Late last week, I attended an interesting talk in which the ‘moral compass’ of planners – and local authorities as a whole – was questioned. During the ensuing discussion, an enthusiastic debate played out as to whether planners are to blame for ‘allowing’ the overbuild that characterises every county in the Republic of Ireland. As a planner, I agree that, yes, we have to take a certain degree of responsibility for the state of the (blighted) landscape in which we find ourselves living —- I emphasise a ‘certain degree’ given that the role of the planning system as a whole has been little considered or unpacked, as argued by the NIRSA report A Haunted Landscape — but I cannot accept that as a profession, we have lost our moral compass.
At the heart of our planning education lies the concepts of the common good, community, social justice and the accommodation of people in place (not just in terms of housing but also in respect of access to services, mobility, leisure and recreation, to name but a few). What transpires in practice does not usually live up to the aspirations of planning educators or graduates – the reality is that local government is too ill-equipped to thoroughly address all aspects of planning and the focus rests on short-termism and politics – two pillars of poor planning. And, of course, what people are taught and what they then actually do are two different things. One factor at play in this regard, for example, is where the planner ends up working; the working ethos of a planner in local government will inevitably be different to that of a planner working for a consultancy or developer. And where a planner first worked for local government and then went to work for a developer – as happened quite frequently during the ‘boom years’ – it would be inevitable that their moral compass becomes recalibrated, possibly even dormant; but not lost.
The problem, as I see it, is that the planning profession has lost not only its voice but also its authority and power in the process of decision-making. Within the workplace, and I refer specifically to local government here, planners are no longer taken as seriously as they might with their role in the planning and development process relatively diminished; an outcome of the politicalisation of planning. Planners’ recommendations can be disregarded at the whim of senior officers and/or elected officials. Too often, I have heard stories from colleagues working in local government of occasions where they have been told to say nothing – by their Directors of Service or County Manager – at either council meetings or discussions with developers on proposed applications. That the voice of an expert in their field can be so blatantly taken away – instead of encouraged and embraced in the interests of the community to which a proposal may relate and the wider common good of the county and region to which it belongs – is a true failing of the local government system as it is currently structured.
The Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 finally gives play to the hierarchy of plans that was proposed under the Planning and Development Act 2000 – namely, the National Spatial Strategy (NSS), the Regional Planning Guidelines (RPGs), County and City Development Plans, and finally, Local Area Plans. But what is the point of having this hierarchy in place if the views and recommendations of the planners who are the drafters of these documents (containing a mixture of policies and maps) – with their multidisciplinary perspectives (geographers, sociologists, environmentalists, conservationists, economists, psychologists) – can be so easily ignored?
The solution? Greater emphasis needs to be placed on the recommendations of planners when it comes to determining planning applications and preparing development plans. To this end, it should not be as easy, as is currently the case, for officials – elected or otherwise – to override the recommendations put forward by planners. And yet, while this is part of the democratic mandate of councillors – to speak for the communities they represent – the resulting practices are unreflective of democratic principles. It is clear that change is required to the current status quo in decision-making – but, in the case of the reserved function role of elected officials, there appears to be little appetite for reform. But were that appetite in place, changes that should be considered, so as to strengthen the democratic principles of planning, include:
- Elected officials should have to undertake an accredited course in understanding the planning system prior to being able to engage in any debate on a planning-related topic (whether planning application or development plan); and with any change in the legislation, all councillors should have to attend an ‘expert’ seminar on the implications of the new law;
- Where elected officials work as estate agents, auctioneers or in other fields related to the planning field, they should be prevented from contributing to debates on planning applications or zonings to avoid clear conflicts of interest;
- Directors of Service with responsibility for planning should have a background in the planning system; in this way, they would then better understand the decisions of planners and the reasonings behind these standings / recommendations (and while the brief of Directors of Service increasingly tend to extend beyond planning only – also covering for example, community and enterprise, or infrastructure, for example – the multidisciplinary nature of planning ensures that a director with a planning background could equally, and fairly, administer these other functions). You wouldn’t after all have a nurse head up an accountancy firm or an engineer run a hospital ward?
