¹Originally published in 'Planning - Issue 1418, May 11, 2001'

This document represents a collective statement by the RTPI Management Board of its views about how the RTPI should and must develop, starting now.

The context for this statement is the thinking that has given rise to the New Vision for Planning presented to Council in January 2001, and the other reviews that are in process.

New Vision for Planning and its Implications

The New Vision for Planning is a living document built around a few key ideas. Its implications for the RTPI - both the focus of its work to promote planning and what it is as an institution - are profound.

The New Vision for Planning sees planning as being about both people and places, the natural and the built environment, immediate requirements and long-term stewardship and capacity-building.

The keywords that summarise the New Vision for Planning project are:

• inclusive - recognising the wide range of people involved in planning
• integrative - in terms of the knowledge, objectives and actions involved
• sustained - looking at the short, medium and long term issues
• spatial - dealing with the unique needs and characteristics of places
• value-driven - recognising that planning involves identifying, understanding and mediating conflicting sets of values
• action-oriented - seeing planning as the twin activities of mediation of space and making of place.

This challenges us to think outside the box of statutory systems and to take a broader view of what society needs through planning and the practices by which to deliver this. It also challenges us to see planning as a societal activity - where professional planners facilitate the activity, but do not own it.

Implications for the Profession

For too long we have had too narrow a view of who should make up the planning profession. We believe that we need to take a broader view of the professional practices that are involved in planning as spatial action. We do not want an over-neat classification, but the areas we should be looking towards include transport planning, environmental planning, community planning, economic development and regeneration.

We need to recognise that planning is not a single discipline with one common knowledge set as its foundation. Periodic attempts to make this true by re-packing planning in a new box have failed. Planning is in reality characterised by a diversity of knowledge sets brought together by the common focus on spatial action.

We do not want to diminish the value of the professional qualification that we offer, or its significance in terms of the knowledge and competence that MRTPI brings to facilitating the activities of planning. We do believe that MRTPI could and should mean even more than it does at present, and that association with the RTPI needs to take a wider variety of forms.

This has important implications for how we educate and how we organise.

Planning Beyond the Profession

We need to recognise also that the activity of planning is not owned by or restricted to the planning profession, even with a broader definition of who that profession might involve.

The object of the RTPI is to promote the art and science of town planning for the benefit of the public. Fulfilling that duty effectively challenges us to seek wider participation in the work of the RTPI from those who share our aims and ideals and wish to make a contribution.

We need to be aware of the external forces at work on us. The RTPI has received legal advice that matters of professional interest are ancillary to the overriding charitable purpose, and that to satisfy the Charity Commissioners we should ensure that the activities of the institute should be accessible to those with an interest in planning, and not only those with a professional interest.

So we need to think about engaging with people whose interest in planning is not professional, and that leads us to think about the possibility of new forms of membership.

This also has important implications for how we organise.

What Sort of Organisation do We Want To Be?

We need to be a more inclusive and effective organisation to promote a more inclusive and effective? agenda for planning.

We believe that the structure of our organisation now needs to change to meet new requirements in terms of :

• membership - providing the right degree of access and the right level of support for the diversity of professional and non-professional people engaged in promoting planning
• ownership - getting the balance right between involvement in the work of the RTPI and responsibility for its management
• outputs - making the RTPI much more effective in generating, promoting and spreading knowledge
• association - linking with other organisations not necessarily in the built environment area that can help us to advance our cause
• regulation - making sure that we meet our obligations to monitor the conduct of our professional members
• governance - making sure that we meet our legal obligations for effective stewardship of the RTPI
• accountability - having the systems that ensure probity and efficiency
• resources - developing an equitable approach to sources of subscription and other income, and its use across the RTPI, and using our staff more effectively
• leadership - finding and empowering the members of the RTPI who can provide the leadership that our mission requires.

We need to have a global and international perspective on this, recognising that we need the contribution of people outside Britain.

The New Institute

We believe that this is the basis of a programme of radical evolution, which would lead to a body so different that it would be seen as a new institute.

Radical evolution does not mean abandoning any of our core values. It means reaffirming them, and reinterpreting them to meet changing circumstances - or new markets.

It involves a complete review of membership and internal structures: this is being addressed by the governance review. It also involves a complete review of our education qualification and training policies; this is being addressed by the Education Commission. We have now started a review of human resources and financial management procedures.

We believe that our internal structures will need to change significantly to improve representation in governance; improve the means of association for various types of members; improve outputs of knowledge; and introduce new approaches to audit and scrutiny.

We think that we shall need to change the roles of our staff and the relationship between members and staff.

The Way Forward

Over the next 12 months¹ we need to develop and debate the issues outlined here, the options that flow from them and their implications for the RTPI.

In developing our thinking we shall be applying three sets of tests:

Greater efficiency

• projecting a stronger sense of purpose
• promoting leadership
• making better use of resources
• managing risk effectively
• fitness for purpose

Greater representation

• engaging a wider cross-section of what should be a more diverse membership - diversities of gender, ethnicity, age, function, geography

Greater accountability

• clearer designation of roles and delegation of authority
• better audit and scrutiny systems
• realistic roles for trustees.

The future legitimacy of the RTPI depends crucially on two factors:

• producing knowledge and skills that society recognises as having real value in supporting effective and equitable action to meet the needs of people and places
• becoming an organisation that attracts more people to join and through which to be active.

The New Vision is the first step. This is the next.

Comments on the Statement of Intent:

"This is the most creative and far-sighted statement the Institute has produced in years"

Martin Bradshaw

"This short document sets the Institute on the road to recovering the high ground it has lost over the last 30 years"

Trevor Roberts

"This represents great opportunity to reform the Institute"

Deborah Starkings

"A ground-breaking, foundation-laying statement of vision and purpose. The best thing I've read in 30 years!"

Michael Hayes

"The RTPI is crossing a Rubicon in extending the scope of planning as an activity and embracing the roles of its many participants. The effects of this positive transformation will ripple out over a generation or more."

Kevin Murray

"This is the most important statement to come from the Institute in the last 30 years. It opens the way for a broader membership base to take the profession forward into the 21st century."

Michael Haslam

"This is a real opportunity for us all to shape the future of the RTPI. We mustn't waste this chance to move forward."

Ann Skippers

"The Statement of Intent maps the future for us all. We have to become more inclusive, more wide-ranging, more international and more influential. Then we shall really achieve 'planning to be proud of'"

Nick Davies

And what about the future?

Click here to read more about the Climate Change Challenge to the Profession and what this is likely to mean for the future New Vision. 

•  Return to the RTPI Vision for Planning

Author:

RTPI Website

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

01-Dec-11

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