England's planning system underpins the country's economic growth and development, but there is a significant risk that that major Government targets for housebuilding and regeneration will be missed because the system is unable to manage the volume or variety of tasks required between now and 2020.

Wider economic well-being and delivery of the Government's environmental priorities could well be hindered simply because the system cannot cope.

Two linked and chronic problems need to be urgently addressed to prevent this. There is a drastic shortage of planning officers, estimated to affect 46 per cent of local authority posts by 2012. There is also a significant and growing skills gap among those planners who remain within the system.

These problems have been recognised for more than a decade, but in spite of continued pressure for change, planning departments remain short of staff and likely to be so for the foreseeable future. The Government needs both to raise the general status of planning within local government structures and to provide means by which planners can widen and improve their skills to obtain the greatest benefit from developments for the localities they serve.

The Government has established several bodies to try to reverse the trend, but their influence has been limited and patchy to date, raising some confusion over precisely who is responsible for raising planning numbers and skills levels. Efforts to raise the number of students taking planning-related university courses have been more successful, but will take time to bring able and experienced planning officers into the system.