There are many faults with the local government structure as it currently stands; but care needs to be exercised when confusing these short-falls (even failings) with a loss of morality among the local authority planning profession. The planning system is complex and planners are often the foot soldiers not the generals.
Caroline Creamer
Ireland after NAMA 
November 10, 2010 at 10:06 am
“I vas only obeying orders!
It is not my fault.
What could I do? Someone else would take my place? ”
Organize, pussies! Fight corruption with corruption? Inform your association of everything that you know should be addressed. Now is the best time to do this. Then have an unemployed person publish anonymous stories about various scams and local authority abuses.
Else, when the great accounting comes about, you may end up judged!
Corruption starts with those who are afraid and stay silent. It can only get worse from there. Thank God Ireland is so well off! Why look at the Americans and all the money they lost with bad planning over building and selling houses to one another!
You are not innocent, but you can redeem yourselves, lackies all!
November 11, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Ah Mr Donnelly, if only the world was so simple! It’s so easy to be provocative in the current climate and play a simple blame game. However, it is much more difficult to understand the complexities of Ireland’s planning system, the problems associated with it and how these issues may be resolved. Can one person stand up and be counted before they meet their decision maker? I point you to George Lee’s introduction to politics – need i say anymore! I agree with the general point that planners must accept their responsibilities for what happened over the last number of years, and the professions that represent them. I consider it significantly important that the existing professional bodies, representing the planning profession, must now re-invent themselves and become a real collective voice for planners that has otherwise been lacking in recent years.
I would also like to add that for those who are really interested in who made the big decisions on what now appears to be crazy or inappropriate development; the freedom of information legislation was introduced into Irish law to ensure transparency and accountability in public life. The aforementioned decisions are there for anyone to investigate. Should many of these decisions be investigated, I am confident that in vast majority of instances, the planner’s recommendations were in the interests of proper planning and the greater public good. Many of these approvals do not rest at the planner’s door! So we must all be careful of what we say – throwing the muck is the easy part!
November 11, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Padraig, agreed. Certainly from a NIRSA perspective our view is that it is the planning system that needs to be looked at, rather than a witch-hunt on planners who were cogs in a much bigger machine. As per my post a few days ago, like you, I think that the present time represents an enormous opportunity for planners and their organisations to present their view as to how the planning system and all its elements should evolve. It would be a real shame if this did not happen.
November 10, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I cannot agree that planners should take the major part of moral responsibility for the excesses of the Celtic Tiger. Nor should planners take responsibility for the failings of a democratic planning system which was designed and implemented as a deliberate government policy. It is superficial in the extreme to suggest that in a democracy it is somehow immoral to implement the administrative system instituted in law. But the laws and administrative arrangements instituted by successive government ministers in the early Noughties were almost guaranteed to create the current debacle.
By far the worst decision of government during the Celtic Tiger years was the introduction to Local Planning Authorities of the reorganization known ironically as ‘Better Local Government’. This reorganization removed a relatively flat management structure and inserted in its place an additional two levels in the organizational hierarchy creating multiples of competing directorates.
BLG promoted inexperienced staff to the level of Directors of Planning. These Directors often had no previous exposure to planning and their automatic reflex was to grant permission unquestioningly. After all, a grant of permission brought with it additional financial contributions, important to the standing of the neophyte Directors while the downside consequences of over-development became the responsibility of different directorates in charge of Infrastructure and Traffic.
It availed nothing for experienced staff to point out the egregious flaws in many developments and the woeful incapacity of the applicants while the Directors competed, one with another, to demonstrate their enthusiastic support for development. BLG sidelined the experienced professional in favor of inexperienced would-be managers many of whom had been promoted in accordance with the Peter-Principle. There is belated but tacit acknowledgement of the failure of BLG in the recent proposal to amalgamate various local authorities. In a democratic system planners can do little more than tell truth to power. If this is insufficient to prevent disaster then it is the system that must be changed.
November 10, 2010 at 2:26 pm
@ “In a democratic system planners can do little more than tell truth to power.”
