Examination of Witnesses (Questions 150-159)
MR PAUL
LOVEJOY, MS
PAT TEMPANY,
MS MIRANDA
PEARCE AND
MR DOMINIC
MURPHY
12 MAY 2008
Q150 Chair: You were all here during
the last evidence session. All I would say is, do not all feel
obliged to answer every question, particularly if you are just
going to say the same thing that somebody has already said. If
there is a specific something that you want to add, then please
indicate. I will start by asking you if you could maybe outline
what you believe to be the most significant skill shortages and
the action you are taking to address those shortages.
Ms Pearce: We have done some research
over a number of years with professionals in the south-east region
and also more recently with developers and councillors. There
have been some consistent messages that have been coming through
that research. The main skills challenges they face are around,
as the last speaker said, leadership and vision, project management,
development finance, urban design and increasingly, sustainability.
Those are a sort of package. Then along with that you have communication
skills both cross-professional and cross-institutional communication.
Community engagement and working with communities has always been
and continues to be an important skill that everybody needs to
have, from professional to councillor.
Mr Murphy: I represent the National
Network of Regional Centres of Excellence. There are a couple
of things I might add into that. We are particularly asked for
expertise around climate change issues (individual local authorities
requesting help around that issue) and the opportunity to get
together with developers. You were talking in the other session
about very early discussions about major planning proposals; those
are the sorts of things they are looking for to gain an understanding
from as well. That has come up in various regions across the country
so it is quite consistent. I would also say that in the future
community engagement is something we are just getting filtering
through with planning departments starting to ask where they can
get training and that is to do with the duty to involve in the
Planning White Paper.
Ms Pearce: In terms of what we
have been doing, we do not just target the planning professions
specifically; we have particularly tried to bring together cross-professional
organisations. Increasingly, certainly in our South East Excellence
programme we are looking to bring together developers and councillors.
To give an example, urban design has been one of the areas that
consistently has been selected as an area where both sides of
the planning debate—the private sector and the public sector—believe
they need additional skills. In our region when SEEDA came into
existence we established a number of infrastructure supports so
we put in place a regional design review panel that complements
the national panel that CABE delivers to which is now a model
that has been taken up by other regions and promoted through CABE.
We put in place what we call a design champion's club. When local
authorities were asked to create a design champion in their organisation
we thought it would be useful to bring them together so they could
learn collectively and develop a peer network. Again that is something
that has been taken up in a number of other regions. We also support
our Architecture and Built Environment Centres which provide independent
advice and often the first stage of that advice can be free to
local authorities and to communities. They are then available
as an independent consultancy resource for local authorities.
More recently we have recognised that you need different levels
of support, those who need to know basic information and those
who almost need master classes in more detail and depth. We are
working with Design for London and Inspire East which is the equivalent
to us in the east of England to develop a new learning tool around
urban design which will enable a large number of people to gather
a basic understanding of urban design. At the same time we work
with the Urban Renaissance Institute which is part of Greenwich
University to deliver a series of master classes for those who
perhaps need more detailed master class type advice and guidance.
That is an example of what we have done in terms of the urban
design skills shortages that have been with us for a while. We
are currently in the process of looking at how we respond to the
sustainability challenge, what is the package that we put in place
to address that agenda.
Ms Tempany: Just picking up on
something Miranda just said regarding the research that we have
done in the south-east, that was focussed on looking at what the
barriers were to delivery and looking at the skills and attributes
that were needed by key decision makers. As Miranda said, that
was identified as developers and council members. One of the things
that they both said that came out of that was that they wanted
more opportunities for engagement with each other so rather than
formal training opportunities they wanted the opportunity to sit
round a table, look at a development or talk about a development
or go and see something and have that opportunity to talk to each
other and learn from each other informally. I think whilst we
are working in a formal way with some of them, they are also now
looking to put more informal opportunities together so that they
can learn from each other.
