My Placement

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Reflection on skills developed and gained during my placement period at the London Borough of Barnet Planning Department

A work placement in a department that is constantly overworked and frequently understaffed would not seem to be the ideal situation. With no experience and little knowledge of the department in which I would be working, and little experience of life in a busy office, I approached my placement period with no small amount of trepidation. I had an idea that I would learn about the planning process peculiar to Barnet, and how it related to the planning processes of the rest of the country. Beyond that, my plans for the next nine months were sketchy. The placement had been arranged less than two weeks previously, after nearly a year of interviews and rejections for several other opportunities. My interview for the placement at Barnet had been brief, but the impression I had gained from my brief visit had been of constant work. This impression would remain with me throughout my placement, as I developed many skills and abilities through my work in the department.

Possibly the most important skill I learned during my time at Barnet was how to communicate with others. This process began early, on my third day, to be precise. I had already learned by this time that the period between twelve p.m. and two p.m. was the busiest time of day. The reasons behind this were simple: Anyone who had a question, problem, application or complaint would likely use their own lunch break to ring the planning department. On my third day of placement, the planning department, at least the for the Chipping Barnet section of the borough, was me.

The student who had been on placement for the previous six months was nearing the end of his placement, and the members of the team he had been working with were treating him to a meal over lunch. I was asked to answer the phones while they were away. Over the next two hours, I was subjected to a barrage of calls from people with a wide range of interests. At this stage of my placement, the most I could hope to do was take messages, and arrange for a planning officer to return their call later that day, but to explain that to the callers was often less than simple. Many felt, and this would be a recurring theme in phone conversations during my time in the planning department, that merely because I was answering the phone, I had to know every detail of their case. Why else was I answering the phone?

Communication wasn't just something that took place between the members of the public and the planning officers. Messages were passed between members of the same team, members of different teams, members of different departments and people on different floors. (For the record, the planning department is located on the 7^th floor of an eleven-story building.) As often as not, this would simply involve passing a note along, usually just leaving it on the recipient's desk if they weren't available. Occasionally, the message would require an immediate reply. This required the development of another ability; the ability to politely interrupt important conversations, to deliver a message or request that the recipient would rather not have been asked to deal with at that moment.

The planning department sent out hundreds of letters each day, responding to requests, delivering news of a nearby application, informing objectors of when they could object to a nearby application, and a multitude of other topics. It was noted early on in my placement that I was computer literate, and so I was occasionally asked to draft and type some of the more routine of these letters. The letters would follow a framework, clearly and concisely laying out the points that the planning officer wished to make. This was an excellent way for me to develop an understanding of many of the more common aspects of the planning department's work.

Another task I was often asked to carry out to was to research planning histories for a property or an area. Much of this research could be conducted through use of the decision notices. These are brief summaries of each application, dealing with the decision and reasons for refusal or conditions of approval. The notices were stored in the planning office, so this was not particularly difficult. However, it helped me in familiarising myself with the reasons why an application might be refused, or conditions that might be placed on it if approved. All of this information would need to be summarised briefly for ease of use of the planning officer. For major developments, or sites with numerous past applications, this could sometimes pose a real challenge, as I tried to decide what parts of the history could be omitted from the summary.

Sometimes researching the history of an application would require more than the summaries contained in the decision notices. Instead, the entire file or files would be required, and for this I would have to go to the basement storage room. Tracking down the appropriate files was often a challenge in itself, as they were often misplaced, out of order, or sometimes just missing. Frequently, the files would have been removed without notification, and would be unobtainable. In such cases, I would have to use what files I could find to try and piece together the missing information. Missing files from storage was a continuing problem for myself and many other members of the planning department. While I was able to improve things slightly by making an issue of the topic at a team meeting, files continued to be missed throughout my placement.

One ability that has shown little change from my placement is ability to effectively conduct research. I was able to obtain a great deal of information for my project from a number of sources, both within the council and through external bodies. However, I was unable to develop the ability to do effective research. This showed itself occasionally in the work I did in the planning department, where I had failed to consider an issue from every necessary viewpoint.

Because of the nature of the planning process, where the team leader must assess every approval or refusal a planning officer makes, it is often not possible to be independent. However, some aspects of working the planning department have nothing to do with the work itself. Organising the rota for dealing with phone calls, or for who will be on duty for public consultations are dealt with without need for approval. My own 'independent' projects included producing a checklist that helped improve my ability to deal with members of the public on the phone. Other members of the team with which I worked also used the checklist. I also suggested producing a floor-by-floor guide to the building in which we were based, as I found the layout of the floors to be confusing when I first started. This list is now present in all of the lifts in the building.

The London Borough of Barnet planning department is separated into three sections, of which I worked mostly with the Northern, or Chipping Barnet, team. I was able to settle into the team fairly quickly, especially once I was able to work without need for supervision. For the most part, each member of the team worked individually, as each planning officer had their own cases to deal with. However, each member of the team was always ready to assist anyone who needed assistance, and this included myself. The team helped me to improve my ability to calculate measurements of volume, in order that I would be able to help them deal with applications where the size of an extension was an issue.

