Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 639)
TUESDAY 18 APRIL 2000
MR NICK
RAYNSFORD, MR
JEFF JACOBS
AND MR
CHRIS SHEPLEY
620. The other issue, which you raised yourself,
was the question of equal opportunities within the Planning Inspectorate.
The figures are quite shocking, really. It would appear that the
proportion of people from ethnic minorities is less than 1 per
cent, from past evidence sessions, and it would appear that there
are only 12 per cent of salaried inspectors who are women. You
have identified the problem already, but where is the solution?
(Mr Raynsford) As I said in my earlier response, we
cannot, in isolation, change that within the Planning Inspectorate
or within the department if the rest of the profession remains
as unrepresentative of the wider community as it is at the moment.
That is why we are discussing with the RTPI and the RICS and other
professional bodies what action can be taken to ensure a more
attractive appeal to women and to ethnic minorities to get involved
in the planning process, to be involved both at local authorities
or in professional institutes and then to be involved through
the Planning Inspectorate and the department. We are very conscious
of this, we know it is not satisfactory at the moment and we are
working with them to try and improve it.
621. First of all, do you know whether, in fact,
the Planning Inspectorate is even less representative than the
rest of the people who work in the planning arena? Secondly, can
you be specific? You say you know there is a problem and you are
working on it, but what does that mean?
(Mr Raynsford) It is difficult to know because it
depends which particular professional institute you have, but
I am advised that the number of people from ethnic minorities
is very, very small, both in PINS itself and in the wider professional
institutes, and that we are addressing. We are concerned about
it, it is not satisfactory and we have to change that.
622. You have not said specifically how you
are addressing it.
(Mr Raynsford) What we want to do is to set realistic
and achievable targets for recruiting and retaining more women
and more ethnic minorities into the profession and into government
and into the Planning Inspectorate. However, it has to be across
the board, as I said. We inevitably depend on people who have
built up experience in the planning profession before they are
recruited into the Inspectorate.
623. You would expect targets to be made public
when, exactly?
(Mr Raynsford) I cannot say when but we certainly
want to have targets, in the same way that we have in other aspects
of our departmental work. However, the targets have got to be
attainable targets rather than simply figures plucked out of thin
air, but the present position is so unsatisfactory that we have
a long way to go.
Chairman
624. Are you actually going to solve this problem
unless you solve the rates of pay for the Planning Inspectorate?
(Mr Raynsford) Rates of pay has been, as you know,
a difficult and controversial issue. I have to say, we do not
see that there are problems in recruiting and retaining staff
under current rates of pay, and that was indeed one of the reasons
why the government did not feel that this was a matter which required
any fundamental change. I am aware that a number of staff in the
Planning Inspectorate have been unhappy, though, when the question
of possible industrial action was raised I was very pleased to
see that there was a clear majority against such action.
625. Some pretty effective arm-twisting went
on by someone sitting at the table beside you.
(Mr Raynsford) Obviously, Chris Shepley—
626. Mr Shepley has just pulled a face. It does
not go on to the record unless he says something.
(Mr Shepley) I took exception to the phrase "arm-twisting".
(Mr Raynsford) I was about to say that, obviously,
Chris Shepley is responsible for the entire operation and would
have been only too well aware of the huge damage that could have
been caused by unjustified industrial action. He was in contact
with his staff, I was in contact with the IPMS, who wrote to me
about this, and I think both of us make quite clear our view that
while we were sympathetic to the concerns that had been voiced
and we want to see a framework in which there was a realistic
pay structure, we believe that a case of industrial action would
have been immensely damaging to the whole operation.
627. I can understand it would have been damaging,
but you have just told us, on the one hand, that it is almost
impossible to recruit people from ethnic minorities and women,
and then you have said that pay does not really matter. Could
there not be a link between those two issues?
