ABOUT
Public Practice is a not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission to improve the quality and equality of everyday places by building the public sector’s capacity for proactive planning. Read more about the organisation, and who we are.
Public Practice is a not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission to improve the quality and equality of everyday places by building the public sector’s capacity for proactive planning. Read more about the organisation, and who we are.
Public Practice is a not-for-profit company founded in September 2017 by the Greater London Authority and seed funded by six founding Partners from across the public, third and private sectors.
Our purpose is not just to increase and diversify the built environment expertise working in local government, it's to transform the status of public service, and support those working within it to lead the way. To do this we have created a unique professional placement programme specifically designed for built environment practitioners and their public authority hosts. We offer professionals currently in the private sector an attractive route into working for the public sector whilst also celebrating and capturing leading industry knowledge and sharing it across the wider sector.
We believe good public planning is fundamental for creating a built environment that is spatially, socially and economically inclusive and sustainable. Being a public planner - by which we mean any built environment expert working in the public sector - can be an extraordinarily rewarding and worthwhile job. No role is more influential in shaping the world around us for the public good. But there is not enough recognition of the value of public planning or its potential to do more to tackle the grand challenges facing society.
We are a not-for-profit organisation. Local Authorities pay the salaries of Associates and pay Public Practice a placement fee of £5,000 - £7,000 per placement. In addition, we receive donations from Partners which help cover the core costs of running the organisation. This allows us to keep our fees charged to the public sector affordable and means we don't have to ask Associates to pay to take part, helping to ensure we can attract the most diverse candidates we can. In 2019/20 we anticipate that 55% of our income will be from placement fees, and 45% from Partners.
Public Practice currently has nine company Directors and two Board Observers, one from the GLA and the other an Alumni of our professional placement programme. The Board delegate the day-to-day running of the organisation to a team of staff.
Director
Director
Director
Chair
Director
Director
Director
Director
Alumni Observer
Director
Professional Practice Manager
R&D Manager
CEO
Recruitment Manager
Operations Manager
COO
Programme Manager
Public Practice is a value-driven organisation that aims to empower and support public planners. We believe that:
There is a proud history of the public sector driving innovation and excellence. The state is not only about maintaining the status quo.
Planning has the power to build better everyday environments, for everyone. Rather than creating exceptions to the norm, we work to raise the standards of normality itself.
Bureaucracy is not a constraint on creativity – it is a field for creativity in its own right. Even meeting minutes, procurement processes, or legal clauses are opportunities for better design.
There is no point in designing the right answer to the wrong brief. We work upstream to influence the decisions which have the greatest impact on places.
Places and their populations are complex and don’t benefit from being simplified. We value the diversity of the places we plan and reflect the diversity of the people we plan for.
Every citizen should have a say in how their city changes. We listen hard to people that are engaged, and engage people that aren't being heard.
There is an urgent need for long-term thinking. We can only act sustainably by planning for broader communities, wider geographies, and longer horizons.
We are highly committed to the diversity of our small team. We are proud to have a mix of talented people, from all walks of life and personalities, that bring their whole selves to work and are passionate about Public Practice and our mission. You can learn more about our existing team here.
Inclusion is one of the core principles of our work, and we seek to build on this at every opportunity. In filling vacancies, we actively encourage applications from all candidates that meet the job specification regardless of ethnicity, age, gender expression, sexuality, race, and religion. All of our current vacancies are listed below. If you have any accessibility requirements accessing or applying to join our team please do get in touch and we would be happy to assist.
We are currently not looking to hire any new team members at this time.