Q151 Mr Hands: I have a question
for the SEEDA members and that is that you mentioned just now
the research you commissioned last year and from our reading of
the research it seems to suggest that the shortage of planning
skills had a negative impact on the quality of development in
the south east. What has caused that? Has it been the poor quality
of decisions that have been made? Has it been perhaps the slowing
down of the whole planning process or has it been perhaps over-hasty
decision making? Can you go through what, in actual terms on a
local authority basis, has led to this poor quality decision making?
Ms Pearce: I think a lot of the
issues around quality come back to urban design and confidence
amongst local authorities, both staff and members in their understanding
of urban design. That has certainly led to some concerns. Also
there is concern from a local authority side about the quality
of the applications they receive. You are probably aware of the
CABE research into the quality of housing where it showed that
all developers can produce good schemes although they do not consistently
produce good schemes. What they need is a council to challenge
them to consistently produce good schemes. It is often the confidence
in that language and the questions to ask to be able to challenge
poor quality. Yes, there are issues about speed and there are
issues about costs, but actually it is the confidence to challenge
and the confidence to insist that is sometimes missing.
Q152 Chair: If a private developer
can produce good quality, why would they not bother to do it all
the time? Is it cheaper to produce poor quality?
Ms Pearce: Yes. It is sometimes
easier and faster because they can take perhaps a standard house
type and apply a standard house type to a particular patch. They
do not necessarily have to give the detail that would give a local
distinctiveness. In that respect design quality ultimately produces
a good value scheme, but if it is easier and faster to do your
standard product you will seek to do your standard product.
Q153 Mr Hands: I think your research
also highlighted what, in your view, is a variability of local
authority members. What do you think is causing that and what
do you think could be done about it?
Ms Pearce: There are very many
areas where there are differences. I think that was the main thing
that came out. Part of our research involved three workshops with
developers and councillors together. We thought it would be useful
to hear from them what are the skills and attributes they thought
the others needed and what they themselves thought they needed.
What was coming through there was a variable practice across the
region where some, for example, would meet regularly with developers
and developer forums but others were not sure they should even
be at the meeting with developers there. Again a lot of it comes
back to confidence and knowledge. It is not necessarily an issue
of specific technical training, it is having a general understanding
and being clear what questions they should be asking, have a design
check. Often the issue is: "What are the questions I should
be asking? I do not need a detailed understanding of design; I
need to know what questions I should be asking of an applicant
or asking my team." A lot of it does come back to understanding
the language, having confidence and understanding the other side.
That is the other thing that came through consistently; both sides
wanted to understand the drivers behind the other. The developers
wanted to understand more about the political process and the
context within which politicians were asked to work and the councillors
really felt they needed to understand what makes a development
work, how do developers make decisions about risk, but they never
really got a chance to ask those questions of each other because
there was always a concern about probity and whether they should
be talking.
Q154 Mr Hands: Were those councillors
members of the planning committee or chairs of the planning committee
or were they principally councillors in charge, say, from an executive
point of regeneration?
Ms Pearce: The majority of them
were either committee chairs or members of the planning committee.
Q155 Mr Betts: What impact will the
sub-national review have on local authorities in terms of the
amount of work or the change in the nature of the work for planning
members or for elected members?
Mr Lovejoy: In our view it will
have a very substantial impact, the full scale and dimensions
of which are still being worked through. Perhaps I could give
you an illustration from the point of view of our organisation
and the impact that it will have on us as a regional development
agency. First of all, any involvement in the quasi-judicial process
of planning for appointed board members will certainly mean a
very significant shift in the skills required and the job description
that will be set on appointment for the board members. It will
have an impact on the conduct of meetings. For example, most RDA
board meetings are held in closed session; it is inconceivable
that the planning process will be handled in closed session in
our view. Turning to our professional skills, there will be a
requirement for regional development agencies to either recruit
or establish other access to direct professional skills that will
allow them to complete a regional strategy. Our view is that that
will require something in the region of 15 to 20 members of staff.
Currently, for illustration, there are roughly five members of
staff involved in similar work in the regional development agency.
