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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 517-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE communities and local government committee
Monday 19 May 2008 PROFESSOR PETER ROBERTS OBE, DR GILL TAYLOR and MR KEVIN MURRAY RT HON CAROLINE FLINT MP and MR DAVID MORRIS Evidence heard in Public Questions 164 - 232
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Communities and Local Government Committee on Monday 19 May 2008 Members present Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair Mr Clive Betts John Cummings Andrew George Mr Bill Olner Emily Thornberry ________________ Memorandum submitted by the Academy for Sustainable Communities
Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Professor Peter Roberts OBE, Chair, Dr Gill Taylor, Chief Executive and Mr Kevin Murray, The Academy for Sustainable Communities, gave evidence. Q164 Chair: Can I welcome you to this afternoon's session. I notice there are three witnesses, we thought there would only be two. Professor Roberts: Yes. Q165 Chair: Can I encourage you, obviously, not to repeat what other witnesses have said. I imagine you have been keeping up-to-date with the evidence that has been given thus far in the inquiry, in which case you will know that quite a few of our witnesses have been distinctly sceptical about what the Academy for Sustainable Communities has been doing and where the £12 million has gone. Could you perhaps start off by briefly effectively commenting on those criticisms and explaining where it has gone, and what difference it has made. Professor Roberts: Thank you. We did notify David Weir about the additional witness because we thought it might be helpful if there were questions about continuity between the Egan Review and the current operation of the Academy if we brought along one of our Board Members, Kevin Murray, who was an adviser to Egan and is also a current Board Member. We just thought there might be a question of where do you start and where are you now, so that is why we have the additional witness, Chair. Can I just say we are very grateful for the opportunity to come and talk to you. The essence of your question is really to say to us, well what have we achieved since we were set up. Can I start off by making the point that the Academy started in full operation in May 2006, so we have now been in operation for two years, and one of the things the Academy was very, very clearly directed towards was as well as dealing with some of the short-term issues to make sure that we dealt with the long-term capacity problems. I think our intention is to make sure you do not need to have a similar inquiry to this one in 2018, in other words that we have attended to the long-term as well as the short-term. The work over the past two years, of course, has not solely been with planners. Can I emphasise the point that Egan identified 102 areas of activity which make up the sustainable communities activity system as a whole, so planners only represent a very small part of the total constituency that we are addressing ourselves to. Secondly, can I make the point that the Academy was never designed and never tasked to be a direct delivery body for all the things that we were asked to deal with. We were principally created as the national strategic agency to help better to understand the problems that were faced in relation to skills and knowledge across all the sustainable communities professions and other groups, such as local authority elected members and people working in the voluntary sector. We were tasked as that national strategic body with the identification of things that needed to be done, with establishing meaningful and productive partnerships with all the other agencies and organisations involved in delivery of professionals and other people working on sustainable communities, and also we were tasked with dealing with, in a sense, the knowledge and understanding of the sector. We were tasked with finding more about where the gaps were. In the last two years what we have done is principally to develop particular areas of activity to allow us better to understand the marketplace that we are working in, to create those strategic partnerships and start delivering programme resources, principally for other people to physically deliver to individuals. Q166 Mr Olner: What does that all mean you have done though? Professor Roberts: What we have done is, just as an illustration, Chair, I have brought a small selection of the material that we have actually developed, the products that we have developed, for people working in planning and planning related activities. For example, we have developed learning programme materials which have been accessed by some 24,000 professionals. We gave you the figure for 2006-07 because we did not have the audited figure for 2007-08. In our submission we said 10,000 for 2006-07, we have now got the audited figures for both the years we have been operating and we have now delivered that to 24,000 professionals. Q167 Chair: Can I just clarify, you said at the beginning that you were concentrating on long-term capacity problems, does that mean that you are not or were not intending to do anything to prevent the predicted labour shortage in planning that is going to occur by 2012? Is that long-term or medium term? Professor Roberts: I said we were established chiefly to deliver a long-term solution, solutions which would last, which were not just quick fixes. To that extent, that is what I am going to try and illustrate now for you, Chair, the way in which we have been able to do that. Yes, we did have to attend to short-term issues and, yes, that is why we have engaged with 24,000 professionals over the two year period. Q168 John Cummings: What do you mean by engage? Professor Roberts: We have made available learning materials and they have accessed those learning materials. Q169 John Cummings: Do you know whether they have actually read them? Professor Roberts: We do know they have read them. Q170 John Cummings: Is there a follow-up? Are you following it up? Professor Roberts: We asked people have they found value in the materials which we present to them and they respond. I think we have got - I cannot remember the exact figure -about 90-odd per cent of people who engage with us say they have found our material valuable. Q171 John Cummings: I find that remarkable because the evidence that this Committee has received, Chair, does not indicate that at all. Professor Roberts: Right. Well, I can only tell you what we have had in terms of response. Q172 John Cummings: Could you give an indication of any national associations that have responded in a positive manner. Professor Roberts: National associations? Q173 John Cummings: Yes. Professor Roberts: Every year we have done evaluations of our programme and that has been done independently by an appointed contractor and they have engaged with the various stakeholders that we have dealt with and, again, the evaluations have been broadly positive. Q174 Emily Thornberry: The British Property Federation, for example, told us that they thought that the ASC was wishy-washy, representatives of South East England Development Association said that they had had little contact with it. Professor Roberts: I find it surprising in relation to the South East Centre of Excellence because we have actually co-funded some of their programmes and they have taken our resources to deliver things like the learning laboratories, so I find it incomprehensible that should be the case. In the case of the British Property Federation, we have worked with some of the member companies of the British Property Federation and they have collaborated in our programmes, they have sponsored our activities, they have attended our events. Maybe from the British Property Federation perspective, we are not delivering to them as an association but to their member companies, we have been working with the member companies. Q175 John Cummings: It just seems so contrary to what this Committee has taken in evidence over two particular sessions. We are talking about some very eminent national associations. Having said that, why in three years, and given the urgency of the shortages of personnel and skills, have you influenced only 1.3 per cent of your target audience? Professor Roberts: I think I corrected that figure. The figure that we gave you in our written evidence was the figure for the first of our full years of operation. Q176 John Cummings: What percentage would it be? If 1.3 per cent is not correct, what is the correct figure? Professor Roberts: It is in excess of three per cent. Q177 John Cummings: How much? Professor Roberts: How many? 24,000. Q178 John Cummings: Your targeted audience. Professor Roberts: 24,000. Q179 John Cummings: What is that in percentage terms? Professor Roberts: The figure that we gave you was the figure for one year only. We have now completed two years of our programme, not just the first year, and the figure you have of 1.3 per cent refers only to the first full year of operation. Now