Council planning departments that are struggling to cope with a shortage of experienced planners must find innovative ways to close the gap between what is expected of the system and what skills and resources are available to them.

The warning comes from the Audit Commission, which carried out an inquiry into the working of the system following a recent shake-up in the planning laws.

In their report, the Audit Commission finds that a national shortage of experienced planners in the public sector, the high number of applications and increasing government expectations to increase speed of planning decisions are all having an impact on councils' ability to provide planning services themselves.

The watchdog’s report says councils could learn from local authorities that have taken radical approaches to addressing heavy workloads. These include using private firms to take on mainstream planning work like processing applications and appeals or even a comprehensive development control function.

Using private consultants appropriately would free up council staff to work on more contentious or strategic issues.

Commission research found other examples of innovation, including sharing resources and introducing rigorous pre-application processes, which iron out many difficulties at the outset.

Wide-ranging government reforms designed to speed up the system and recast planning as a strategic and proactive force are putting a strain on a system which deals with nearly 700,000 applications a year.

To add to the pressure, planner posts are second only to social workers as the most difficult to fill in local government.

Sir Michael Lyons, acting Chairman of the Audit Commission, said: "There is a critical shortage of people with the right skills in planning departments."

"Councils must think creatively to ease workload pressures, but the government can also do its part by rethinking the way it sets targets for the planning system and by continuing to provide strong national leadership in promoting the need for housing growth."