NEWS & EVENTS
On this page you will find a list of some of our most recent announcements. To keep up-to-date with our news on a regular basis, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and sign up to receive our newsletter broadcasts.
We are thrilled to announce our involvement with UKREiiF 2024 in Leeds. Our CEO Pooja Agrawal will facilitate an invite-only workshop on 'How to Fail Forward', bringing the public and private sectors together to share learnings from risk-taking and understand how failure can inspire change.
We are working on an exciting new print publication to celebrate the public sector – and we'd like you to get involved. We have two opportunities available:
- If you work in a local authority placemaking team, share your project case studies with us. We are especially interested in projects that tackle equality, health and wellbeing. Learn more.
- If you are a journalist interested in the public sector, we are looking to commission someone to write a deep dive piece on a place undergoing transformation. Learn more.
We are delighted to introduce the Autumn 2023 Cohort including 29 Associates at 27 Authorities. With two new regions and nine new local authorities, this cohort sees the Associate Programme continue its expansion across England.
We are delighted to announce our Partners, Grant Providers, and Supporters for the year ahead. A warm welcome to our newest Partner, Lands Improvement. We would like to thank all of our Funder for their continued support. Together, we will be working towards our mission of building the skills local authorities need, to shape the places we deserve.
We are looking for two Non-Executive Directors to join our Board:
- Local Government: Help direct our mission to build skills in local authorities and shift perceptions of planning and placemaking. We are recruiting a Non-Executive Director who works in local government with significant experience in the North, Midlands, or the South West. You will bring your regional experience and on-the-ground knowledge of the sector to our Board.
- Social Enterprise: Be a part of a progressive social enterprise that promotes and supports professionals to transition into local government careers. We are recruiting a Non-Executive Director with experience leading a social enterprise or SME. Your business acumen and commercial expertise is needed to guide us as we diversify and scale our services.
We are delighted to introduce the Spring 2023 Cohort with 28 Associates joining 23 Authorities in the North and South of England.
We are now accepting applications for the Autumn 2023 Cohort with job placements beginning in October 2023.
If you are an officer at a public sector organisation looking for new staff, submit an Expression of Interest to recruit a skilled placemaker.
If you are a placemaking professional seeking a new career, apply to be an Associate to find a fulfilling job in local government.
Applications close on Wednesday 31 May at 14:00.
We are delighted to announce that the Associate Programme will now be open to placements at local authorities in all regions of England. The expansion is supported by a £1m funding boost from DLUHC. Read the full press release.
We are inviting proposals from web design and development teams to design, build, test and launch a new company website with a proposed budget of £120,000.
Read the full brief and apply by Tuesday 14 March at 10:00.
Introducing a brand new online event series bringing together the resilient voices of placemakers who have worked in the thick of local government from 2022-2023. Join us for a a series of three Friday lunchtime events led by our Associates and learn about the questions, reflections, and provocations they have at the front of their minds after one year of working in public sector placemaking.
- Friday 3 March 13:00–14:00 – Local Government & The Climate Emergency: Top-down, Bottom-up, Middle-out
- Friday 10 March 13:00–14:00 – Trust Issues: Actions to Rebuild Trust Between Communities and Local Authorities
- Friday 17 March 13:00–14:00 – How to Make a Successful Place: Insights From 7 Local Authority Officers
Our annual survey for local authority officers is here. Take the survey and share your experiences of what it's really like to work in public sector placemaking. The survey will be open until Monday 6 March. Learn more.
We are delighted to announce that Anna Rose has been elected as the new Chair of Public Practice. Together with the Board of Directors, she will play a key role in delivering our mission to build the public sector's capacity for sustainable and inclusive placemaking.
Anna is the Head of the Planning Advisory Service at the Local Government Association with extensive experience of strategic planning in the public sector. She has been a Director on our Board since September 2020 offering expertise on our outreach strategy to local authorities and our approach to promoting equity, equality, diversity, and inclusion. She will be taking the place of our former Chair, Jules Pipe, who stepped down earlier in the year. She says:
"I am honoured and excited to be taking over as the Chair of Public Practice, having been involved since the launch of this brilliant organisation back in 2017. These are challenging times for local government, with planning services seeing their biggest resourcing crisis since the late 2000s.
Public Practice has a significant and growing role in supporting the sector to build capacity and capability. I look forward to working with the directors to help the national rollout of our Associate Programme, build on our research, and continue championing diversity across the built environment."
We are now accepting applications for the Spring 2023 cohort. Apply by Monday 28 November at 14:00.
If you are a placemaking professional interested in entering a career in the public sector, apply to be an Associate.
If you work at a local authority and are struggling to attract the right candidates to your team, apply to recruit an Associate.
Meet the new Autumn 2022 cohort – our largest ever cohort with 41 Associates in Authorities across the North and South East.
Read their profiles and see where they've been placed.
We are funded by a mixture of public, private and third sector organisations. This year, we bring on new partnerships with Legal & General and Inner Circle Consulting. Learn more about how we are funded.
