Examination of witnesses (Questions 200
- 224)
WEDNESDAY 5 APRIL 2000
MS JENNY
THURSTON, MS
WENDY BURDEN,
MR GEOFF
SALTER and MR
CHRIS JARVIS
Chairman
200. You mean they decided not to strike earlier
this year?
(Ms Thurston) That is right. There is a deep sense
of anger.
(Mr Salter) A third of our members voted to strike.
(Ms Thurston) Which, for a professional body, is really
a quite amazing condemnation of the problem. We do look to this
opportunity to see if a recommendation about our solution can
be made.
Christine Butler
201. Earlier on, you were saying that you were
defending the Inspectorate against inconsistent advice because
of unclear national guidance. Could I draw your attention to Regional
Planning Guidance? In my very limited experience, I do not know
of that many references to RPG11 and the particular RPG on the
particular area that you are in, dealing with a planning application,
but more pointed to PPGs or the local development plan. They are
overwhelmingly the areas that you would look at in coming to a
decision. I just wondered if RPG were not more significant in
some cases and more clear and I just wondered if you felt that
inspectors were paying enough attention to that.
(Ms Burden) I shall be doing a public examination
on the East Midlands RPG fairly shortly.
202. I did not mean that. I meant when you are
deciding a local planning matter, whether you are actually referring
to RPG enough.
(Ms Burden) When you are looking at a specific case,
the relevance of the RPG will depend very much on the nature of
the case. The RPG is a strategic planning document and it is only
where the case raises strategic issues that the RPG is really
relevant to the case.
203. Can I bring you on to the relationship
between the Government Offices and the Inspectorate? How could
you streamline the relationship there, beyond a service agreement?
(Mr Jarvis) We thought rather hard about this and
we think we can only help you in a very limited way. I am sure
you know that very few cases go for ministerial decision through
the Government Offices, about one or two per cent. As inspectors,
we do need to maintain our independence. Once we have done our
report to the Government Office, to the minister, our involvement
with it therefore finishes. There is not very much we can do ourselves
after that. The one helpful suggestion we think we might be able
to make is perhaps, if there was a service level agreement between
the Planning Inspectorate and the Government Offices to contractually
say that this appeal will be dealt with in a specific timescale
and other conditions put into it, that might be a way forward.
204. You cannot think beyond that? That is the
thing that you think would be the most likely to work. Do you
think the Government Offices should be subject to a strict timetable,
like you are?
(Mr Jarvis) Yes.
Chairman: I thought the idea was that if you
took a week they took three weeks. Is that unfair?
Christine Butler
205. If there is a local planning matter that
is going to be referred, it may be referred as a departure, 21
days. They have to respond back to the local authority. That is
not bad, is it, but after that, when you have had your public
inquiry—it is over to you then, is it not, if it is going
to be a public inquiry after all the issues are decided?—what
can the Government Office do to help?
(Mr Jarvis) I think that is beyond certainly my competence.
We would like, as inspectors, to see the decisions go out to people
we have seen as soon as possible.
Chairman
206. Would you like them to be on a timetable,
just as you are?
(Mr Jarvis) Yes.
(Ms Thurston) That is what would be written into the
service level agreement, presumably. If there was such an arrangement,
you could put timescales into it.
Mrs Ellman
207. Why are there so few women planning inspectors?
12 per cent?
(Ms Burden) First of all, you have to bear in mind
that inspectors come in at a later stage in their careers. They
must have at least ten years' experience. They come in from a
number of professional groups and the extent to which there can
be more women and ethnic minorities within the Inspectorate must
depend on the proportions that there are within the feeder groups.
However, that being said, something like 70-odd per cent of inspectors
are members of the Royal Town Planning Institute. If you look
at the 35-plus age group in the Royal Town Planning Institute,
18 per cent of those are women, whereas in the Inspectorate only
12 per cent are women. We are clearly behind the profession in
general terms. The management has recently been going through
a review of diversity issues to look at ways in which we can encourage
more women and ethnic minorities to come into the Planning Inspectorate.
I have been a member of the working party on that review and we
are looking at ways in which we can amend our recruitment material
in the first place to attract more women and ethnic minorities.
