Social and community infrastructure is essential for the functioning of society, including the economy. It includes all aspects of caring for individuals and contributing towards community life. Unlike other forms of infrastructure, it is the most varied in scale and type of provider. While universities and hospitals can be defined as major infrastructure on a national or subregional scale, they are funded by a range of sources including the state, research funds, donations, their own commercial operations and other charitable fundraising. At the other end of the scale, coffee shops that provide essential networking and community meetings spaces are frequently provided by sole business proprietors but are also operated by larger multinational companies and charities. Sports and leisure facilities may be owned by their members or the private sector, and funded by government, sports associations’ grants, fundraising or charitable donations. Many social and community facilities are run and managed by volunteers including personal support, sport and youth organisations.

Social and community infrastructure operates in an integrated way. Services funded by the state for health and education are supplemented by voluntary and community services and the location of this infrastructure within communities can do much to support social cohesion. This is a form of social capital that has been identified as being critical to societal well-being that is essential for social order and a growing economy (Putnam, 2001). Social and community infrastructure is associated with happiness and its contribution to GDP (Stiglitz et al, 2009; Layard, 2011) through quality of life bundles that can be measured and compared between states (OECD, 2013).

Infrastructure planning is a core function of all states and nations. It is a central component of growth and efficiency in the economy and for resilience in coping with environmental shocks or disasters. States and nations are concerned with the quality of their infrastructure for their own purposes but also in international comparative evaluations undertaken by the OECD, the World Bank and the WEF (World Economic Forum) (OECD, 2011a; WEF, 2012; Sala-i-Martín et al, 2014). These include the state of infrastructure but also the institutional conditions that accompany its provision and improvement. These judgements may influence the evaluation of state economies and the propensity to invest by business and global capital.

National infrastructure planning to support the economy, sustainability and social activity within states is an essential feature of public planning and investment. States create the conditions and mechanisms for infrastructure planning and delivery. The state is responsible for regulation that will frame sustainable investment by different operators, identifying which locations, business sectors and communities will be privileged above others.

The majority of EU states prepare strategic spatial plans that indicate where future investment will be promoted, including infrastructure. All countries in the EU have such a plan, apart from the UK (Barca, 2009). The UK has a sectoral and aspatial national infrastructure planning regime established in 2008 and a National Infrastructure Plan that comprises sectoral pipeline projects (HMT and DCLG, 2010; HMT, 2011, 2014).

The legislation and priorities for infrastructure planning in the EU is a pooled responsibility that is implemented by member states, including the UK.

Leadership and management are critical to the way in which planning is practised, perceived, resourced and trusted. Yet over the past 50 years, in the UK, planning practice has been criticised by governments, companies and communities for its failure to be ‘effective’ (Clifford and Tewdwr-Jones, 2013), albeit that these detractors have failed to define the ideal process. These criticisms have been made by both major political parties operating in England (Barker, 2004, 2006; Osborne, 2014). They have primarily been aimed at local government, at the institutional scale that is responsible for the operation of the planning system and at local authority planners, in particular for their inability to manage the planning system in a way that supports the national economic interests. This had led to a continuing process of reforms to the planning system in England since 2004. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, there have also now been major reforms within the planning system, but the relationship between those engaged in the planning system and politicians has mostly been more positive (Morphet, 2011a, 2011b; Morphet and Clifford, 2014).

However, this is a simplistic view of the way in which the UK planning system operates. Planning professionals are more similar to lawyers than doctors; they advise others who take the decisions. If leadership and management are to be considered, all those with a stake in the planning system have a role to play. In local authorities, this includes councillors, the chief executive, chief officers and the community as well as planners. Part of the planner’s role is to evaluate the proposals, policies and projects within the planning framework, identifying ‘imagined users’ (Ivory, 2013) and ensuring that these conceptualisations are consistent with reality.

A major part of public planning practice is concerned with regulation. This is undertaken through processes where there is a requirement for fairness and transparency. This requires a more system led approach which is complaint with administrative law through which regulatory practices and decisions may be challenged through Judicial Review. Other parts of planning including plan-making in the public sector and planning applications and scheme work in the private and voluntary sectors are project-based and are not subject to the same kinds of legal challenge. They comprise single activities, although multiple activities may be undertaken for the same client. Management in the public sector is more complex. Planning practice here embraces processes and projects. Moreover, there is an onus on public sector organisations to operate in democratic environment, which brings additional responsibilities for openness and accountability. While planners in all sectors are primarily engaged in major or complex applications, the responsibility for planning decisions in the public sector takes place within a framework established by democratically elected councillors and then delegated to the local authority officers to exercise on their behalf.

Determining planning applications requires that a fair process is followed within the time and budget allowed. Each element in the process must be tracked and monitored to ensure that deadlines are met and quality outcomes achieved (Adams and Tiesdell, 2013). Each planning application includes consultation and environmental assessments. A failure in the process leaves open the opportunity for legal challenge within complaint procedures, such as through the Ombudsman or through judicial review.

Most planning activities – including the delivery of plans, planning applications, planning appeals, inquiries and examinations, and research and monitoring – require a project-based management approach. This chapter discusses the project management method, and in particular its application to planning. Projects are transitory activities that are intended to have lasting effects through the implementation of change or the identification of future change (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005). In planning practice, plan making has frequently been regarded as a process (Kitchen, 2007), where contributing activities have no defined ends, only defined points of contribution. This fluid approach may be a reason why plan making is slow and inconclusive. Research, monitoring and specialist studies have defined content parameters, dependencies with other activities and can also be defined as projects in their own right.