Ahhh, the guard at the camp argument. IPI and other planning bodies have been practically silent on poor policy and development throughout and after the boom, rather than acting as a lobby group and campaigning through the press, etc. There seems to have been little truth told to power, rather complicit silence and shuffling of feet. The ‘it wasn’t us’ rhetoric only goes so far. Moreover, as the post acknowledges planners outside of LAs were working for consultants who were under-contract to developers and some worked directly for developers to ‘work’ the planning system. I assume they bare no responsibility as well?
November 10, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Are planners supposed to be some kind of priesthood? A sort of religious brotherhood sworn to protect idiots from the consequences of their idiocy?
We live in a democracy, which as a certain cynic said, “is the only political system where the votes of two fools count for more than that of one wise man”.
The government, which caused the problem by the laws which it enacted, was kept in power by the votes of those who benefitted from the Tiger economy. No amount of whistleblowing could or will ever reverse the decision of the ballot-box.
Mr Dempsey as Minister for the Environment got his way on the ‘cull’ of older and somewhat more responsible councillors. Just be thankful that he failed to get his way on the abolition of the County Managers and their replacement by a system of management based on the same inexperienced Directors reporting to directly-elected Mayors.
Things could be worse.
November 10, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I sympathise with planners who are subject to enormous pressures, both from developers and cringing councillors on the take. But, more particularly. I sympathise with them if they work alongside Directors of Services who are of the bullying variety.
These do exist and can make life impossible for younger less inexperienced and timid planners.
This country badly needs a whistle blowers charter, which would protect those who were brave enough to tip the wink to corrupt practices, and who would expose bullying superiors.
Some things will never change I am afraid.
November 11, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Another proposal might be that decisions are signed off on by officials at council level so that it then becomes their responsibility. However, what you are seeking will not happen as long as ‘expertise’ is sought and then routinely ignored in decision-making.
20 years ago, I remember hearing sociology graduate students moan about lack of attention by politicians of sociological ideas.
All is currently subsumed under power.
November 14, 2010 at 8:29 am
“Corruption is inherent in all living things. (particularly local councilors/politicians).
Look to your salvation with diligence”
The Buddha.
November 17, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Caroline I’m a planner working for the Planning Service up North. Since the restoration of the Assembly in 2007 there have been a number of cases in which our management have caved in to political pressure to approve applications despite strong policy objections to it. This is probably the one that caught the headlines the most;
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/planners-feel-heat-over-knock-golf-club-housing-project-14679331.html
Knock Golf Club is in Robinson’s backyard, in this case the Principal Officer and the case officer were strongly of the view that it should be refuesed but the Divisional Planning Manager and the Director of Operations refused to support them and brought in another Principal Officer to review the case, a move totally unheard of before. Of course this person told them what they wanted to hear and the case was recommended for approval, at the final Group Meeting, the original Principal made a point of noting his disagreement with the decision on the meeting notes. The Irish News got a copy of the report and ran with the story. When the Stormont Environment Committee wanted to investigate the case, the DUP members on the committee got a motion passed blocking any investigation, (I wonder why?!) this was later rescinded and the Committee castigated Planning Service Management for the basis of the approval which was down to the developer promising to build a new community centre, which the community groups said wasn’t needed, and providing land for the adjacent Ulster Hospital to expand on, but the hospital has said it won’t need any new land for many years. The local anger over this case is one of the reasons why Robinson was humiliated in May’s election, there were plenty of smiling faces in Planning Service that morning!!
What this case shows up is the “Uriah Heep” mentality that planning managers have towards politicians, they are desperate to please them so they will let their professional judgement be subverted by political imperatives. In it’s response to the article I linked above, Planning Service waffles on about it’s “corporate decision making” in theory the case officer discusses the application with a senior officer and they agree on the recommendation to Council. In reality if the senior officer is of an opinion to approve or refuse the application then that’s what happens, this can be because the senior genuinely feels the case officer is wrong but in cases like Knock Golf Club it means that a strongly based recommendation can be overturned purely to please the politicians!
The answer quite simply is for senior managers to grow a pair and stand up to politicians. For that to happen there need to be strong administative safeguards to stop politicians interfering in decision making and that allow case officers to refer the matter to another party if they are unhappy with the decision.