When it came to my role in the team, I knew my place. I had no experience of planning, and while my knowledge grew with some speed during my placement, I was still a novice compared to planners with several decades' experience, in some cases all in the same department. Even those planners who had only recently gained their qualifications were far more knowledgeable than I, a fact of which I was always aware. I was content to help out where I could, in whatever manner I could. If this meant I would be answering phones for several hours, then that is what I would do. I found it helped to view every task as a valuable learning experience, regardless of how menial it might have seemed.

Working as a team member was always an exercise in communication. It was important to be able to arrange with members of my team what work I'd be able to do for them. I would often have to leave work until after I had completed several other tasks. It was difficult to gauge the seriousness of many pieces of work, and unless it was specified as requiring immediate attention, I would typically leave it until I'd completed all the other tasks I'd been given before hand. This generally didn't cause any problems, but occasionally I would be asked why something that was needed quickly hadn't been done yet. I had to learn to prioritise more effectively, and in this members of my team aided me, but it remains something I need to improve further.

As I mention elsewhere in this review, the work at Barnet planning department maintained a constant flow during my time there. This flow meant that there was sometimes little chance for the members of the team to take the time to help me learn new things about the work. When this happened, I could sometimes learn from other members of the team, but there were still times when everyone was busy, and unable to help me, and I had no work to do. At times like this I would have to use my own initiative to find something I could do.

My work in the planning department was regularly supervised, as much of what I did pertained directly to applications being processed. This was not a problem for me, as I found the presence of a supervisor to be reassuring. I knew that any mistakes I made would be pointed out to me, and from this I could learn not to repeat my errors.

By far the biggest challenge to my initiative was the project I was assigned to work on while on my placement. There were several reasons for this, firstly that this was the largest academic project I'd ever undertaken. Secondly, the amount of research required was initially daunting. I would have to obtain information from multiple sources, both inside and outside my immediate place of work. The most daunting aspect of the project, however, was the topic that agreed to do. I would spend the twelve months away from university studying air quality in the London Borough of Barnet, and the councils attempt to improve the quality. The project involved me working with the planning, highways, transport and environmental health departments in the council, as well as obtaining information from outside sources, such as other London authorities.

Trying to arrange research alongside my work with the planning department was a test of my initiative in itself. As with the rest of the members of the planning department, I often had multiple tasks to complete. Attempting to fit my research into this schedule was often a futile task, especially as much of my early research consisted of personal communications with other council workers, in other departments to mine. In the end, I suspect, I failed to gain access to information that would undoubtedly have been of use to me, simply because I was unable to find the right times to meet with the people who had the information.

My role as a placement student meant I was not required to take on a leading role during my time at Barnet. The personal projects I worked on, such as my university project, and clearing the backlog of incomplete applications, were almost completely individual projects. On the occasions I did work as part of a team, it was never in the role of team leader. Possibly the closest experience I had was in addressing a meeting of the team I was working with. As I was most often responsible for retrieving history files from the basement storage area, I made the request that all file removals be logged in order that there would be a more complete record of where files were. This procedure, which previously had only been intermittently adhered to, was constantly observed from that point onwards.

It is in this area of the placement that I feel I made the greatest progress. While I will freely acknowledge that I have a great deal to learn about the planning process, I feel that I learnt a great deal during my placement. From possessing little or no knowledge about the planning process, I now know much of the basics. Even in the very early days, most notably during my first time answering the phone, I was able to offer some assistance to callers. By the end of my placement, I was able to answer most simple queries regarding planning matters.

I was also able to use my increasing understanding of planning in answering letters sent in asking for assistance. In essence, this was little different to answering the phone calls, though somewhat more formal. It also involved me being able to select the appropriate letter template on the office computers. While the templates often featured little or not difference, sometimes they contained important details. It is important, for example, not to send out a letter to an applicant telling them their site will be visited by one of the local councillors unless this is actually the case. As councillor site visits are arranged for a specific time and date, misinforming the applicant could lead to them making a complaint regarding the matter.

Dealing with members of public over the phone was an important part of my placement. I was able, over the course of time at Barnet, to develop a professional and polite telephone manner which drastically reduced the number of unhappy people I had to deal with. By far the majority of the people I dealt with were ringing with regard to relatively simple queries. Whether it was regarding the due date of a decision, the receipt or otherwise of an application, or the result of a past application, I became adept at quickly delivering the answers required, and was often complimented on my phone manner, and my ability to answer callers' questions.

A problem I encountered many times during the course of the placement was my lack of ability to handle the calculations of volume common to many applications received. As these applications were often routine, I would frequently be asked to assist with them, specifically calculating the volume of the new extension and how I might relate to the volume of the original house. At first, my calculations would often be incorrect, to a greater or lesser degree. However, with help from other members of team, and regular practise, I was able to develop this ability.

