Planning Advisory Service

We facilitate self-sustaining change and improvement in the local government planning sector. 
We do this through guidance, direct support, events and online resources on the following topic areas:

• Making plans - LDFs, infrastructure planning, vision, evidence, community engagement 
• Development management - pre-apps, application handling, local development orders, delivery 
• Management and performance - costs, resources, benchmarking, joint-working, transformation
• Councillors - training, probity, leadership
• Climate change

Latest additions

• MEPS launch event for the north of England Last updated 3 February 2010

  Our Managing Excellent Planning Services (MEPS) programme helps local planning authorities create useful, comparable information about the real costs of providing their service, and uses this data as the basis for making lasting improvements. We are kicking off our support for councils in the north with a free event in York on 1st April.

  

• PAS website survey results and actions Last updated 3 February 2010

  We'd like to thank everyone for participating in our website user survey. We've put together a list of actions we are undertaking to help deliver improvements to the site based on your feedback. We are also looking for volunteers familiar with the LDF to help us with some usability testing.

  

• Development management: commentary and case studies Last updated 21 January 2010

  We've put together a resource to support the implementation of a development management approach to planning. It draws on council experience with culture change, front-loading the process with pre-application discussions, resourcing and the role of members.

  

• Practical procurement: developing skills for planners Last updated 19 January 2010

  This course demonstrates how the skills, tools and techniques of effective procurement can be applied to real-life procurement issues being faced by planners.

  

• Show me the evidence: climate change and the evidence base for core strategies Last updated 19 January 2010

  This document shares the experience from our roundtable events on how planners are developing and justifying climate change policies in core strategies.

  

• Facing the future: planning from 2010 Last updated 21 January 2010

  This event series for heads of planning services and senior planners looks at some of the key areas of challenge that planning services are going to be facing over the coming year.