Public-private entanglements: consultant use by local planning authorities in England

Wargent, Matthew; Parker, Gavin; Street, Emma

doi:10.1080/09654313.2019.1677565

Cited by 20 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…They have an economic imperative to attract and retain fee-paying clients (Linovski, 2018). Reforms to the planning systems in the UK since 2010 have influenced planning consultant use; causing a 15% decrease in public-sector planners between 2006 and 206 alongside a growth in the number of private-sector planners, with 44% of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) members working mainly in the private sector (Wargent et al 2020). Some scholar argue that privatesector planners are critical in propagating the 'need for speed' to shape possibilities for future change, which is especially prevalent with public-sector planning departments being subject to over 40% funding cuts to their budgets since 2010, negatively impacting their capacity and resources (Parker et al 2019;Linovski, 2018).…”

Section: Appeal Process Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post planning-decision process: Ensuring the delivery of high-quality developments in Cardiff

Dickinson

Shahab

2021

Land Use Policy

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Housing development is a lengthy and multi-step process; starting from the initial stages of a planning permission proposal to when a proposal is realised on-site. Each stage seemingly impacts how developments are delivered; however, research is limited into why quality of development has been seen to weaken in the post planning-decision stage (i.e. the stage after a planning permission is granted). This paper uses a case study of Cardiff to explore whether the key stages of the UK development management process could be improved to influence the delivery of high-quality housing developments. Using semi-structured interviews, this paper investigates the perceptions of planning professionals towards the requirement and applicability of improved methods, covering the following issues: a) the role of key actors in influencing outcomes during the development management process; b) the factors hindering implementation of high-quality developments; and c) how involved actors can improve the delivery of housing developments. The findings of the paper show that involved actors principally perceive inadequate local authority resource, limited enforcement powers, and a lack of on-site monitoring to be key hinderances in ensuring developer compliance, which to an extent, has a bearing on the implementation of high-quality developments. Furthermore, a difference in attitudes and knowledge towards development aspirations is uncovered, which reveals to have a considerable influence on the outcome of development quality. However, where resource may be available, some mechanisms are proposed by planning professionals as potential key factors in improving the post planningdecision process.

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Section: Appeal Process Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post planning-decision process: Ensuring the delivery of high-quality developments in Cardiff

Dickinson

Shahab

2021

Land Use Policy

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“…While there are debates as to how the public interest is defined and put into practice, it remains a cornerstone of the planning profession (Campbell and Marshall 2002;Johnson 2010;Lennon 2016), such as through professional codes of conduct (e.g., American Institute of Certified Planners 2016; Canadian Institute of Planners 2016). Although previous work on professional practice has often assumed planners as public employees, there has been a recent and substantial interest in the work of private sector planners and their interactions with the public interest (Loh and Norton 2015;Parker, Street, and Wargent 2018;Wargent, Parker, and Street 2020). Unlike public employees, planners in the private sector are responsible for the financial health of their firm, leading to different values, attitudes, and ethical concerns (Loh and Arroyo 2017;Read and Leland 2011).…”

Section: Literature Review: Competing Logics For Private Sector Professionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the firm level, increasing consolidation through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has resulted in very large, diverse companies, as firms seek to capitalize on the opportunity to expand market shares (Linovski 2019;Raco 2018). Public sector clients of planning have also experienced significant changes in the face of austerity measures, leading to increasing reliance on private sector firms in many jurisdictions (Parker, Street, and Wargent 2018;Steele 2009;Wargent, Parker, and Street 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Value of Planning: Views from Management Consultants

Linovski

2021

Journal of Planning Education and Research

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Professional planners working in the private sector intersect with a complex sphere of business interests. Management consultants have a growing influence in many organizations, including private sector planning firms. Using a mixed-method approach to examine the strategies and priorities of management consultants, I find that management consultants view the “value” of planning as opening the door to future contracts and selling firm services. This has implications for understanding how practitioners reconcile professional values (such as autonomy, neutrality, and protection of the public interest) with market imperatives, and for the profession as one driven by societal, rather than entrepreneurial goals.

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“…Fuelled by churn, planners in both development management and policy find it harder to undertake the kind of longterm strategic thinking that they associate with serving the public interest. Some consultancies even claim to be doing the public interest thinking that LPAs are no longer able to do (Wargent et al, 2019). There are certainly exceptions, such as large, transformative infrastructure projects, but these are disproportionately concentrated in large urban authorities with high development demand.…”

Section: Discretionary Acting Space and The Client Conundrummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of course, leadership in planning is not just about local government. As an activity, planning is carried out by those working in private, public and third sectors (Parker, Street & Wargent, 2019). Those currently in training or at the outset of their careers are likely to be working for much longer than the senior planners of today.…”

Section: Leadership In Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Future of the Planning Profession

Parker¹,

Wargent²,

Linovski³

et al. 2020

Planning Theory & Practice

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This Interface emerged from a symposium on the future of the planning profession held at the University of Reading in September 2019. This reflected on present new challenges concerning the means, political standing, and substantive goals of planning across the globe. Some issues discussed are longer-run and continually shifting. The conditions and tasks faced by planning have morphed, as have the types of people and sectoral balance involved in planning. Renewed scrutiny over the environment, quality of development, and its accountability to the public it seeks to serve, are active topics in the UK. Pointedly, concerns over a public sector planning that has been weakened by a decade of austerity, and destabilised by serial changes are in the forefront of peoples' minds, with advocates of further deregulation and reform currently holding court (e.g., Airey & Doughty, 2020). With such changes ongoing now is a good time to consider the future of the profession. The essays that follow largely address issues for the profession in the UK but are also more widely applicable.Despite a growth and diversification in planning activity, the profession in the UK is often undervalued with persistent public distrust in planners and the system. The Raynsford Report examining the planning system in England recently argued that "broader civil society consensus around the need for planning has fragmented, and many people are simply unclear about what the system is for" (2018, p. 23). The regulatory system has been the subject of continual structural change and this is likely to continue in years to come. The profession is once again under assault with Hugh Ellis (2020, n.p.) recently forecasting "the endgame" for the English planning system and "the ideals which founded the planning movement." As a result, planning's operating environment is breeding uncertainty, and it is more challenging to be a planner in such circumstances. A lack of transparency in the UK adds to the gap between the planners and the planned, as well as between different forms, sectors, spatial scales, or types of 'planner.'The issues taken up by the wide-ranging contributions below reflect the ideas for progressive change found across the profession and the breadth of concerns being aired. Numerous voices from within planning are now talking about the 'future of the profession' to varying degrees of acuity. These debates cohere around some key threads: holding up for scrutiny how the planning profession thinks about corresponding to the changing, diversifying environment; how to more effectively address the substantive challenges faced by planning; improving the state of public understanding and engagement; and lastly how actors involved in planning -notably the Universities and the CONTACT Gavin Parker

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Public-private entanglements: consultant use by local planning authorities in England

Cited by 20 publications

References 45 publications

Post planning-decision process: Ensuring the delivery of high-quality developments in Cardiff

Post planning-decision process: Ensuring the delivery of high-quality developments in Cardiff

The Value of Planning: Views from Management Consultants

The Future of the Planning Profession

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