Freedom of information request

As part of the WITPI research project, and particularly to aid the overview of current practice in planning service provision which forms part of ‘Work Package 2’ of the project, a freedom of information (FOI) request was sent in mid-July 2018 to all UK local planning authorities. This included all local authorities and National Parks with statutory responsibilities for town and country planning and minerals and waste planning, meaning a request was sent to 433 authorities in total: 363 in England, 11 in Northern Ireland, 34 in Scotland and 25 in Wales.

This request asked them whether the council or authority had fully or partially outsourced their planning department, and about the use of private companies to routinely support statutory planning work.

Read the summary of our approach to the FOI request and analysis of the results (PDF, 590KB).