(Mr Raynsford) I do not think so. You can come up
with all sorts of professions that are paid enormous sums of money—I
think, perhaps, if you look at the profession of merchant banking,
for example, you would find a disproportionate number of white
males in that profession, even though they are paid far more than
the Planning Inspectorate. I think the point I was trying to make
was that we do not see a general problem in recruitment with the
existing pay scales, but we do see a specific problem in not attracting
more people into the profession who are from ethnic minorities
or who are women.
628. Can I put it to you that the reason we
do not have difficulty recruiting at the moment is that a substantial
number of planning inspectors are on a second career; they have
taken redundancy, probably, from local authorities, they have
got a reasonably good pension from the local authority, so, as
a planning inspector, it tops their income up quite nicely. That
is very different to trying to attract younger inspectors, particularly
women and those from the ethnic minorities, for whom it would
be a career move rather than a career move with a pension from
their former employment.
(Mr Raynsford) I would like to draw Chris Shepley
in on this, but before I do that can I just say that you have
set the dilemma, because if you want to have an Inspectorate which
has expertise and experience then, clearly, it is advantageous
if you can recruit to the Inspectorate people who have worked
previously in planning in local government employment. That reinforces
my earlier point in response to Mr Brake's question, about the
fact that the overall ethnic make-up of the whole profession is
something which we have to address rather than just the issue
of the Inspectorate. Can I bring Chris Shepley in?
(Mr Shepley) It gives me the opportunity to correct
something which, I think, came from the evidence that the IPMS
gave about second careers. There are very few of our planning
inspectors—certainly, I think, none of our salaried inspectors—who
operate on the basis of second career, in the sense that they
have a redundancy, or whatever, from their first career. It is
a second career in the sense that they have had a career in local
government, maybe, for 10, 12, 15 years and they have then moved
into what inspectors see as a different profession, almost, although
they need a planning or related professional background; they
do not have a salary or a pension from their previous career,
they have transferred their pension into our pension scheme and
they continue. So it is their only source of income for the vast
majority of inspectors. For some of our consultant inspectors,
who come in later in life and who only work part-time for us,
many of them actually do have another source of income, but they
are not full-time inspectors and they are not used, sometimes,
for more or three or four months a year. I just wanted to make
that factual correction.
629. You think you have got a good case for
not paying them more, they think there is a good case for paying
them more. What about an independent pay review which sorts this
out once and for all? Why are you frightened to go to an independent
pay review?
(Mr Raynsford) I think, as I said already, the case
for going to an independent pay review was not proven on the basis
that there was no inherent problem in recruiting and retaining
staff within the Planning Inspectorate. However, I do know that
this is an issue which, as I have already indicated, has caused
a certain amount of unhappiness within the Inspectorate in the
last year or so, and I do know that Chris Shepley is particularly
keen to foster a more constructive mood and a more constructive
relationship. Obviously, we will do all we can to encourage that.
I have to say, though, once again, that this is against a background
in which we do not see an overall problem in terms of recruiting
people within the current pay scales that are operated.
630. There does not appear to have been a problem
in recruiting Members of Parliament or Ministers, yet both groups
have seen the advantage of having an independent pay review. Given
that comparison, would it not be a good idea to try out the independent
pay review? Presumably they will take into account questions of
recruitment.
(Mr Raynsford) I think we, and, certainly, my colleagues
in government, would need to be convinced that there was an overwhelming
case for setting up another pay review body, which is of itself
quite a cumbersome operation, in respect of this particular profession
where, as I have said, we do not see, at the moment, a serious
difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff.
Mr Olner
631. Minister, I find your analogy between bosses
in merchant banking and people who work in public service very
strange. Nonetheless, what I really want to ask is whether you
think local authorities make sufficient efforts to assist the
public on public inquiries?
(Mr Raynsford) I think this is a very important issue,
and I am conscious that while we do do quite a lot to try and
encourage an understanding of the procedure to assist those who
are not familiar with it, and to provide general information to
guide people through what might appear to be a slightly unfamiliar
and intimidating process, there are still many people who do find
the whole thing confusing. They are unsure as to exactly what
the relationship of the development plan is to a planning application;
when a case is likely to be called in, if it is; how will the
Inquiry be conducted and what opportunities will there be to give
evidence, and so on. So I think there is a case for us to seek
to provide the information that is already provided in a more
accessible form and to help the public to understand the process.