what we have is a figure which has risen in the second year from the figure which was in the first year so we have now increased the number of people who have gone through our programme from that figure, it has more than doubled. Q180 John Cummings: Could you tell the Committee why your website does not contain a business plan? Professor Roberts: I am sorry. Can I refer that to our Chief Executive. Dr Taylor: I am astounded actually because we have just completed the business plan for next year but it has not been to ministers yet. Q181 John Cummings: What about the present business plan? Dr Taylor: This is the present business plan we are talking about because we are now in May, but until that has been signed off by Iain Wright we are not able to put that on our website. In terms of previous ones, if they have been taken off already, waiting for this they were on, we have consulted extensively with our partners and stakeholders in terms of building up the new business plan. Q182 John Cummings: Obviously Sir John Egan wanted the ASC to work with education providers, employers, professional institutions, skills councils, regional centres of excellence and other skilled bodies to promote excellence in sustainable communities skill development. As a small organisation with a limited budget, to what extent can you achieve these goals that Egan has set you working across the whole spectrum of educational providers? Professor Roberts: We can answer that directly, Mr Cummings, and we have material here which I will leave with the Clerk and you can look at this at your leisure. We have some material which we have enough copies of for everybody. Let us take the first one of those, working with the professional bodies. This is part of the long-term solution which I referred to, in other words we could have chosen to spend the monies available to us doing an instant series of short courses on topics for the day, individual topics. We chose not to do that. Indeed, we were advised and tasked not to do that. One of the things that we have done is to enter into a series of joint commitments with the various professional bodies, including the Royal Town Planning Institute, and those commitments mean that the professional body has agreed to work with us on developing the generic skills which Sir John Egan quite rightly put at the heart of the skills needed to create sustainable communities. We are not tasked to deal with the particular specialist skills required by individual professions, we are tasked to deal with the generic skills that everybody needs in order to make and maintain better places, skills like visioning, programme development, project management, communication, partnership building, leadership and so on, and that is what we were tasked to do. I would have had my ears chewed off as Chair if I had allowed us to start developing and delivering things which were not within our tasked framework. Q183 John Cummings: Could you be quite specific and put this to bed once and for all because this Committee have been told in no uncertain terms by previous witnesses, particularly talk about Sainsbury's who say they have had little contact with you, so can you give some specific examples of where you have done work with employers and professional institutions? Professor Roberts: I have these joint commitments with the various professional institutes and you have had evidence from the Royal Town Planning Institute which is that they have worked with us. We have also worked with a number of other professional bodies all of which were operating in areas of labour shortages and all of which contribute to the achievements of the tasks which planners are central to. We have worked with people like Constructing Excellence, we have worked with people like Encams, we have worked with people like the Landscape Institute, the Landscape Architects, the Institution of Economic Development, the Chartered Institute of Housing and so on, and these people have signed commitments. We have developed and delivered. Q184 John Cummings: When you say you have been working with them, can you give an example. It is not just a matter of sending a brochure out. Professor Roberts: No, we will give you a really hard-edged example and, again, if you want the detailed evidence in terms of number of throughput students, we can give you that. For example, one of the real difficulties that I was specifically charged with resolving when I was appointed was the fact that it has proved in the past, historically, very difficult to get the various professionals - we talked about 102 activity areas - working together as a team to deliver better places. One of the things we have done in order to do that is (a) to get the professional institutes to agree in principle to do it and (b) in this programme called Raising Our Game to design and deliver continuing professional development programmes in regions, supported by, endorsed by and accredited by, for professional development purposes, eight professional bodies. This programme was first piloted in the north-west region, it was successfully delivered in the north-west region, we had our first graduates just on a year ago now from it, because you cannot do these things -- you need to pilot it, you have to do it properly. There is no point in half training people or badly training people, so we piloted it and delivered it in the north-west region. From that pilot, we smoothed a few of the rough edges off and we launched the programme in other regions. That programme is now running in most of the English regions. That is a hard edged thing to deliver. Q185 Emily Thornberry: How many people are benefitting from it? Professor Roberts: I said in total, we can give you the detailed figures, I do not have them to hand. Q186 Emily Thornberry: Roughly. Professor Roberts: About 25 round per region, so we did 24, I think, in the north-west and it has now been rolled out; we have had, I think, 18 graduates in the south-west and we have other people coming through the programme, but can I emphasise, it does take a year or so to develop the agreement with the professional bodies, to develop the learning material, and then to start delivery. You cannot do these things overnight. Q187 John Cummings: How many in the pipeline? Professor Roberts: In the pipeline, about 150 people going through the pipeline at the moment. Q188 Chair: I appreciate that it is difficult to come up with the figures on the spot. Can we make sure that the actual figures are provided afterwards? That would be very helpful. Professor Roberts: Yes. The feedback we have had from employers and participants in this programme has been absolutely positive, and the Royal Town Planning Institute and other professional bodies have encouraged us to roll it out as fast as we can. Our problem as ever is the capacity problem. We cannot get people to teach them. Q189 Andrew George: Just moving on to the report, Mind the Skills Gap, how can the status of the planning profession be raised? Professor Roberts: How can the status of the planning profession be raised? If you do not mind, I would like Kevin Murray to comment as well. I think there is an issue first of all which you are presumably referring to, in terms of the way in which in recent years, planners have found themselves unable to make progress in some of the areas of employment which they have sought. I think money is an issue, salary is an issue, especially in the public sector, but it is not the sole issue. I think the opportunity to practise the profession across the full sphere of planning activities would help. One of the suggestions has been, of course, that local authorities should be required to actually have a chief planning officer, somebody to provide leadership for the profession within an authority, rather than just having an omnibus title, you know, director of planning, development, environment or whatever. The third thing I think is clearly the opportunity for people to gain experience across the full range of professional activities, so that they do not find themselves stuck in a rut, just doing a small defined function, say in development control, but can Kevin Murray add to that, please? Q190 Chair: Can you say how you would get them to get that broad range of skills that Professor Roberts just referred to? Mr Murray: There are a range. Partly it is linked -- and sorry, I should say that I am a past president of the Royal Town Planning Institute, so I am on the professional side as well. One is through encouragement through the Institute for employers to give them the range of experience, that was something that happened, was stipulated in the past, and is not so strongly pressurised now, so people can go through narrower strands of training. The other is through exchanges between employers, so, for instance, people working for developers or development agencies, working in local authority planning departments, to understand that, whether they stay or whether they move depends, but it increases the capacity and the understanding across the disciplines. Likewise, seconding people from Government