There is also alongside that team roughly 20 members of staff
currently working in the regional assembly whose skills will be
particularly needed. We are also clear, particularly in a region
as large and diverse as the south-east, that it has often been
the contribution made by local authority planning officers and
indeed members that has been absolutely critical to the development
and formulation of the strategy. We are looking at ways in which
we can secure and perhaps invest that capacity at local authority
level. So there is a very substantial impact, yes.
Q156 Mr Betts: There is no more work,
is there? Is it about transferring people around?
Mr Lovejoy: In one sense in some
areas you may see an opportunity for efficiencies, for example
now that the regional development agency and the regional assembly
are both statutory consultees on major planning applications.
The regional assembly has a role with regard to conformity of
local development frameworks whereas the regional development
agency is a consultee. So you may see some slimming there. Certainly
there is a need to move capacity from some centres to others.
The big concern that I think is emerging very rapidly in the south-east
is that given the uncertainty around some of the issues and the
quite prolonged transition phase that we will see with the proposed
run-out of assemblies after 2010 that a number of the skilled
regional planners—of whom there are relatively few—will
choose other options between now and 2010 leaving the regional
planning body at 2010 in a difficult position in trying to take
forward a regional strategy and having lost some of the skills
and background that will be needed to make a success of it.
Q157 Mr Betts: Are you looking for
extra funding for all of this or is it a matter of redirecting
the money that is already there?
Mr Lovejoy: We believe it is the
latter and we believe that provided the CLG are able to provide
confirmation to regional development agencies that the funding
that they currently provide to regional assemblies to fund the
statutory planning process will be transferred from 2010 to regional
development agencies then that will be sufficient to the task.
The issue plays out differently in different regional development
agencies. We are speaking for a regional development agency with
a relatively small budget for whom the accommodation of these
new capacities will be a significant issue. It will look differently
to some of our colleagues in the Midlands and the northern regions
where they are working with larger budgets and often with smaller
numbers of local authorities.
Q158 Mr Hands: What would be your
overall assessment of the performance so far of the Academy for
Sustainable Communities? What do you think should be the priorities
for its work?
Mr Murphy: I will deal with the
last point first. I would like to just make the point that the
regional centres of excellence—the regional centres that
I am representing here—emerged out of the Rogers report
so they well pre-date the Academy and they were to do with the
Urban White Paper and what the Lord Rogers was talking about in
terms of what then was a mainly re-generation and urban design
issue. We have expanded into broader place making and sustainable
communities work. We were around before but we did see a real
opportunity with the creation of the Academy to deal with those
things that are better dealt with at a national level. It is all
very well operating regionally and being close to the practitioners,
but things do come up where you need somebody who has access to
the corridors of power. As Miranda was saying earlier, there is
some really good practice in the south-east that we need a way
of getting out quickly across the whole country. That would be
a real help in delivering large schemes. There are a number of
roles that an organisation like that could take on. We are hopeful
that that can still be the case. I think that all of these things
seem to always take longer than you hope when they are first set
up. We have all worked with the Academy. The Academy is in touch
with us and up until last year was helping us to do some of our
national networking; we now do that on our own. It is fair to
say that again it is work in progress and we are keen that we
get a clear demarcation. I am aware of the fact that some people
are concerned about duplication, if you have a national centre
and nine regional ones you have to be really careful not to duplicate
what you are doing. I think we need to prioritise that sort of
work as well and make sure we are clear what it is we want to
do, be decided and clear at the region what it is.
Q159 Mr Hands: To summarise it, it
is networking, exchange of best practice, that kind of thing.
What about the statistic that only 1.3% of the possible target
audience had their training at least influenced by the ASC?
Mr Murphy: I saw that in the evidence.
I do not know where that figure came from so I will not comment
on that. What I would say is that the way to deal with that is
to work through the regional centres, all of whom have practitioner
networks in the thousands, so straightaway they have access to
at least 20,000 real live practitioners working today, many of
whom are planners—but not all—and are working on that
whole place making issue. Some of them are private sector working
in the private sector and some of them in the voluntary sector
as well. I am not sure that that is the mission of the ASC to
actually directly train a workforce.
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