Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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272. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of planners employed by each local authority on 1 February 2025. [8741/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he/she is responsible. My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis.

However, granular data, in terms of the number of planners employed in each local authority is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from each local authority.

In terms of building capacity generally in the local government planning sector, my Department is currently working on a number of measures to increase staffing levels. The Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) submitted a report entitled Business Case for Resources for the Planning Function of Local Authorities in 2022 which identified a shortfall of 541 staff in local authority planning services at that time. Further to the submission of the report, my Department is working in conjunction with the LGMA on a programme of support to provide planning authorities, on a phased basis, with the requisite level of staffing resources and expertise to efficiently and effectively perform their planning functions. The estimated cost in a full year of the 541 full-time equivalents staff in local authority planning departments, as set out in the LGMA Business Case for Resources for the Planning Function of Local Authorities completed in Q2 2022, was projected at €40 million.

In this regard, my Department wrote to planning authorities in October 2023 conveying approval to the filling of an initial 100 posts, subsequently increased to 101 posts, in the local authority planning service under the first tranche of the programme. The estimated cost of the 101 positions in the first tranche, calculated at the mid-point of the respective pay scales of the grades concerned, was €7 million. Currently, 86 of these posts have been filled.

Further to this, my Department advised local authorities on 15 January 2025 that it has secured approval and funding for a second phase of this programme, comprising a further 112 permanent positions. This phase will be made up of two phases:

- Phase 2(a): 56 Graduate Planner positions

- Phase 2(b): 56 Staff Officer positions

My Department is currently working with the LGMA to arrange for a coordinated centralised graduate planner recruitment campaign.