departments for a period to work, as happens, but not enough in my opinion. So there is capacity for mutual learning, enhancing the number of people, but not to the scale that I think we all recognise the deficiencies. Q191 Andrew George: Can I just take the second of the three strands, the creation of more chief planning officers, which is something which has been a trend -- the trend has been going in the opposite direction, has it not? If you as an agency have a role in this, then presumably, you are talking to local authorities, and you are emphasising to them the importance of it, so could you explain to me your role in developing that particular initiative and how successful you have been so far? Professor Roberts: Well, we do have, as part of our Raising Our Game programme, a specific diploma which is concerned with leadership, and it can be leadership across the board or it can be leadership in relation to particular professional functions, but we are also working with local authorities. Again, you have caught us literally at the point where we have just launched one of our new products, which is this one, Planning for Non-professionals. This has been launched with local authorities, only just been piloted, so we are just evaluating this pilot, but this makes the point about the leadership of the professional activities in local authorities. I mean, we recognise these problems, and I am not trying in any sense to be defensive in this, but there is a reality check in terms of if we want to produce a quality contribution to improving the standard of our professionals, planners and the other 101 categories of professional that we are tasked with dealing with, then this literally cannot be achieved in a year. You know, we cannot instantly produce products, because nobody, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Landscape Institute or anybody else would pay serious attention to that. They would not be happy to validate, they would not be happy to put their endorsement on it. The other thing that we could clearly do in relation to the specific point you raise is to clearly make sure that there is, if you like, a professional development pathway for people, so that they start as a graduate, they go in, and there is a professional development pathway. One of the things that we are currently exploring, which we have not finalised yet, is the idea of actually having a professional education and training passport for people, so they can go through a process of continual upgrading of their skills, which then allows them to end up as the chief planner or some equivalent post within a local authority. We need to create those pathways. Q192 Andrew George: Could I just ask, if you were to fill the skills gap, either you go down the route of the professional development pathway; or the challenge is one of recruitment of new planners, because you think that the quality that you have presently is insufficient, and you need to bring new blood into the profession; or it is a question of on-the-job training, and there is insufficient training. Of those three, if you like, areas of work, which would you say is the biggest challenge, and the one which you should be concentrating most of your time and resources on? Professor Roberts: The on-the-job is the thing we need to deal with immediately, and that is why we are doing this Raising Our Game, that is why we are working with the colleagues through the joint commitments, and why we are working now with local authorities, and you have seen our first pilot. Again, I will leave all these things for you and you can read them, and please come back and ask us further questions. I said at the very beginning that we were established chiefly to deliver solutions which would stick in the long term, so we did not have to come back and have this debate in ten years' time, and that means, Mr George, that we have to influence the career choices of young people. We have been doing a lot of work, we have been piloting and developing work, including work which I am sure the Chair knows about in Milton Keynes. We have had a major programme called Making Places, and we have again a major product which has been rolled out, so that we have now, according, again, to the audited figures, influenced something in the order of 70,000 young people to try and persuade a higher percentage of those young people to come into the sustainable communities professions, including planning. You know, we need to make this an attractive, challenging and positive career choice for young people. Q193 Mr Betts: Can I just follow up? I see exactly what you are saying about having a range of professionals, and you are trying to equip them with a greater range of skills and get a broader outlook on life and equally trying to get the various professions to work together. That all seems consistent with a way forward, but to then argue that at the same time you want to create a planning department, distinct with a head of planning or chief planning officer, almost seems a step backwards. You are saying on the one hand you want people to work together, you want them to have a broader range of skills, but then we need a chief planner to make sure things work. Professor Roberts: The broader range of skills is to make sure we connect the various professions together. If you have a problem with professional leadership, then you have to address that as well. Q194 Mr Betts: Why do you need a chief planner to do that? Why could not a surveyor be in charge of that group of people, including planners? Mr Murray: I think the question Peter was responding to there was the status of the profession, how can we make planning attractive, and one of the answers to that is to have a distinctive role and head and function, that if it is in part of a department of technical services, it is harder to see that. But I would also add to what Peter is saying, also we have to cater for and encourage people in the design professions, like urban design and landscape and architecture, into housing and other areas, so planning is one of them, and we are encouraging young people from different backgrounds to go into a range of those, not exclusively planning, but I think he was responding to the question about the status and image of planning. Professor Roberts: I am not denying that, we do need a common connector, and that common connector between the various professional groups is the package, the portfolio of generic skills that Sir John Egan quite rightly said every person working in this field needs, and that is the common connector. Q195 Andrew George: I just wanted to get down to brass tacks: do you see it that the problem with planning is that over the last decade or so, it has simply attracted people of too low a calibre, or is it that it is a problem of training, professional development and the structure of the organisations themselves? Professor Roberts: This is not something that we have written evidence and we have drilled down into in great depth from an ASC perspective, because we have treated it as part of the broader research that we have done. Can I just respond as somebody who has actually been encased in planning education since 1969, so I have 39 years' experience, so mea culpa, if your planners are not good enough, I am part of the reason. I do not think the answer -- it is not either/or, Mr George, I think there are a variety of things. First of all, when I started working in planning education, planning was seen as something where people were making positive choices, this was a subject that people really went into, we had an expanding provision of planning schools. It is difficult to get the figures, but I did a round robin with half a dozen previous colleagues of mine, and I think there were something like 26 planning schools operating in England in the late 1970s, there are now less than 16. So we had an expanding capacity in the 1960s and 1970s which then shrunk in the late 1970s, in the 1980s and into the 1990s, so there was a capacity problem. Secondly, there was a general downgrading of some of the enthusiasm for planning and fewer young people with the better qualifications came into planning. I think we have seen that the bursary scheme, which the Department launched, has largely reversed that, and again, I have been the recipient of that. I remember saying to a colleague, when we get somebody with a first in economics from the London School of Economics choosing to do postgraduate planning rather than going to be a City broker, that is success. When I worked at the Department of Civic Design in Liverpool, we got somebody with an economics degree from the London School of Economics choosing to do the postgraduate course in planning. So I think planning is now successful in attracting some of the brightest and the best, but we have a severe capacity problem in terms of the number of places available in our university planning schools. That is coupled with the need to retain planners in planning, because planners have actually proven to be very adaptable and flexible, and we have found a lot of the more able