Examination of Witness (Questions 347
- 359)
TUESDAY 11 APRIL 2000
MR MICHAEL
FITZGERALD
QC
Chairman
347. Good afternoon, welcome to the Committee.
Can I point out that this is the third session we have had on
the Planning Inspectorate and public inquiries. Could I ask you
to introduce yourself for the record.
(Mr FitzGerald) Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
My name is Michael FitzGerald and I am the Chairman of what is
called APOS, the Advisory Committee to the Secretaries of State
on the Standards of the Inspectorate. I would like to apologise
for the absence of my two colleagues who would like to have been
here. Unfortunately Charlie Watson is ill and Richard Lay is off
abroad, so I hope I will be able to do my best to satisfy the
Committee.
348. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction
or are you happy for us to move straight to questions?
(Mr FitzGerald) I am very happy to go straight to
questions.
Mrs Ellman
349. How realistic do you really think it is
for two or three people working on a voluntary basis to be inspecting
so much work? Is that a realistic proposition?
(Mr FitzGerald) I think it depends on what one is
asking of that committee. Our remit is an oversight of the workings
of the Inspectorate to satisfy the Secretaries of State that standards
of quality are being maintained. I think within that context it
is realistic. I only have four members, latterly only three because
we are still awaiting the appointment of a new Welsh member. Over
the last six years I am satisfied that, through diligence and
hard work I have to say on the part of my colleagues, we have
been able to look into matters and to be able to exercise that
form of control. If you are asking for something very, very much
more rigorous then the answer most certainly would be no, quite
inadequate, because we are all busy professional people. We meet
about seven times a year, two or three hour meetings, two or three
hours' preparation time and quite a lot of background reading.
That is quite a lot for independent people to do. It is enough
for what we believe we should be doing but if it is something
more rigorous, which you may want to examine me on, then it would
not be.
350. Should it be more rigorous?
(Mr FitzGerald) I think we are satisfied that we are
able to demonstrate to our satisfaction, and that of the Secretaries
of State, that the Inspectorate is operating to high quality standards.
If you are asking me can I quote chapter and verse of every single
line of everything they write, clearly no. There has to be an
assessment which we make on the basis of examination of their
documents and our examination of the Chief Inspector and his colleagues
and our understanding through people like the IPMS, what they
tell us about, and outside agencies including, not least, focus
groups, people who are directly looked at by the Inspectorate,
for example third party representatives. We have to take what
they say as representing accuracy. There is a sort of level which
we can go down to but not beyond.
351. How would you assess the quality of the
decision making?
(Mr FitzGerald) That is a very difficult
question that has occupied us for six years in trying to identify
it. I think we have come to the conclusion that you cannot identify
quality in any specific quantitative sense. There is a quantitative
requirement set by the Secretaries of State and that is all right
but it is not really enough, in our opinion, to see whether quality
is being delivered. What we have tried to do over the last six
years is to engender in the Inspectorate an assessment of their
own quality and their own qualitative standards easily summarised
in the word "professional", by which I mean that each
and every Inspector feels it part of his or her obligation and
responsibility to be delivering something of quality. We have
said to the Inspectorate it is up to you to identify how to demonstrate
that and to teach it and we will look and see and make sure that
you are doing that. We have not set a standard, we have simply
set a task for them. We really summarise it by saying that we
look for high professional quality in their standards and we judge
a lot of that by the quality of their reasoning in their decisions
so an ordinary person reading a decision by an Inspector can understand
why that Inspector has come to that conclusion.
352. Do you think that quality should include
assessing contributions to environmental objectives?
(Mr FitzGerald) There is certainly a role for that,
yes. I do not think it does that yet. There is a role for that
now. The extent to which the Inspectorate could do that is a very
major question. First of all you have to decide what are those
environmental objectives and they change. They change with policy,
they change with fashion. There is quite a big learning curve
there. I was interested in the points being made by the CPRE and
if anybody has any positive ideas to put for us on that we would
welcome that and look at it with great care. Yes, there is a role
for that but it is not in place yet.
Chairman
353. Do you think it is a big advantage to be
voluntary?
(Mr FitzGerald) Yes, I think so. If I can summarise
why. This is a very personal point but I think I speak for my
colleagues as well because we have discussed this from time to
time. Without hopefully sounding too pompous, it is a feeling
of giving something back to the system which has really spawned
us all. We have all been at it for about 40 years. It is giving
something back, and I really mean giving something back. We feel
that to do it voluntarily does indeed demonstrate a complete independence
of Government, indeed of the Secretaries of State to whom we are
responsible for reporting. We believe that gives confidence to
all parties and it certainly gives us a glow anyway.
354. You are all insiders, are you not, part
of the system?
(Mr FitzGerald) Yes. The system comprises a wide variety
of course. In the form of myself, I am experienced in how the
system works and operates at the sharp end. Richard Lay is very
responsible for how business, the private sector, sees the operation
of the planning system in general and the Inspectorate in particular.
Charlie Watson does the same thing from the local authorities'
points of view and hitherto Michael Rush did it with a specifically
Welsh dimension with a splendid overall grasp of the realities
as well. I think we are quite wide.
355. Who does it on behalf of my constituents
then?
(Mr FitzGerald) We do not work like that in that sense.
We stand to look and see what the Inspectorate produces is good
quality for everybody and that would of course include members
of your constituencies and, indeed, the local authorities.
356. But everybody is judged by professions
rather than by individuals who are out there who do not have professional
expertise, do not have knowledge of how the system works. Should
they not have someone who speaks up for them to make sure that
the system really is user friendly?
(Mr FitzGerald) I think at our level I would say that
the local authority involvement through Charlie Watson stands
in place for local interests because they are obviously the representatives
of the local interests. Also we look at complaints, so we get
a very good grasp of what are the nature of the complaints from
very, very straightforward people, they are not applicants by
any means but from third parties, pressure groups, from individuals.
I believe we do have a reasonable grasp on what is motivating
people. Those of us who are in practice, we see this day in and
day out and are acutely aware and act for third parties as well
as for appellants.
Mr Olner
357. Do you categorise the complaints by whether
they relate to administrative matters, the handling of the inquiry
by the Inspector, or the quality of the decision made? Do you
make any distinction between those three particular areas?
(Mr FitzGerald) There is a division between complaints
relating to administrative errors and that is assessed quite separately,
we do not look at that at all, that is something within the Department
itself and within the Inspectorate. What we look at are the complaints
which relate to the output from the Inspectors, that is to say
their decisions and also their way of arriving at decisions.
358. Do you ever question the quality of the
reports that the Inspectors give back?
(Mr FitzGerald) Yes, we do. We look at those very
carefully indeed. That is our main internal way of assessing quality.
We judge it on the basis does this decision make sense, does it
stand together properly? We look and see how a decision has been
arrived at and are the ingredients there those which at the end
of the day would enable an ordinary commonsense person living
in the Chairman's constituency, for example, to say "I understand
why that was allowed, or not allowed".
359. They are all commonsense people who live
in Mr Bennett's constituency. Can you perhaps give us an indication
as to when you put in a complaint that says that a report is not
logical and it is not clear, whether any action has been taken
about it?
(Mr FitzGerald) The Inspectorate itself has an internal
monitoring capability so that, for example, if a complaint which
is regarded as a justified complaint is made then they will examine
it and they will have a look at that and they may or may not send
out another Inspector to go and see what the site was if that
appeared to be a relevant factor. We do not do that directly.
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