigation Fund.
Can skills funding be used to support the local authorities’ role under section 43 of the Planning Act 2008 for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects?
No. However we launched a second round of the Innovation and Capacity Fund for local authorities working on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects on 25 July. Applications close on 29 August. We also launched a consultation on reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Planning regime at the same time.
The guidance refers to £100,000 as the maximum amount of funding a local authority could receive under the PSDF (year 1). Could this be £100,000 for clearing the backlog and, in addition, £100,000 for developing skills?
The maximum amount of funding that any one local authority could receive under the PSDF (year one) is £100,000, including as part of a joint application. An eligible local authority can apply for a split that reflects their needs, for example, £75,000 for clearing a backlog and £25,000 for developing skills or up to £100,000 for either clearing the backlog or developing skills.
Updates to this page
Last updated 24 August 2023 + show all updates
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Added a common question in Annex B on the £100,000 cap.
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Added a common question in Annex B on whether national park authorities can apply for funding and updated the answer on Nationally Significant Infrastructure projects.
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First published.