planners then being moved out of planning functions per se into other sustainable communities activities: economic development, environmental management, and so on. So planning education is actually proving very successful at producing flexible and adaptable individuals. Then there is the third point, we continually have to develop people through better, more effective, better resourced and supported continuing professional development. So it is all three, I am afraid, Mr George. You cannot just do one, because we come back to the problem again over time. Chair: We are starting to run out of time and we have two more topics. Emily, do you want to move on the Homes and Communities Agency? Q196 Emily Thornberry: I wanted to move on really to the future of the Academy. As we understand it, you are going to be taken into the Homes and Communities Agency. How are you going to be able to remain independent within such a substantial agency? Professor Roberts: Can I pass that to Dr Taylor, because she has been directly involved in this? Ms Taylor: Thank you. Moving into the HCA was something that the steering board of ASC asked to happen, as it were. Because we are a small organisation, 20 core staff and a budget of £5.5 million per year, one of our biggest issues, as I think has come out today, is about leverage. We were never set up as a direct delivery agency, we are only there to fill the gap, and in fact even state aid law would prevent us from doing a lot of direct delivery of training because we would be in competition with others. So how can we have more impact, you know, more bang for the bucks that Government is putting in? And working with the HCA I think gives us a number of opportunities. However, the chief executive designate of the HCA, Sir Bob Kerslake, has already said that he wants the separate identity and brand of the ASC retained, he wants us to retain our core staff as now, at the moment, and certainly he sees the advantage of us remaining quasi independent in terms of we work with groups of stakeholders and partners, as we said, with the Sector Skills Council, with the professional bodies and with the HE sector, and these are different core stakeholders from most of the rest of the HCA, so there needs to be a degree of separation. But we would certainly be part of that organisation, and I think adding value to it. Q197 Emily Thornberry: So if you are going to be adding value and if you are going to increase your leverage, could you perhaps give us some practical examples of what that would mean, and how will things change? Ms Taylor: Yes, I think one very practical example, and we have had discussions with the HCA over this, is the reach we have into communities, if you like, and also into the local government sector. There are a number of places which are undergoing major transformation, whether they are growth areas, whether they are areas with housing market renewal partnerships and so on, and certainly in terms of going in and working with places and providing some more sort of practical support to the regional directors that would be working in the HCA, in terms of their analysis of whether their core partners have the capacity and the skills to be able to take up the challenges, for the HCA to take up the new housing numbers? I think we can certainly add value into that, so I think that is one very practical example. Q198 Emily Thornberry: So you will be able to tell the regional directors how good the planners are in their area and whether they are going to be able to do the job? Ms Taylor: I do not know about telling them, but certainly we can provide an analysis with a number of stakeholders about what the capacity is, and it is not just the planners, it can be leaders in a number of different professional fields. There can also be other areas where there are shortages, or whether there are needs to do more with the professionals who are there to upskill them around zero carbon, for example, the implications of conflict resolution and governance issues, to carry on with the sort of community benefit of new infrastructure and so on. There are a number of areas, I do not think it is just with planners. Professor Roberts: Or with brownfield. Ms Taylor: Yes, the other practical example that I could give you is we are leading the national Brownfield Skills Strategy on behalf of Government, together with English Partnerships, and that will be some really practical training and development activities, including the RTPI and the planning profession, about a professional development framework which focuses particularly on brownfield, and given that 60 per cent of new housing targets are expected to be on brownfield land, that is an incredibly important skills gap which many of us have at the moment and needs to be bridged. Professor Roberts: We have copies of that document available for members of the Committee. Q199 Andrew George: Given that the major area identified by Egan is that of needing to develop the skills to deal with climate change, what have you done to address that skills gap and that need for skills development? I need a brief answer. Ms Taylor: Very quickly, we are certainly not doing that alone, because there are a lot of people in the field dealing with climate change. Two of my directors today are in an important meeting with the Green Building Council to do a gap analysis of exactly what is there, what is missing, what our role is and what their role is. But in other practical terms, for example, we have recently developed with a range of partners a tool around zero carbon which will be about mitigation and adaptation. That will be going on our website and being launched within the next month, and that will be of direct benefit to planners, but it will also be of direct benefit to another group of organisations and individuals. Professor Roberts: We have also been providing advice and support on the Ecotowns programme, and running a series of national dissemination seminars for people involved in the Ecotowns programme, and that work will continue. There are a variety of strands of work which actually -- again, our more specific spatial focus in our current business plan also helps us to focus on some of the issues for particular places like Ecotowns, like growth areas, like housing market renewal partnerships, and carbon is a big issue in all of those. Q200 Andrew George: Do you find that you will need or do you feel that you will need to bring in the skills of other professions, such as the kind of engineers that are required to actually assess the veracity of the claims? Professor Roberts: Absolutely, and that is the real power of operating on an interdisciplinary, interprofessional base, focusing on those generic skills. Although we have not discussed this with Sir John Egan, Sir John Egan produced a portfolio of generic skills which he felt that all professionals and others involved in creating and maintaining sustainable communities should have. We think the ability for non-professionals to recognise and, if you like, mitigate the carbon consequences of development choices should be added to that portfolio. We think that is so important. Q201 Chair: Thank you very much indeed. I noticed from the remarks you just made at the end there, you may be aware the Environmental Audit Select Committee is doing an inquiry on Ecotowns. Have you submitted written evidence to them? Professor Roberts: No, we have not. Q202 Chair: I suggest you might want to. Professor Roberts: Chair, can I just simply say, Kevin Murray reminded me of a point that was made when the Egan review was taking evidence: the whole purpose of ASC was not to be just another brick, but to be the mortar that connects the bricks together, and that is what we have tried to be, Chair. We are very conscious of the need to deal with planning and planners' issues, but we are not solely concerned with that. Thank you very much. If you need any further material or evidence, or indeed if you would like to visit the Academy in Leeds, you are most welcome. Q203 Chair: Thank you. And you will provide the extra data? Professor Roberts: We will indeed, thank you. Witnesses: Rt Hon Caroline Flint MP, Minister for Planning, and Mr David Morris, Deputy Director, Planning, Delivery and Performance, gave evidence. Q204 Chair: Thank you very much, Minister. We are a bit thin on the ground, I think there are people at the by-election, particularly our Conservative members, apart from ones in the Chamber. Caroline Flint: I have just come back myself. Q205 Chair: Excellent. If I could start, Minister, the Government has very ambitious targets on its housing, transport, environment and regeneration targets. Apart from the slow-down in the economy being a bit of a problem, how do you think that the Government is going to be able to meet those targets if the planning profession does in fact face labour shortages of 46 per cent by 2012 as some estimate? Caroline Flint: I would say a few things in relation to that. First of all, obviously, before I came into the Department, there has been some good work happening over the last few years to