Planning and the Sports Centre

Nothing is ever simple. The idea of a new Regional Sports Centre for Dundee won all party support when it came to Committee. Now the same 29 councillors who cheered it through must decide whether the project should get planning permission.

That may seem strange, but the councillors on the planning committee must work by different rules when deciding planning applications. They must make their decisions on planning grounds and planning grounds alone. No political lobbying is allowed; councillors are expressly forbidden from saying how they will vote until the item is debated at the Development Management Committee.

It may also seem strange that the same department which drew up the plans for the Regional Sports Centre in Caird Park also provides planning advice to councillors. Like the councillors, the officers must play by different rules when it comes to planning. The system depends on the professionalism of the officers. And our officers are very professional indeed, bound by the rules of their professional organisation.

However, under our binding Code of Conduct, councillors have to be seen to behave in a way that the average person would regard as fair and honest. "Be seen to behave" are important words here. I imagine to anyone outside the arcane world of the council, the planning system as described here might fail that test. But there are safeguards.

Development Management always meets in public. Copies of the officers' reports and recommendations to DM are placed online. All the supporting papers submitted by developers are placed online ... these can be very long and sometimes there are forty-five of them. But at least they are there.

There also has to be public consultation. For a major development like the Regional Sports Centre, the developer (in this case the city council)  has to be carry out pre-application consultation with the community. This includes sending details of the proposal to local community councils and consulting the wider community using at least one locally advertised public event.

A number of official bodies have to be consulted too, for example Historic Environment Scotland which has objected to building the sports centre hub close to Mains Castle, a mediaeval building of national importance. That objection means the Scottish Government has to be notified and could presumably call the application in if Ministers had concerns.

It also includes preparing a "design and access statement" setting out information about the design of the proposal and access for disabled people.

Where there could be a significant effect on the environment, there may be a need for an Environmental Impact Assessment. Scottish Government guidance suggests this should be done at a very early stage. The developer should consult the planning authority, and planning officers decide whether there should be an EIA. The presence of rare or endangered species might trigger an EIA.

The application also has to comply with the local development plan unless there are "material considerations" which allow us to set the plan aside.

So as councillors on Development Management, what have we got to do? Government guidance provides the general answer ... " the planning system should help build a growing economy, but at the same time protect our environment for future generations and make sure that communities can enjoy a better quality of life."

In practice that means ensuring that all the procedures have been correctly followed; and deciding whether the plans as proposed are fit for purpose. It's not about whether a Regional Sports Centre is a good idea or not ... that has already been decided. What we have to do is decide whether the people who put this proposal together got it right.

For a long time in Dundee there was a myth that lobbying councillors was a bad thing and possibly illegal. I remember one senior councillor brandishing a letter some unsuspecting developer had sent him as if approaching an elected member was some sort of crime.

However, the Improvement Society guidance for councillors states ... "The Councillor Code of Conduct does not prohibit a councillor, either as a member of a planning committee, Local Review Body or as a local elected member, from discussing the details of any planning application with anyone. Applicants, their agents (planning consultants, architects, engineers, etc.), neighbours, local community groups and campaigners all have a legitimate voice that should be heard by councillors."

Had it not been for well researched lobbying by objectors the Caird Park proposal would have been heard at the last Development Management Committee. The objectors argue that the council has failed to do the public participation properly and have called for a pre determination hearing. This blog is long enough without explaining all that ... but Caird Park is a precious asset, and there is no harm in taking all the time required to get this right. I think we can live with the delay.

How we make decisions ... in private

For those who wonder why I am thundering against my own council in today's Evening Telegraph ... it is because I genuinely believe in open government. So does the SNP, as far as I understand things, and probably all the other parties. Who would vote against Freedom of Information? But in practice, politicians don't vote for anything that make their lives more difficult. And they tend not to vote against the advice of their officials, who tend to err on the side of secrecy.

For example, the Scottish Government felt it necessary to pass a law forcing councils to consult their tenants on important housing issues. Now the Government has passed a law giving community organisations the right to participate in decision making which affects their areas, and much more than that. The Community Empowerment Act is hard going, but if anyone manages to work out what it means, it could dramatically change the way councils take decisions.

So how do we take decisions? Almost all proposals come from officers of the council. If we're closing a school, the law says we have to consult parents. So we do. But there is no duty to consult on most of the decisions we take.

