Examination of Witness (Questions 540
- 555)
TUESDAY 11 APRIL 2000
MR CHRIS
SHEPLEY AND
MR BRIAN
DODD
540. What about the powers of Inspectors to
compel people to come to inquiries? Do you think that it would
be helpful if the Inspector had the powers to compel people to
come to the inquiry if they had useful information to impart?
(Mr Shepley) I had not thought about that one. I am
not aware of the problem. There may be one but I am not aware
of one.
541. We had evidence from the British Council
of Shopping Centres that "it may be helpful if Inspectors
had the right to require an independent organisation to produce
some supplementary evidence."
(Mr Shepley) Yes, thank you, Chairman. That is a slightly
different point and one that we are discussing particularly in
relation to major inquiries and the suggestion, which is not yet
anywhere near being policy I may say, that we may appoint experts
in the way that has been described, as it were, to produce an
independent report on technical issues. I think that could be
helpful.
542. What about the tape recording of evidence
at inquiries, would that be helpful?
(Mr Shepley) We have no problem with that so long
as it does not intimidate witnesses or worry them or make them
concerned about giving their evidence in any way. Our main concern
is that a witness should feel at ease and be able to take part
in the inquiry. With that proviso we have no problem with it,
it is done from time to time. Of course, the cost is considerable
and to do it in all of our inquiries would probably be impossible.
543. What about this argument that too many
inquiries are dominated by lawyers? The DETR said to us that Inspectors
are trained to ignore the lawyer's performance. Is that correct?
(Mr Shepley) Are trained to ignore the lawyer's performance
as opposed to ignoring the lawyer. Perhaps I can say two things
to that. First of all, the Inspectorate is keen where cases can
appropriately be dealt with for those to be dealt with by hearings,
not just the Inspectorate but the Department, and that appears
in the Department's guidance, and the introduction of the hearing
during the 1980s has been a huge benefit to a lot of people wanting
to take part in the casework. To answer your question more directly,
in the larger cases certainly Inspectors are well used to the
existence of lawyers and to their habits and traits and they allow
for that in the way they deal with the evidence. I think they
would say simply because evidence is well presented or forcefully
presented does not necessarily mean that it is right and they
do bend over backwards to make sure that those who are not represented
get a proper hearing.
544. Do you not think one of the problems is
if you see a lawyer cross-examining witnesses there is a temptation
for lay people to try to copy that technique to the disadvantage
of everybody?
(Mr Shepley) I think that may happen, Chairman. Again,
I think Inspectors are trained and experienced enough to deal
with that.
Mr Olner
545. You keep mentioning training, Mr Shepley.
A lot of the memoranda that we have had on this inquiry looks
at the inconsistencies between decisions made by different Inspectors,
how do you address that?
(Mr Shepley) We address it primarily
by training. It is a difficult area. I could not pretend that
there is never any inconsistency between all the decisions that
we make for a variety of reasons. One is that very often they
are subjective decisions, in the end a design issue is not something
that you can lay down a black and white rule about. The main reason
is that cases do turn out to be different when you look at them.
I used to have this accusation made when I was working in local
government too and people would say "well, you did not allow
that fish and chip shop in that suburb over there, so why are
you allowing it over here?"
546. So when you were working in local government
you always thought that the Inspectors' decisions were right,
there were no inconsistencies there?
(Mr Shepley) I can remember the odd case when I did
not agree.
547. Only the odd case?
(Mr Shepley) I can remember quite a few where I did
not agree but I cannot remember very many where I actually thought
they had got it wrong. I can remember one or two where I thought
they had got it wrong but I was not necessarily right.
548. How do you explain to the Committee what
you have just said in the light of the overwhelming evidence we
have had from various organisations that their major problem is
inconsistency in the decisions taken by the Inspectors?
(Mr Shepley) My answer is when we investigate
those complaints we do very often find that there are differences
which would explain an apparent inconsistency. The other one is
that our training is as good as we think we can make it. I am
sure there are ways we can improve it, and we are only too anxious
to do so, but you have had a lot of evidence about that from us.
We find it quite difficult to think of more that we could do in
terms of training our Inspectors whilst still giving them time
to do their casework.
549. You mentioned the word "design",
Mr Shepley. Do you think there is perhaps an opportunity and the
time has come now for setting up specialist panels on subjects
such as wildlife, retailing, architectural design?
(Mr Shepley) Within the Inspectorate we do have specialisms
to do just what you have described. We have a group of shopping
specialists who do all of the shopping casework and who get special
training. We had a shopping training session in October/November.
We have design specialists, we have architects who deal with all
of the conservation cases, specialists on minerals, right across
the whole range. We try to address it in that way.
Chairman
550. As far as the general public are concerned
are you satisfied that inquiries are properly publicised?
(Mr Shepley) We do not get very many complaints about
that but then if people do not know about them I suppose we would
not. We do inevitably rely on local authorities to do this, we
cannot really know enough about the local circumstances, the newspapers
circulating in the area, where to put the notices and so on. I
think that most local authorities are pretty good at this and
conscientious about it, particularly where they have refused a
planning application and they actually want people to come along
and make their views known, probably on the same side as them.
551. That is not necessarily the case if there
is a call-in?
(Mr Shepley) No doubt there are some exceptions. I
think most local authorities are pretty responsible but I have
no doubt there are exceptions.
552. What about choosing venues, is that very
much left to the local authority?
(Mr Shepley) We issue a note to local authorities
telling them what they want and that covers the size of room,
ability to hear, access for the disabled, photocopying facilities,
the layout of the room, a private room for the Inspector to go
to so he does not get tackled by the parties in the lunch break,
and so on. All local authorities have that.
553. And do most of them observe it?
(Mr Shepley) They do. There is a conflict
sometimes between that and choosing somewhere which is very local
if you are in a village and you want the inquiry to be held in
the village so that people can attend and there is a limited range
of accommodation in the village that you can use. There is a bit
of a compromise sometimes. Local authorities try very hard.
554. On photocopying there is a current problem
with Ordinance Survey about copyright issues and what local authorities
can issue. Have you been involved in that in any way?
(Mr Shepley) I have not, Chairman, no.
Christine Butler
555. On that topic, access to information, do
you ever get complaints from the public, or representations from
the public, about lack of access to information, that some authorities
are better than others at it, and charges for photocopying? It
is within their rights, it is enshrined in law, is it not, that
public have access to files and to photocopying? Do you have any
of those complaints?
(Mr Shepley) We do not get many complaints.
We have had some but not very many. Usually during inquiries local
authorities will provide photocopying facilities for reasonable
amounts of copying free of charge. I am not aware of very many
complaints about that.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very
much for your evidence.
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