encourage the flows in, into the courses that exist, I think roughly about 1,500 new entrants, where it was 800-900 a few years back, so that is good. But I think clearly, and other people have raised this with me, there is a concern about that generation of people who might be exiters from the profession, retiring and what have you, and what do we do about that? Again, I think some of the programmes that people are able to do actually in the local authorities, for those technicians and admin people to upgrade their skills, I think that has been a good development. I think where it is appropriate for other people within a local authority, who again could take advantage of distant learning as well, that is another opportunity which I think we have tried to facilitate, and I know you have had the ASC in before to speak to you. But I think there is another aspect of this as well, which is about how planning is valued within the local authority, and given the opportunity we have given through the planning delivery grant, other resourcing we provide, fees for planning applications -- which of course is not ringfenced, that is for a local authority to decide what they want to do with that money that they gain from their applications -- is how, within the local authority, planning is valued, and in doing so, how you make sure you have the right people in the right place, but as importantly as that, the right teams in place. I do think, and in the last three months in this job, I have become even more acutely aware that there are a number of people who are not necessarily planners but who have skills to offer to the process, and I think there is a task here to be smarter in how the function is supported and also planners are grown. Q206 Chair: Just on that point about the status of planners, there has been a suggestion that every local authority should have a chief planning officer. Is that the Government's view? Caroline Flint: Well, that is a matter for them to decide. We have just appointed our chief planner in the Department, Steve Quartermain is taking up his post. I certainly feel that it should have a status that is reflected in terms of the importance; as a function, whether they want a chief planning officer, that might be for them to decide. I asked a question the other day actually, I did not get the full answer back, about how many chief executives are actually planners by profession compared to a few years back. I did not get the answer to that as yet, but I know that Richard McCarthy, my senior director, one of the things he has been doing over the last few months is actually going out and meeting chief executives, I suppose in many respects to talk up how important this is, because so much of what I am working on at the moment, whether it is in terms of the housing targets or sustainable communities, it really does touch every aspect of a local authority, in terms of having that vision about your needs for a community, both in housing, in terms of regeneration and development, how you are building green spaces in those communities, cohesive communities and neigbourhoods and so forth, that it is hard actually to think about where planning does not have a role in all of that. Therefore, the smarter aspect of how different departments work together I think is an important part, as well as addressing a serious issue about the professionals themselves and how we can not only have them coming in but where we might gain professionals to, if you like, create and sustain planning for the future. Q207 Andrew George: In the Government's memorandum, it says that the shortage of planning capacity is historically rooted and stems from underinvestment during the 1980s and 1990s, and this was identified in Lord Rogers' report in 1999. Given that it was identified so early, why is it that labour shortage is still so chronic and persistent and in fact growing at the moment? Caroline Flint: Well, as I said earlier, I think the response to some of that has been to boost the numbers going into the profession in terms of graduates and entry, and I think that has shown that there has been a significant improvement, I think it has gone up by something like 40 per cent, so I think that is a sign that is positive, but I think again, part of the work of the department, but other organisations that help with this, whether it is providing through the Planning Advisory Service in IDeA or through the Academy of Sustainable Communities, it is about how you actually also make sure that planning is valued in the local authorities, the staff feel valued, that they stay there. We know that planning is one of those disciplines in local government which always has, if you like, a tension between those who stay in the public sector and those that go to the private sector. They are not exclusive to that in local government, but I think there is clearly, if you like, a labour market tension there that does not exist in other parts of local authorities, and we are just trying to do what we can, as I say, to support the status of the profession, but also in different ways, whether it is the bursaries or whether it is training within local authorities, and with the resources we give back to local authorities to support their activities to make it happen, but I have to say local authorities have to also take some responsibility for how they see this work within their authority, and how they support it and encourage it and value it. Q208 Andrew George: If it is down to local authorities and you can wash your hands of any responsibility for the lack or the shortage of planners in local authorities, surely you would accept that the government still sets or is able to steer the budgets, is able to give local authorities, if you like, plaudits for good practice, is able to steer and encourage, and you also debate and meet with local authorities, so surely you are able to perhaps set targets, to actually improve on the success of local authorities in achieving these objectives? Caroline Flint: I think what we try to do is support it in a number of different ways. For example, we have over 500 planners being funded through university, we have 24,000 practitioners who access the ASC learning programmes. We obviously have the Planning Advisory Service that supports, we have ATLAS that has worked on 47 development projects. As I say, we do try and support in different ways local authorities for both best practice and enabling their planners and other staff that are important to the planning function to improve their skills. We have given, through the planning delivery grant, £605 million over five years; we have £510 million over the next three years through the housing and planning delivery grant; and planning fees, as I said, we have seen, in 2005, the fees increase by 25 per cent, they have increased again by 23 per cent, taking planning fee income for local authorities to £290 million. So in a lot of different ways, both enabling people to get qualified, whether that is a full-time course or distance learning, we have tried to facilitate that, and I think have had some good outcomes. In terms of the value of planning and support to have the very best, we do that in a number of different ways, and I have to say there are some excellent local authorities out there, both large and smaller local authorities, who clearly show that smarter working can have good outcomes. And finally, in terms of resources, the overall resources have gone up in the sector as well, but at some point, and this is not passing the buck, it is about devolution, local authorities also have to think about how they are going to support the function within their own organisation, and the staff and other allied teams that have a contribution to make. Q209 Andrew George: You have listed a catalogue of a lot of inputs, a very impressive list of inputs there, but over recent years, the status of planners has unquestionably fallen, and senior planners have been leaving local authority planning departments in their droves, so where has it all gone wrong? Caroline Flint: I do not think it is where it has all gone wrong, I think we have had a period of intense activity in terms of building and planning and development, and we have seen that over the last eleven years. As I mentioned earlier, I think within that, there has always been a particular issue around the private sector and the public sector, and trying to find that flow and balance right in terms of where professionals go. For example, we have taken action for the bursary from this year, for 08/09, to make a condition against the bursary that in the first five years of employment in the sector, at least two years would be in the public sector, for those graduates coming out. So we have tried to learn, if you like, from the past, and think about where it is reasonable, given the investment and support we are giving, to expect some input into that sector, but I think again the other part of this is there are things we still need to look at about this balance in terms of where planners are, whether they are in the private sector or in the