New political and social conditions in Poland make it necessary to take a new apporach to the structure, organization and functioning of planning. It seems that one of possible approaches in this respect is the conception of integrated territorial planning, comprising the totality of activities connected with the elaboration of development plans as well as with planning policy and economy in a given territory. Organizational structures should direct 'their attention at studies and analyses, programmes and conceptions as well as at executive and control activities. Of particular attention from the point of view of the requirements of the plan should be: the needs of the population and the possibilities of meeting them, natural environment as a subsystem of biophysical conditions of human existance and as a limiting factor for many planning projects, socio-eccnomic environment as a subsystem of psychosocial and material conditions of human life and activity, as well as spatial behaviours of economic units and the population. The planning process should be the analytic and creative sequence, the model of which may be found in J. B. Mc Loughlin's conception. However, the implementation of this process will be possible only if the efficient organizational structure is created. In this context, the question of well qualified and competent staff seems to be the priority. The implementation of the said planning system should bring positive effects in the form of real, good, socially advantageous and economically efficient plans, programmes, budgets, studies, analyses, etc., leading to the development of urban and rural areas along the expectations of the population Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/2016