The officers discuss proposals with Committee Conveners and the Leadership. They then bring their proposals to the Administration Group. There will be a paper which will have a recommendation. Sometimes we get two or three options; officers will give their professional view as to which option we should choose. These are private meetings and we may get three or four working days to read the papers. Sometimes the papers are only tabled on the day.

Except where consultation is compulsory, we may never know whether anyone outside the council has been consulted, or what they said. Or we may get a potted summary. Unless councillors themselves have specialist knowledge, the decision will be taken on the basis of the advice given by officers. In fairness, we have very talented and knowledgeable officers who do genuinely work for the good of the city, as they see it.

That's the decision made. There is the formality of taking the decision through the relevant Committee, but since the SNP hold 16 out of the 29 seats, there is very little chance of the Opposition changing anything. On occasion deputations come to the Committee meetings in the hope of putting forward a reasoned case and changing our view. I find they generally do not know that they are wasting their time; and they can be quite upset when I tell them how it actually works.

Now why does this matter? Taking decisions in secret, and relying only on the advice of the Council's officers, means that councillors are not exposed to the full range of arguments and information which they need. What's worse, secret meetings can mean that professional reasoning goes out the window and character assassination replaces argument. Sometimes character assassination emerges in public at Employment Appeal Tribunals ... viz some of the wilder accusations flung at former Depute Head Teacher Linda Ross.

The glorious exception to the rule is Planning, known in the jargon we love so much as Development Management. At Planning we are not bound by the party whip. In fact, we are not allowed to lobby each other for a particular decision. The debates at Planning are real, and I have seen several deputations swing the vote as a result of a well presented, reasoned argument. On occasion it goes the other way ... deputations can be so hopeless, arrogant or incoherent that councillors lose all sympathy with them. But either way, the real decision is taken at the meeting.

I can only remember one free vote at a political committee on a matter of real importance. That was the great Biomasss Debate, preceded by large public meetings, acres of coverage in the local media, and a barrage of very expert information from eminent academics, community campaigners and local businesses. Normally that would have counted for nothing, as the decision would already have been made in secret by a majority on the Administration. Nine of the sixteen Administration votes, cast in secret, would have been enough to ram the biomass proposal through the Council. Fortunately, the SNP Administration Group insisted on a free vote, and the biomass plan was scotched.

My view is that people watching or listening to pretend debates on fait accomplis will feel resentful. They will be surprised at the occasionally brutal chairing of debates and discourteous treatment of their elected representatives. They will demand better behaviour. This is one of the reasons why I believe broadcasting Council meetings is essential. There are others which I will write about in another blog. But expose us to the piercing light of public scrutiny. Please. It would do Dundee the world of good.

Drag us into the light ...

At the council meeting on Monday night a journalist up in the gallery made the mistake of trying to tape the meeting. Yes, it was a public meeting of elected representatives and officers, and the item under discussion was in no way confidential.

Taping is not allowed without prior permission, and so the journalist was politely asked to stop. Given the hundreds of cctv cameras positioned around Dundee city centre, the Council Chamber is possibly the only place in DD1 where you can escape the camera's gaze or the microphone's reach.

There can't be much difference between the way we take decisions now and the way our forebears operated in the days before Dundee smashed up its Adam Townhouse and replaced it with the cold, gloomy, oppressive, acoustically dreadful and exceedingly uncomfortable Council Chamber. We pore over thick paper reports, ignoring all the advances of the 20th and 21st century such as computers, tablets or digital projectors.

And we behave badly. There's seldom anyone to see, and even on busy nights only a minority of the electorate can get the true measure of their elected representatives in action.

Which is one reason why we need to livestream the proceedings of the City Council. Video would be best, audio would do at a pinch. If you know that the folks who lobbied you on a school closure proposal or a budget cut were watching - or could watch later online - you might take more time to prepare your speech, work up some sensible arguments, cut out the insults. Or produce better insults.

It would also open up our strange and opaque procedures to public scrutiny. When a deputation makes a great case, wins the argument hands down and still loses because the decisions have been made in advance at private political group meetings, people might feel displeased. When the council appoints its new team of Conveners after the next election, people might expect to see them make speeches about the great things they intend to do. Except that no discussion is allowed on the appointment of Conveners. That might be a surprise too.

So let's catch up with the technology revolution and have councillors doing their work where people can see them .. online. Let's leave the recordings on the web so that promises made and assurances given can be checked against practice at a later date. (Did I mention these are not minuted?). And let's raise our game so that the people of Dundee can be proud of their elected representatives, putting forward their arguments confidently and taking reasoned decisions. I think we should start with the budget meeting on 25 February.