public sector, but I also think as well looking at other mechanisms that can achieve better outcomes. Certainly, you know, looking at some case studies over the last few months, there are some very good examples where pre-application engagement has actually led to some good outcomes, it has led to some more resource for the local authority to spend on the planning function, and actually has helped the process, because the other side of this is: how do you motivate people? Part of the motivation has to be: does the process make sense, do they think they will get satisfaction out of it, and does that make them keen to stay on and continue to work in the public sector? I think that is another side of what we are looking at in terms of reforms that we think have good outcomes for those working, for those applying as well. Q210 Mr Betts: You just made reference to the bursary scheme, which most people think is an excellent idea, but could not the Government have foreseen the likelihood that without any requirement to work in the public sector, the majority of people on the bursary scheme will simply not work for local government? Has that not been a bit of time lost in terms of the scheme? Caroline Flint: David might want to say a bit more on this, but I think we have had about 51 per cent actually going to work in the public sector bursary scheme. We would like to see it more than that, but actually -- Q211 Mr Betts: We had a figure of 36 per cent went into local government. Mr Morris: Well, it is 51 per cent in the public sector, because obviously there are a lot of planning jobs in other agencies, like the Environment Agency and Regional Development Agencies and so on, that also employ planners, so that might account for the difference. Q212 Mr Betts: Perhaps we could have a breakdown of the figures, because we have slightly different ones here. Caroline Flint: Yes, that is fine. Q213 Chair: Which actually came from the Government memorandum, so I think the Government needs to agree with itself. Caroline Flint: In the public sector, just over half of the graduates have gone into that area. Again, you learn from different things, this was something which was felt that given the resource that was going in, it was another way we could underpin and sustain those skills and those talents for those young people going into local authorities. Mr Morris: Part of the reason when we started this was to try and attract as many people as possible into the profession and so did not want to place too many restrictions on it. It has actually been highly successful, and we are now putting these criteria on people coming in through the scheme, so that more of them hopefully will spend time in the public sector. Q214 Mr Betts: Do we have any figures overall of the number of people who are going into the planning profession now, in net terms, over the last couple of years, and how many specifically have gone into local government? What we are hearing is all right, there may be some going in at one end, but there is actually an outflow at the other as well. Do we know whether there has been an increase in people, as planning professionals working in local government and the public sector? Mr Morris: There has been an increase in the number of graduates coming through, which has gone up by 50 per cent since the bursary scheme came in. There are actually more people coming through than there are bursaries, so it has had a knock-on effect on other people who are not actually getting bursaries, which is also very good. There has been an increase in the number of people employed in planning in local authorities, because of the increase in work, I would have to get hold of the actual numbers. Q215 Mr Betts: It might be helpful to have some numbers there. Is there more that the Government can do in the short-term? Everyone can see that you work in a bursary scheme and over a period of time things will improve, but actually in the short term, we have some very big issues to tackle: the housing programme, regeneration schemes, a whole range of other major construction-type activities. So in the next three or four years, are there things that can be done to improve the situation in terms of planners? At the same time, we know there are quite a few planners reaching retirement age, you almost have this gap, you have new people coming in, you have quite a lot of experienced planners, and a gap in the middle, but as some of those experienced planners drop out the other end, there are going to be additional problems there, are there not? Caroline Flint: In terms of those currently working in local authorities, one of the things is whether or not there are certain aspects of the planning function that could be better done by technicians and admin staff within the teams and departments, as well as the other side of that, whether some of those employees would like to upgrade their skills through the distance learning programmes. I think again, some aspects of planning today, in terms of strategic planning, regeneration and the wider vision for communities, I think there probably are other people who are working in local authorities who probably have a role to play in that, and maybe one aspect of that is how they work much better together across the departments in a local authority. We know that local authorities, for example, do employ people involved in community engagement; again, those people might have something to offer as part of that planning process, not to sort of deal with the details of what a professional planner would do, but certainly bring something to bear that could inform the debate at a community level and add to the process, I think. Again, there is not a one size fits all, but I think there are certain factors of good practice. Some of this was brought out by the Egan Report about communications, about leadership, about more effective working together across different disciplines, that there is something we could do in the short-term on, and in fact some local authorities are doing. Some smaller local authorities, for example, have sought to work in partnership with each other, so that actually, they are working together on planning applications that affect maybe more than one district. Again, I think there are some aspects of this that are just about, say, looking at the best practice, which obviously we do try to get out there in various forms, every single day, but again, we need, with partners like the LGA, and hopefully with the HCA as well, to see how we can get better at that, and get that best practice taken up, because some of it is not about inventing something, it is already out there. Q216 Mr Betts: I suppose the bottom line is do you have any concerns that any of the Government's key programmes are going to be hindered, stalled, delayed, reduced in size by a shortage of planners? Caroline Flint: I do not sort of think so per se, I think the thing is about any given day, what do we have, at the moment it is something like 600,000 applications a year, some of that is about looking at how more effective local planning authorities could be. For example, from this autumn, in a number of areas, permitted development will take out of the planning process some of those applications that come in at the moment. As I say, we are looking through the HCA, and I have had discussions with Sir Bob Kerslake about this, about how better with the ASC as part of the HCA, ATLAS going in there as well, we can improve more on particularly the big developments where extra support might be needed, not taking away from local authorities but trying maybe to align better some of our supportive services to get better outcomes. But we are still focused as best we can on all our different big projects. Q217 Emily Thornberry: Was it an unintended and probably unforeseen consequence of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, with a significant change in the planning system away from development and control planning towards wider spatial planning for communities, that the planning officer status has been undermined? We have heard witnesses talking about tick box culture and targets and that sort of thing, so has that been one of the reasons? Mr Morris: I actually think it is the opposite, in that what the 2004 Act did was introduce this idea of spatial planning, which is trying to move away from planning as being a purely regulatory function, and it should be taking it right to the heart of the local authority, and setting out what the long-term vision should be. What we are trying to do, and we have been doing a whole programme with the Planning Advisory Service, which is trying to instil something called development management within local authorities, which is getting away from development control, which is this tick box yes/no procedure, and trying to think about how planning is going to deliver this vision which you are setting out: are you talking to developers about what their plans are? Are you doing pre-application discussions to ensure that these projects are moving forward? What are you doing after planning permission has