We are also looking at our overall public image to try to get
away from the grey haired, white, middle aged, male image that
we have at the moment. We are also looking at family friendly
ways of working for inspectors, to try to encourage especially
more women with families, because it is a difficult job for a
parent. You tend to be away from home from time to time and that
can cause problems. I, as a parent within the Inspectorate, have
found the organisation to be very family friendly. When my children
were very young, if I asked them not to send me on major inquiries
away from home during school holidays, they usually found me cases
which were closer to home so I did not have to stay away. In practice,
it is a family friendly organisation, but we are not giving that
image out to the public. The important thing is that we do communicate
that image in the future to try to get more women and ethnic minorities
in to join us.
208. What proportion of inspectors come from
ethnic minorities?
(Ms Burden) That is a figure I am not able to give
you because it is such a small proportion that, if we gave it,
those people could be identified.
(Ms Thurston) There are rules which say when it is
fewer than five you cannot say how many it is.
209. Why do you feel the Inspectorate has lagged
behind like this? We are all smiling, but do you not think this
is a very serious issue when women are in such a low proportion
and ethnic minorities are so low the individuals—or may
be it is individual—may be identified if you attempt to
give the figure? Who is responsible for this?
(Ms Thurston) Partly it is the feeder area. If you
look at the professions from which planning inspectors are recruited,
which is mainly local authority planners but also lawyers, architects,
chartered surveyors, you are looking at a set of professions where
only slowly ethnic minorities have come in, which is not something
we like at all. The Civil Service unions and particularly IPMS
have done a huge amount over the years to try and improve ethnic
minority representation and to give our members in the ethnic
minorities career development advice.
210. What about age or ageism? Is it really
necessary for all inspectors to be what you describe as middle
aged and all that?
(Ms Burden) We do need to have ten years' professional
experience.
(Mr Salter) The experience is very important because
we are dealing with complex cases and I think it helps to support
the planning system and give it integrity if you have some experience
to draw on. You are dealing with a huge variety of case work.
As you start as an inspector, you can be dealing with anything
from a garden shed to quite a large industrial or retail development
or individual cases to corporations.
211. What age would you say was the minimum?
(Mr Salter) We have just gone away from an age. We
used to have a minimum age of 35. Because of trying to get away
from ageism policies, we have changed it to ten years' experience,
which would allow someone slightly younger than that to get in,
but in practice it is not likely to happen.
(Ms Burden) We do not attract a lot of younger people.
Most of the people we attract tend to be over 40.
(Mr Jarvis) As the oldest one here probably, would
it be helpful to say that there is a wide disparity in the age
at which inspectors enter the Inspectorate? In my case, as a second
career, I did not join until I was 47. Some join even later than
that; whereas others join at, say, 35. There is quite a wide spectrum.
As a union and as inspectors generally, we do not feel there is
any need to have older people. As long as the person has the competence,
the qualifications, can achieve the high standards required, whatever
age they are, the age is irrelevant.
(Mr Salter) Or race or gender.
Mr Blunt
212. You said in your evidence to us that the
Planning Inspectorate had met the stringent target of dealing
with 99 per cent of decisions and reports without cause for justified
complaint. Is that such a stringent target?
(Mr Salter) Yes, we think it is, compared to other
commercial organisations. We have improved on that. We are at
99.2 per cent, and this year we have just been told on Monday
that it might be 99.3 or 99.4. The term "justified complaint"
was one of your questions. What does it mean?
213. You decide what it means, do you not?
(Mr Salter) The Inspectorate does; the inspectors
do not. Complaints are monitored by an independent unit within
the Inspectorate and the quality assurance unit. I am sure they
could give you more information about how they define it. We support
this thorough investigation of complaints as inspectors because
it gives integrity to the system. This unit is seen as independent
by inspectors.
214. The unit may be seen as independent by
inspectors, but I do not think it is seen as independent by outsiders.
Do you think it would be rather better if complaints were dealt
with by an independent process, independent of the Inspectorate?
(Mr Salter) Not necessarily, no, because there is
also an independent body which assesses the operation of our complaints
unit and quality assurance unit. The Advisory Panel on Standards
investigates all complaints and High Court challenges. It is their
remit to look at the overall quality target. There is a back-stop
as well, if you like. They are independent.
215. It is all getting a little opaque as far
as the complainants are concerned, is it not? Is there a debate
within the profession about whether or not this body should be
formally independent?
(Mr Salter) I do not think so. Not to my knowledge.