It would come in useful many times, and I would frequently be asked to assist on these applications. The most memorable application came when asked to check the volume of a new proposal for a replacement house in a conservation area. While apparently routine, the house contained many difficult calculations due to its outbuilding, irregular shape, basement and unusual roof design. Being able to produce an accurate volume calculation for this application was a testament to the knowledge I had gained in this area during my time in the planning department.

Time management, as I have already mentioned, is not my best developed ability. However, in working on my project for university, I learned how to better assign time every day, or every week, or whenever work needed to be done on the project. Being allowed to work on the project while I was at work, I feel, enabled me to develop this skill. I was able to learn how to balance research and work on the project with the commitments that being a member of the Northern planning team bought me. Perhaps surprisingly, the time each day when I was required to answer the phones to members of the public was often an excellent time for working on my project. At this time, I was free of other commitments, and was sometimes able to go long periods without having to answer calls.

I knew I would be learning a great during the course of my placement, but I certainly did not anticipate the number of skills I would gain or develop. If asked before hand, I would have thought that many of the skills would have little or no relation to the work I was doing. A skill I used often, as I discuss elsewhere, is mental arithmetic. However, several times a week, I would be asked to check appeal statements for the council's planning appeal officer. This task, while on face value apparently boring, was extremely important. Appeal statements had to be phrased precisely, and any error on the part of the council could potentially cause a problem with the appeal. I was aware of the responsibility of this task, and was always careful in carrying it out. Whereas previously my ability to concentrate was not one of my more notable attributes, having to diligently check through dozens of pages of often unfamiliar terminology helped me improve somewhat in this respect.

As with summarising the decision notices, this task helped improve my abilities in several areas. Concentration, familiarity with terms and concepts to do with planning, improved knowledge of the borough and wider knowledge of the appeals process were benefits of this seemingly simple task. I found that many of the tasks I was given would aid me in improving my abilities in more than one way.

Regardless of how much I learned in my time in the planning department, however, there were still times, not infrequently, when I would need advice. In this, I was lucky. Nearly every member of the planning department I approached was willing to take time out from their day to aid me in whatever difficulty I had, be it a problem with a calculation, a response to a letter, a difficult call, or whatever. This experience reinforced my belief that it can't hurt to admit a lack of knowledge. While in the past I have sometimes not been prepared to speak up, my time at Barnet further cemented my belief that there is no shame in admitting a lack of knowledge.

Because of the nature of the work I was given while working at Barnet, working under pressure was rare. The most pressure was felt when reports had to be prepared for he public committee meetings, and I was only rarely involved in this process. The most pressure, for me, would come from the members of the public I dealt with on the telephone. As I have commented before, this aspect of the work I did at Barnet could easily take up two hours or more of my day, so a lot of my skills were tested in this way.

Difficult callers were an unpleasant reality of working at the planning department. Elderly callers would sometimes want to share the history of their house, before explaining why their neighbour shouldn't be allowed to extend their kitchen. Sometimes callers would be rude or abusive, though the answer to that was as simple as it was effective: hang up on them. Tempting though it was to trade abuse with those who had no better way of spending their afternoons, we were told the best way to deal with such callers was to simply cut them off. But the most difficult call I had to deal with was an architect who had made a basic mistake in drawing up the plans for a proposed extension. Having failed to take into account a previous extension on the property, he was unwilling to pay the increased fee the application required. Regardless of how carefully and patiently I tried to explain the situation, he flatly refused to admit that the mistake had been on his part, and I was forced, eventually, to arrange for him to discuss the matter with my team leader.

Before beginning my placement at Barnet, I was unsure of what to expect. I enjoyed my time at the department, and intend to pursue a career in town planning. My time as a placement student helped me familiarise myself with many facets of the planning process. With basic schemes, I learned what to look for when assessing an application's suitability. I learned many of the basic principles that are used to make decisions on a planning application, and was occasionally able to point out matters that had been overlooked by one of the planning officers.

I also learned more general abilities. My information technology skills were improved through regular use of computers. I learned how to work well as a member of a team, and how to interact in a working office, whereas my previous work experience had not involved that sort of working environment.

Some things didn't go so well. Trying to work on my project, and collect information for it was a constant problem. While I was able to obtain much of the information I required, it required a lot of effort on my part, which could have been better channelled into other areas. This stemmed from a lack of understanding on my part of what it was I required. Had I been more prepared to work through the information I had at an earlier stage, I would probably have been able to obtain all the information I required. This is clearly a skill I will need to work on, as it was obvious from observing the planning department at work that being well prepared is key to any situation.

The placement was a fantastic opportunity for me to experience life in a working environment. I was able to learn a lot, both about the job and about myself. Though the placement was unpaid, and the temptation was always present to, as one friend put it, "give them what they're paying for", I remained steadfast. Barnet invested a lot of time and effort into me, something they could easily have avoided. For the first time, I was able to gauge myself against people doing the job that I wanted to do. While I naturally was unable to measure up to their knowledge, their abilities, their experience, I was able to see where I could improve, and did improve during my placement.