been granted to ensure that they are actually built? So it is actually trying to open out the profession, so it is actually really about delivering what a place looks like over 20 years and getting it out of this regulatory box. That is a big change for a lot of planning departments, and that is part of this culture change which a lot of the evidence you have had has talked about, but that is partly what we are trying to address here. Q218 Emily Thornberry: But you saw the evidence that we had had from Lindsay Frost of Lewes District Council, who cited that as being one of the ways in which the skills held by older planning officers were swept away, with the sort of things they used to do just not being valued any more. Mr Morris: I do not think it is being swept away, but it is a question of adapting to change, and the environment in which planners are working is changing the whole time, not just the regulatory environment which we are setting, but also the way that business operates and the way development operates, and planners need to adapt and change to that as well. There is a lot of resource going in in terms of training and help and best practice that we have just been talking about, to try and help planners do that. Q219 Emily Thornberry: We have been given an amazingly long list of agencies that have been given the job of helping to develop planning skills. We have DCLG; the Academy of Sustainable Communities; ATLAS, that has already been referred to; the Planning Advisory Service; the Improvement & Development Agency for Local Government. I have another ten on this list, it goes on and on. Is this a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth? Caroline Flint: Obviously a lot of different organisations are very protective of their own identity, obviously the ASC and ATLAS will be going into the Homes and Communities Agency, and they do have different roles. Then also we have CABE as well, and as you mentioned, the Planning Advisory Service too, and obviously you have another load on your list. I think part of what we are trying to look for, in the ones we directly, if you like, support, is where they are in terms of their connection to other things that happen. That is why I think actually the move into the HCA is a good idea for the two I mentioned, but also, I think even for those that are outside of that, what I would be quite interested in, and it would be interesting to hear your views when you produce your report, is how some of the work could be better aligned, because as an ex-local government officer myself, I suppose, you could imagine a scenario where with the best will in the world, you have competing organisations which are all about making the planning function work better and improve, and one week you are getting something from one organisation saying, "Come to this conference, come to that conference", and what have you, followed by another one the next week. So it's not against that, because again, it is quite different, say, for example, the ASC's work in terms of, if you like, the academic framework, and how that exists, and how that can be made more accessible for people, whether they are going into it fresh or they are already working in the area they want to refresh, or they are working in local government and they want to get into this discipline, as opposed to ATLAS dealing with major applications. But I think some alignment is worth looking at to make sure that we are not just creating organisations for the sake of it, and just ending up with lots of different voices all on the same issue which is supporting the function and trying to raise the quality, competing for space, because that is probably not the best thing that people working on the ground really need. Q220 Mr Betts: Not surprisingly, we had Sir John Egan here to give evidence, given it was his report that tended to focus or begin the programme of action on the whole issue on sustainable skills, but I think we were all surprised when we said to him, "How is it going, Sir John?", and he said, "Don't ask me, nobody has talked to me about it since I produced the report". Is that not a bit surprising? Caroline Flint: I am surprised about that, because my information is something like 20 recommendations, I understand, have been pretty much taken on board and dealt with. I know the ASC have been trying to meet with Sir John for a while, and I hope that comes to fruition, but as far as I understand, inheriting this brief, most of the 28 recommendations have been taken on board. Q221 Mr Betts: So there is regular monitoring then of the recommendations of the report and whether they have been enacted? Mr Morris: Of the 24 recommendations, I think they were all broadly accepted by the Government, and as far as I am aware, nearly all of them have been implemented in one form or another. Q222 Mr Betts: Are there any that have not? Mr Morris: I am not aware of any. Q223 Mr Betts: So they all have? Mr Morris: Yes. Q224 Mr Betts: Would it not be a good idea, do you think, as a matter of good practice, when someone produces a report, which generally is welcomed across the board, including by Government, that maybe a couple of years afterwards, the keeper of that report, the author of it, was just asked for a review, an independent review, as to how they perceive matters to have moved on since the report was produced? Caroline Flint: I cannot say anything off the top of my head here wrongly providing information about what has happened with those 24 recommendations, absolutely. Whether or not a review, because review summons up all sorts of different things, is the right language I would use for following it through, I am not sure. I think it is quite right to ask, what happened with the 24 recommendations, and what information do we have as to the impact they are having, and I am happy for us to look at those and provide the Committee with as much as we can give them on that. Q225 Mr Betts: I suppose there is a little bit of scepticism sometimes, that if the recommendations actually relate to governments and civil servants, sometimes the people who monitor them themselves might be less harsh on whether they have been actually implemented than someone looking from outside independently. Would that be fair comment? Caroline Flint: Well, we have scrutiny in this place as well, so you can always have -- not that I am asking for one, but you can always have another inquiry on the 24. There are different ways, obviously, that when reviews are undertaken in departments, about what the follow-through is, what the follow-up is. I just think what shape that takes can be different, and I am not saying anything against this particular Committee, but we can end up into a bit of a review-itis situation, where no sooner do we do one thing, we have another review, and I am not sure as a vehicle that that is always, I am not saying never, is the best way forward, but I think it is fair enough to say, well, what happened to the recommendations? The other thing is, in this particular regard, I understand we have basically taken broadly all of them on board and have tried to execute them. In other reviews, the Government does not always take on board all the recommendations that have been made, so it sounds to me like in one sense this was a pretty good outcome for his review. Q226 Chair: As you know, Minister, we had the Academy of Sustainable Communities just before you, they gave a robust defence of their performance, although I have to say that many of our previous witnesses had been less than complimentary. What is your view on the ASC? Do you think it has fulfilled the role that Egan envisaged for it? Caroline Flint: From what I have read and seen, I think it is doing a pretty good job. I think it has worked well in terms of particularly some of the work around staff in local authorities being able to access various courses. I understand they have established with a number of universities further opportunities for the qualification base to be accessible and to be enhanced. I think in terms of the move into the Homes and Communities Agency, that is the right move, I think it will allow them to have a distinct role, but also I think be embedded with the other work the organisation will be taking on, in terms of obviously its housing work and other planning support work, so I think overall it has pretty much done what has been expected. Their new business plan, I think, is due to be signed off by my colleague, Iain Wright, I do not think it has happened yet, in the not too distant future. Q227 Chair: How will they be better able to work with the new Homes and Communities Agency than they could have done up until now with the component parts, English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation? Caroline Flint: I think for the same reason, that English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation, if you like, coming together into HCA, and bringing together, if you like, the land and the housing elements, and I think there are very valid and good reasons for that. Again, it is not that they have not done good work or work with those organisations, I think it is just about simplifying things, better alignment, and as I say, a better home for them, whilst retaining their particular role in terms of qualifications and working with academia to support that and give that sort of sense of focus. Mr Morris: Could I just add that being part of a bigger organisation with a regional structure in place, who will be having dialogue with local authorities on a regular basis, should give the ASC more input, if you like, into the work on the ground and possibly greater focus on what it does as part of that process, but that is part of the discussion about what its role is within the new agency, which is part of an ongoing discussion. Q228 Chair: That implies a certain lack of focus up until now. Caroline Flint: I think it is just also about -- as David says, the regional framework that I have discussed with Sir Bob about the HCA will give, I think, a better sense of networking capacity there that is quite difficult for a relatively small organisation. 