I am not aware that anyone is unhappy with the way that complaints
are dealt with. They are very low. Just to give you some examples,
a justified complaint could be misspelling the appellant's name;
it could be mistaking east for west; it could be to do with a
planning condition; it could be to do with reasoning; it could
be a justified High Court challenge. They are all justified complaints.
We are talking about 100 or so cases a year.
Chairman
216. How far does it actually intimidate you
as an inspector that someone might complain? I can think of an
inquiry where I would have thought the inspector should have cut
long winded, rambling evidence short much quicker than he did,
but I can understand his fear that he might be complained against
or that there might be a High Court challenge. No one is going
to complain about that. They are just going to grumble outside,
are they not?
(Ms Burden) There is always a tension in what we are
doing, in balancing the need to give everyone a fair hearing and
ensure that they do not feel the need to complain with the need
to be efficient and speed the process along.
(Mr Salter) We have to make the very difficult judgment,
often in quite high pressure circumstances in an inquiry, as to
how far do you let someone go before you cut them off. Is it fair?
Would they be prejudiced by this? It is not that easy, actually.
We do try to speed things up.
Mr Blunt
217. How do you respond to the evidence that
we have had from a body saying that because the inspector's decision
is final there is no point in complaining to the Inspectorate?
"All one gets is the bland reply that the inspector's decision
is final. There is no indication that the Inspectorate is prepared
to accept criticism or comment. The result is that we do not complain—it
is simply a waste of time."
(Mr Jarvis) As inspectors, we want to be customer
friendly. We want people's complaints, when they feel aggrieved,
to be properly satisfied. The response you cite really is a matter
of law which probably the Planning Inspectorate would be better
able and more competent to deal with than we are.
218. The issue is whether or not the body examining
the complaint should be independent. There appears to be a consensus
outside the Inspectorate that it should be independent.
(Mr Jarvis) From the point of view of our members,
I would not think any of our members would object to any form
of independent scrutiny or complaints mechanism as long as our
members had a fair and just hearing on their point of view.
219. I will send you my complaint about Professor
Crow. Going on to the types of inspectors, well heeled and well
resourced participants in inquiries will have track recorded inspectors
and the decisions they take, so they will have some idea of where
that inspector is going to be coming from. That is unlikely to
be information available to people who do not have the resources
to do that. Do you think there is merit in publishing tables showing
the number and types of cases handled by individual inspectors
and their decisions?
(Ms Thurston) I do not think this is an issue which
the trade union has a view on. We are here as the trade union
today. There are going to be all sorts of views across our membership
about that. What I suggest is that we take note of the question
and come back to you with a considered view, because you are going
to get three or four different views from this panel today.
220. You are the professional body, representing—
(Ms Thurston) We are the trade union representing
Inspectors.
221. The results of surgeons' work, for example,
are assessed and followed now so that people have some idea of
the results when they treat people. This is information that is
available to those people who have the resources. Is the reason
you are not prepared to answer this question that you are not
prepared to have your inspectors subject to the same transparency?
(Ms Thurston) No. In principle, we would want to see
the whole process as open and transparent as it could be. If this
kind of tracking is going on in any case, it ought to be available
to everybody, which is the point you are making, and we would
support that.
222. Would you therefore support the tape recording
and televising of public inquiries?
(Ms Thurston) We do not have a view on that, quite
honestly. It is not something that, as a union, we have discussed.
(Mr Jarvis) I have been present where tape recording
and videoing of an inquiry has taken place and I have no problem
with it.
(Mr Salter) Examinations in public are recorded routinely
and structure plan examinations are in public, so it is an open
system.
Chairman
223. Is this dispute about whether you use new
technology at home or not dragging on or is there any prospect
of it being resolved?
(Ms Thurston) There are discussions going on and we
have agreed to extend the pilot programme. There are obviously
links with the grievance about the overall level of the remuneration,
but there are also links too—and I would not want the Committee
to think that it is merely about money, although money is very
important—with health and safety and working patterns and
the amount of workload that the inspectors have.
224. Can I stop you at that point and put it
to you that, if you want to submit any further evidence on the
basis that we will be questioning the minister in due course on
these issues, we will be very pleased to hear what you have to
say.
(Ms Thurston) Thank you. Yes, we will do that.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very
much for your evidence?
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