We have designed a suite of presentations to cover member and officer training on local plans. You can either carry out the training yourselves using the presentations below as your guide or alternatively experienced PAS consultants can facilitate a training session for you.
The local plan system is going through changes, with the current system setting a deadline of submission of plans by December 2026 and more details on an emerging new system expected later this year. Your members should be regularly trained on key elements of the current and emerging local plan systems and how your local plan is enabling the councils’ priorities and place based projects.
It is predicted that nearly a third of all councils are preparing plans in the current system and getting ready for submission and then examination within the next eighteen months. Many teams have yet to experience examination and are likely to need some training in the run up.
We have designed a suite of presentations to cover member and officer training on local plans. You can either carry out the training yourselves using the presentations below as your guide or alternatively experienced PAS consultants can facilitate a training session for you.
Support offer
- Half-day session (3 hours), on-site at your council or virtually, with members involved in the local plan and other councillors, if interested
- Involvement of a councillor peer, if appropriate
- Tailor made to your Council to address areas of particular focus regarding local plan timescales, key member decisions or preparing for submission and examination.
- PAS will normally charge to undertake the training so please ask for a quote. The price will vary depending on the trainers involved and whether the training is virtual or on site.
If you are interested in this support, please contact PAS:
Email: [email protected]
Tips for carrying out the training yourselves
- The presentation is on Powerpoint that can be easily modified so that the slides you use are most relevant to your Council e.g. you may want to include a slide on your land supply position.
- We suggest that you can add slides or don't include every slide in your training but choose the ones that are most relevant to your training needs
- Break up the presentation with discussions and quizzes e.g. you may want to test councillors' knowledge of local plans in the form of a quiz based on the slides in the presentation.
- Involve officers at different levels in the training. This is an excellent opportunity for officers and councillors to discuss the local plan together away from a formal meeting in public.
- Make sure you leave plenty of time for questions so that the learning can be reinforced. The last few slides are summaries to help with the learning so if you run out of time you can move through these slides quickly
- Make sure you send the presentation to Members so that they can refer to the slides whenever they have an issue.
- Don't let this be the only training members receive during the year. You may want to hold separate training on new issues (such as policy adoption or changes in legislation) or to reinforce areas of the training that need greater attention.