632. Do you think it is worth giving guidance
to the Inspectorate to ensure that not only is the place where
the public inquiry is being held is accessible to disabled people,
and what-have-you, but that the right sort of tools are put in
place by the local authority to ensure that the general public
do have a reasonable chance to participate in that inquiry?
(Mr Raynsford) It is certainly our view that the procedures
can be streamlined and we are seeking to do so, as you may be
aware, with revised rules designed to both streamline procedures
and speed up decisions. Equally, however, those rules are designed
to safeguard public participation, which we regard as very important
indeed. So it is important that people are not just helped to
express their concerns at a public inquiry but, also, that they
see that the procedures are operated in a fair and impartial way.
I have already conceded that there may be a need for more publicity
and better information to achieve that.
633. Friends of the Earth complained that a
venue being unsuitable for disabled access was brushed aside in
a letter from the Inspectorate. Surely, on basic things like that,
the Inspectorate ought to be the champions of everybody who is
attending the public inquiry.
(Mr Raynsford) Obviously, I would expect inspectors
to consider sympathetically and courteously any point of view
expressed by members of the public and I believe that, in general,
they do. There may well be individual cases where people feel
unhappy that a decision has not gone the way they would have liked.
This is often the case where people seek an adjournment of a hearing.
Of course, there are conflicting pressures from different parties
and an inspector is in a no-win situation because saying yes to
one request is likely to upset another party. So there are always
of balances of that nature, and within that constraint I think
that the Inspectorate do try to give every opportunity for members
of the public, who are less familiar with the process and do not
have the advantages of the professionals, to be able to understand
the procedures and to participate.
634. Seeing as though there is more of a prevalence
now for lawyers to be at public inquiries, do you think inspectors
are trained not to be influenced by them?
(Mr Raynsford) By?
635. Those lawyers that seem to be more and
more prominent now at public inquiries.
(Mr Raynsford) I shall not be drawn into the question
of the proliferation of lawyers at public inquiries. I should,
perhaps, have given lawyers as an example of another profession
where very high earnings does not seem to have attracted a very
high proportion of women or ethnic minorities, but I will not
be drawn down that particular road.
636. It is a bit of a closed shop, is it not?
(Mr Raynsford) What I will say is that I believe that
inspectors are conscious that they have a responsibility to help
the lay person who does not have the advantage of knowing and
understanding the procedure to express their point of view, and
to do so. I know myself, from attending a number of public inquiries
over the years, that there are inevitably difficulties where people
who do not fully understand the procedures get upset when an inspector
rules that they cannot actually speak at a particular time. That
is, I think, very often a real difficulty, which is why trying
to explain the procedures and to give people more information
as to how the whole thing will be handled is very important. In
general, I do believe that inspectors do try and, wherever possible,
bend over backwards to assist the unrepresented lay party to have
every opportunity to express their point of view.
637. So in your review, Minister, you will be
welcoming measures to make the whole public inquiry process less
legalistic and more user-friendly?
(Mr Raynsford) Certainly we want it to be more user-friendly
and we want more people to understand the procedure. We encourage
hearings, which are a more informal procedure than the full public
inquiry, and the growth in the number of hearings is encouraging.
638. So you, perhaps, would be looking at giving
more moneys to Planning Aid?
(Mr Raynsford) Planning Aid, I think, does perform
a very useful role, and I, personally, have had a number of meetings
with representatives of Planning Aid, and I know the importance
of what they do. We have not got any proposals for financial assistance
to Planning Aid, but we certainly value the work that they do
and believe that it does help a number of people who, otherwise,
would not be represented to get their point of view across effectively
at a public inquiry.
Chairman
639. The Ordnance Survey has thrown a few spanners
into the works, has it not, over copyright issues? Have you had
any discussions with the Ordnance Survey about copyright issues?
(Mr Shepley) I am sorry, I missed the first part of
the question.
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