Project management is used to manage specific rather than continuous activities. It is used in managing the construction of buildings and bridges, and in landscaping, where the preparation and ordering of the individual elements are critical to the project’s success. It is also used to manage the production of reports or submissions, organisational change or improvement processes, and court cases. Project management methods are designed to support delivery on time, on budget and within the objectives set. Projects are characterised as having a beginning, middle and end, and as being completed in stages.

A large project may comprise numerous smaller projects and may be considered as a programme where individual projects and their components are interrelated and interdependent. Examples include major infrastructure projects such as railway or metro systems, or an Olympic Park, but may also include housing or university developments that are implemented over a longer period.

Finance is a key consideration for all organisations. The way in which an organisation is able to manage and attract finance is critical to its success in achieving its objectives. Finance forms part of the organisation’s resource base and is accompanied by staff, land and buildings, equipment, intellectual property and reputation, all of which are capable of being assigned a financial value. Management of these resources may be direct or indirect and includes both day-to-day management as well as dealing with change and crises.

Financial resources have a number of roles within planning. First, there are the costs of a planning service or planning application to consider (BCCI, 2011a). Planning is an essential component of all capital investment in land and buildings and plays a central role in the country’s national and local economies (PAS, 2014c; RTPI, 2014). Planning is used to support investment and also generates mitigating development contributions to be spent on infrastructure and facilities.

Accounting for financial resources is considered in two ways – the use of capital resources for long-term investment and revenue or current resources for day-to-day expenditure. Accounting for the use of resources must be undertaken according to legally binding standards. Until 2013, the accounting standards for the private and the public sector differed, as did those between nations. Since 2013, International Financial and Reporting Standards (IFRS) have begun to be introduced; these will be the same for all sectors and across a number of countries. In the UK, their implementation is due to be completed in 2017.

People are a key resource and cost in any organisation, particularly those in the professional services sector. In delivering planning, staff are the main cost, whether in a public service or consultancy. Planners may make up the majority of employees in an organisation such as a planning consultancy or they may be part of a larger organisation, such as a local authority. Although the majority of planners in the private sector may be employed in organisations primarily focused on planning, some are part of larger management consultancies or retailers (RTPI, 2014). Some planning consultancies employ more planners than local authorities (Sell, 2013). The structure of the organisation and the way that planners are managed within it will have a key effect on employees’ contribution to the organisation as a whole, and in particular on its efficiency in serving its community or clients. Since then, both the number of chartered town planners and the proportion of planners employed in the private sector has grown. While planning in the private sector has experienced major growth, local authorities have experienced financial pressures. This has led to planning services being scrutinised in an attempt to identify cost-cutting and income-generation activities. At the same time, there have been reductions in specialist staff such as heritage officers (IHBC, 2013). There has also been an increase in the volume of delegated planning applications, which cost 90% less than applications put to councillors for decision (PAS, 2008). Planners and support staff have increasingly been employed on short term contracts to increase resource flexibility.

Planning is funded by civil society to regulate land use and support public investment within sustainable objectives. Planning provides an institutional framework and operational certainty for private sector investment. Planners are engaged in delivering the planning system. They occupy a number of roles that are primarily advisory rather than executive in nature. Planners certified by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) are bound by a code of professional conduct, which applies to members’ professional activities and requires them to act with integrity and competence. Planners’ professional status is defined by a Royal Charter in the UK (RTPI, 2012). Planners who do not adhere to the code may face disciplinary action. At worst, a planner may lose their membership and with it the designation ‘chartered’ town planner. Behaviour outside this code may be challenged and, in the worst case, professional planners may be removed from the membership of the professional body and, in the UK, lose the right to use the descriptor of a ‘chartered’ town planner.

Planners may have obligations to their employer, but does membership of a professional body confer an autonomous duty to society and to the practices of sustainability? RTPI members are required to undergo continuous professional development (CPD) to keep their skills up to date with changes in planning practice.

Planners operate within a political environment and for those directly employed in the public sector; this may give rise to pressures and tensions (Stocker and Thompson-Fawcett, 2014). Some commentators, like Kitchen (2007), have written extensively about this, while Kaiserman and colleagues (Ankers et al, 2010) created an imaginary and farcical local authority through which to explore the pressures of the public sector planner’s role.

Planners are employed almost equally in the private and the public sectors (RTPI, 2014). Most of the research and literature that specifically deals with planning and management issues is directed at the public sector and at its policy, planning and regulatory roles. In the private sector, advice for practitioners is available from the websites of professional bodies (the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Royal Town Planning Institute and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). It is also important to consider the management issues of professionals in specialist consulting and corporate organisations.

Planners are also active in the third ‘not for profit’ sector in community and charitable organisations (Wates and Knevitt, 2013). While the numbers of planners employed in the third sector is small, many planners also volunteer for planning aid activities. In the third sector, planners may also be involved in lobbying government or working within community technical aid or in development trusts directly with groups or individuals seeking to respond or participate on local issues (Warburton, 2013). These may range from a planning application, a local or neighbourhood plan or a national infrastructure project. This chapter discusses the ways in which planning is managed and delivered within organisations in each sector and at different scales of organisation.

Planning responsibilities in the public sector are held by a range of different bodies and organisations. These include central government and its agencies, local authorities including neighbourhood and parish councils, and national parks. Each of these organisations is accountable to democratically elected politicians and this is what distinguishes all public sector bodies from those in the private and voluntary sectors.