Professional ethics

Mark Hand is Director of Profession, International, Cymru and Northern Ireland

Welcome to the second in a new series of monthly blogs that will be highlighting our shared role in upholding professional standards. This is vital in order to preserve the reputation of you, our members, of the planning profession and of the RTPI.

Whether you’re a new student member or a Fellow with decades of experience, every member at every level of membership has signed up to the RTPI’s Code of Professional Conduct.

This blog unlocks the topic of professional ethics.

Ethical challenges

It is the mark of a reflective practitioner to demonstrate the ability to balance competing issues or views in order to come to a reasoned and objective professional decision. Ethics is generally understood as moral principles governing human behaviour and is central to the way RTPI members conduct themselves as professionals. A defining feature of the planning profession is the duty “to advance the science and art of planning (including town and country and spatial planning) for the benefit of the public” under our Royal Charter.

Historically, acting in the public interest has been understood in terms of protecting public health, public amenity and the environment from ‘harm’. Nowadays, RTPI members can act for a broad range of interests including clients, employers, local communities and politicians within the context of meeting the needs of current and future generations. Tensions can often arise when trying to reconcile these different interests and challenges.

Ethical challenges exist in areas of planning practice such as (but not limited to):

• The implications of being asked by a private client to influence a friend working for the local planning authority determining a planning application;
• Feeling under pressure to review your professional opinion or interpretation of policy or legislation, because it is at odds with the advice from a client or line manager;
• Feeling unsure whether to accept the views of a local politician or from a private sector client as ‘materially relevant’ to your assessment of the impact of a development proposal;
• Providing advice which is guided by national policy requirements and legislation, even though it may be contrary to what you believe the planning system, as a whole, should or should not be facilitating.

If you are faced with these types of issues, this can lead to considerations around conflicts of interest, honesty and integrity, competence, judgement.

Our Professional Standards Guidance Note 01 offers some guidance on how to handle such situations.

What does our Code of Professional Conduct say?

There are numerous relevant clauses in our Code, but these three are particularly relevant:

1. Members must exercise fearlessly and impartially their independent professional judgement to the best of their skill and understanding.
   
   
2. Members must not make or subscribe to any statements or reports which are contrary to their own genuine professional opinions, nor knowingly enter into any contract or agreement which requires them to do so.
   
   
3. Members must base their professional advice on relevant, reliable and supportable evidence and present the results of data and analysis clearly and without improper manipulation.

Resources available

The Code of Professional Conduct can be found on our recently refreshed professional standards webpages, alongside information about how complaints of misconduct are investigated, the potential sanctions, recent decisions and a host of guidance to help you, including a series of Professional Standards Guidance Notes.

This guidance has been prepared to support RTPI members with their professional responsibilities relating to the importance of professionalism, ethical challenges, raising concerns and whistleblowing, and complaints.