We are looking for photographers and videographers around England to join our network of creative collaborators. We encourage people of all experience levels and all backgrounds to apply. Applications close on Tuesday 6 September at 17:00.
Local Government plays a pivotal role in tackling the big issues we face as a society today. Whether it is the cost of living, the climate emergency or even their role in tackling health inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic, local authorities have to face these challenges against a background of uncertainty over funding and a changing national political landscape.
We're bringing together placeshaping experts across planning, design, sustainability, and more to discuss – what should be the number one priority for local government to tackle inequality?
We've moved our office to Better Space, a collaborative workspace for social enterprises in London. As part of our hybrid working policy, we'll be there 1-2 days a week. We look forward to learning and sharing knowledge with a community of change makers. Learn more about our new office.
Public Practice is looking to appoint a Non-Executive Finance Director who can help provide financial advice and direction as we grow. The organisation is scaling its services and operations, and the support and role of the Board of Directors in the coming years will be critical to Public Practice’s ongoing success.
In particular, we are looking for people around the UK with expertise in financial management and planning and experience working with SMEs. Learn more about the role.
We are excited to announce that with support from Homes England, Public Practice is expanding to the North of England. Our programme is now open to Authorities and Associates in the North West, North East, and Yorkshire & the Humber.
Say hello to the new Spring 2022 Cohort. We are excited to introduce 25 new Associates into public sector place-shaping roles, spanning skills in urban design, digital, sustainability, transport, and more.
Among the 18 Authorities hosting placements, we welcome five Authorities that are taking part in the programme for the first time – Buckinghamshire Council, Hertsmere Borough Council, Basildon Borough Council, Brent Council and Hertfordshire County Council.
Local government officers are invited to respond to Public Practice’s Local Authority Resourcing and Skills Survey. The survey will uncover the impact of skills gaps and under-resourcing in local authority teams across England. Designed for officers working in regeneration, community engagement, conservation, urban design, planning policy, development management, infrastructure, highways and transport, sustainability, landscape and biodiversity, or digital and data, Public Practice wants to hear from you.
Complete the five-minute survey to have your say in a key study on the recruitment challenges facing local government. Open until Friday 4 March.
Homes England, the government’s housing delivery agency, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) are investing just over £200,000 in Public Practice, the social enterprise with a mission to build the public sector's capacity to improve places, to support the not-for-profit’s expansion across the country.
Over the last few months, we have been analysing our Associate recruitment data. When comparing the ethnicity data of Associates with the regional populations of the areas where they have been placed, it's clear that our cohorts are not fully representative of the communities that they serve. Read more about the data and what we're doing about it in our latest blog post.
We are proud to welcome the Autumn 2021 Cohort into their new roles in the public sector. Among the 25 Associates starting in placements across the South East, we have experts in sustainability, planning & policy, regeneration & economic development, and community engagement. This multidisciplinary cohort will be tackling the ongoing multifaceted challenge of COVID recovery at a local level with their Authority teams.
On 10 May Public Practice convened an expert panel to discuss how local government is taking a place-based and long-term approach to renewal. With contributions from across disciplines and places by the following panellists:
- Miatta Fahnbulleh, Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation
- Rafe Bertram, Sustainability Facilitator with Meridian Water in the London Borough of Enfield
- Mark Atherton, Director of Environment at Greater Manchester Combined Authority
- Georgia Gould, Leader of Camden Council
Take a look at the event recording and written summary to watch them share their thinking about how authorities can develop the capacity to build fairer, and more sustainable places through the recovery.
Welcome to our sixth Public Practice cohort, 27 Associates across 16 Authorities, and taking our total number of placements so far to 176. The cohort is bringing a diverse set of multidisciplinary skills to boost existing teams and establish new ones in areas including civil engineering, digital transformation, green infrastructure, infrastructure design, real estate and sustainable drainage.
You can read more about the Associates here, with more to be confirmed in the coming weeks.
Architect and planner Pooja Agrawal is to take over as CEO of Public Practice, commencing work from the 21st of June.
Pooja brings with her experience from her current role at Homes England, as Assistant Director of Service Strategy, and from the Greater London Authority, where she served as a Programme Manager in the Regeneration Team for over four years.
We are pleased to introduce our latest cohort of Public Practice Associates who started on our programme this month. All kinds of built environment practitioners, and now all public servants are joining a wide-ranging group of local authorities and public bodies.
You can look at each of the Associate's profiles in more detail in our cohort section.
Read the first of our 4-minute short blog posts on Diversifying Planning with Public Practice Associate, Lauren Kehoe discussing how to set up more diverse panels with a better understanding of local people and places: How can we make sure design review panels represent the diversity of the communities they serve?
The RTPI has become an official partner of Public Practice, underlining both organisations’ aims to build additional public planning capacity, broaden the diversity of talent joining the profession, and move towards a new, proactive role for planning.
Public Practice Non-Executive Director Anna Rose says: “It is critical that we build both the capacity and capability of placemaking teams, ensuring sustainable growth of the professions moving forward. I welcome Public Practice partnering with the RTPI, planning and planners are central to the success of the Planning White Paper proposals.”
Read the full press release here.