20 people, I think, are employed by the ASC, and I think again, there is a sort of strengthening there, a bigger organisation. The trick will be about how not to lose their particular role, and the work they are able to get on with, which is very important in terms of developing people's skills, and the sector in terms of the staff and the profession. Q229 Andrew George: Could I just come back to, if you like, the other side of the coin of the questions I was asking earlier? Primarily, and your answer was addressing itself to the answer of pulling more people into the profession, the question is: has the Government made any kind of assessment of those aspects of Government policy which are perhaps pushing people out of the profession, the initiatives, the large number of agencies, the regionalisation, in other words the sucking of powers away from local authorities, for example? Caroline Flint: Come back to me if I have not understood your question, but I actually do not think a lot of what we are doing is necessarily about pulling powers away from local authorities. Actually, we have put a lot of powers to local authorities, with the local development frameworks, their core strategies, the work we are doing through the planning bill at the moment, and discussions around things like the community infrastructure levy and so forth, you know, it seems to me that in terms of really that wider corporate vision that local authorities should have in terms of -- I think your language was place setting in communities; actually, trying to pull that together in a way that I think actually is possibly more motivating than the sense of this, I think, as Emily was suggesting, the sort of tick box application process. I think actually it presents a quite exciting and undoubtedly challenging time for those who are currently working in planning or, to be honest, for those in local authorities who have everything to gain by getting this sort of corporate vision strategy right. Now the other side of it is about what do we do to maybe make the process better, not just for those working in the local authority who are processing applications, but for those who are making applications as well. We have the end-to-end review at the moment on the planning application itself, David Pretty and Joanna Killian working on that, one from the construction sector, one person from senior management level in local authorities. We have the work going on in terms of permitted development, which will take out of the process again potentially a number of applications that currently come in, it is not that they are not important, but actually in the big scheme of things, people should maybe be able to get on with their solar panels and other things too, and to try and disentangle maybe some of the processes that people find, particularly those working in local authorities, time-consuming and not particularly necessarily the most motivating work that they would like to spend their time on. Q230 Andrew George: I think my question was really whether you have assessed whether the effect of various initiatives like the ones perhaps you have described, I do not know, or other aspects of Government policy might have created an environment in which people in the profession have said, "We are no longer prepared to put up with this", and they are leaving. In other words, whether you have made any kind of assessment of that. Caroline Flint: Well, insofar as we recognise that there is a vacancy issue to deal with, we have recognised that actually we need to attract more young people into the profession, and as we talked earlier, we do recognise that we have a number of people who are coming up to retirement going out of the profession as well, so all the things we have discussed so far I think are part of a jigsaw that we feel, David and colleagues in the Department having spent a considerable amount of time talking to those working on the frontline, various reports that have been done over the years and research into this, we hope will tackle some of those different things that people have raised that are a problem, but I think there is more work to be done on this, and part of it, I think, again is about how local authorities also work particularly with the developers, and how we can get that relationship working better or as good as we know it does work in other areas, which does not by any means hand everything over to the developers, but actually just makes the process more engaging, more productive, good outcomes for local authority, and reasonable outcomes in line with planning law for the developers. Andrew George: Finally, do you and does the Government have a view about the training of councillors? I know that local authorities have strong feelings because they are worried about the decisions they might make, but does the Government have a view, just leave it to local authorities to decide? Q231 Chair: Do you think it should be mandatory? Caroline Flint: I am not signed up to it being compulsory mandatory. I think there are -- councillors play different roles, and I think certainly all councillors having an understanding as part of their induction into how planning fits into the service provision, what is happening in their communities, regeneration housing, whatever, is a good idea. We are not short of courses out there, I have to say, and training opportunities for that. Likewise, on another level, for those who actually sit on the scrutiny panels or planning committees, there is obviously another order there for those people, in terms of what they have to understand as their role, what they can and cannot do and so forth. But I think what I would say is that I do not think it is about a councillor necessarily doing training that is almost like a qualification as a planner or anything like that, because I think what is important here again is the relationship of the professionals within the organisation to those lay members and councillors, and the advice they give to them, and the way in which that advice is given. Then I think the particular, if you like, role that an elected person brings to that function, which is not to be the professional, I think it is somewhat different. So as I say, I think it is quite difficult to have "everyone must be trained to this level", because I am not sure that would work and it would not necessarily work in terms of the turnover you might need when you are actually dealing on the ground with the changes we have in our elected system. Q232 Andrew George: But surely you would agree that there is need for mandatory training just to protect the councillors legally, given it is a quasi legal status, those on the planning committee need to be cautioned about the potentially catastrophic effects -- Caroline Flint: Obviously I would hope, just as a Minister, when someone gives me advice, and the lawyers in the Department say, "Minister, I just need to tell you that this is legal, this is maybe" -- that sounds terrible, "This is legal, this is not so legal", we never get any advice like that. But when you get advice from your lawyers, this is the other issue, at any given stage, if you are dealing with a planning application or what have you, and as a Member of Parliament, obviously I have represented in different cases and different issues or sought clarity on issues probably 99 per cent of the time, you need your good advice from your planners and your lawyers to tell you just what the legal proprieties are, and what is legally right and what is not legally right, and to be honest, I do not think there is a training course per se that could do that for a councillor to cover all eventualities. There is obviously a basic sense of what your role is and your legal role and quasi legal role, but ultimately, on a day-to-day basis, when you are faced with different applications, I think that is where you need the good advice from within your local authority from good staff, and then you have to make a judgment, just as Ministers have to make a judgment. Chair: Thank you very much indeed, Minister. |