From Daniella Fergusson, National Student Representative to the Canadian Institute of Planners Council

Hi everyone,

CIP Council has an upcoming meeting in Toronto on June 18-19. Council will be discussing Planning for the Future. Ultimately, if Planning for the Future goes ahead, the CIP bylaw changes required to implement the changes will be voted on by the membership at large at the October national conference in Montreal. If passed, the project will be implemented in the beginning of 2011. So, the only say you get in this is 1) to give feedback to the head of your planning program and affiliate who will each give feedback to CIP, and 2) to vote on the bylaw changes if/when they occur.

The planning programs across Canada have only recently seen the reports and have begun to express major concerns about the way in which the reports were produced without their involvement. Programs are also concerned about the content of the proposals. You should contact the head of your planning program to get further information about their views. Affiliates are also preparing detailed comments. You can find information about the CIP Project and all reports athttp://www.planningincanada.ca/

You don’t know what Planning for the Future is? Basically, Planning for the Future is probably the most significant change to affect membership and professional standards in the history of Canada’s planning profession. Right now, everything is proposed and nothing has been implemented, but there has been a lot of pressure from some members for CIP Council and Affiliates to approve Planning for the Future and begin implementing the changes.

Why should you care? Unless you were already a Provisional Member by January 1 2010, these changes will affect you. We all will have to abide by the new membership standards if we want to be registered planners.

Here are 5 important things you should know:

1. Planning for the Future defines nationwide what planning is

Under Planning for the Future, a proposed Professional Standards Board (a partnership between CIP and affiliates that is independent from CIP) will define and administer the professional certification and school accreditation processes. According to the Accreditation Task Force Draft Report (also attached), the Professional Standards Board will have 8 members each appointed by his/her affiliate for a 3 year term.

The upside of this is that it will be easier for us to move around professionally in Canada. For example, it will be easier to be educated in one province and then work in another province later.

The downside is that it may be harder for schools to be both accredited and offer a niche education that falls outside of a strict CIP definition of planning. To illustrate, the Accreditation Task Force Draft Report proposes that recognized planning degrees be in the field of planning, with planning defined as

“the scientific, aesthetic and orderly disposition of land, resources, facilities and services with a view to securing the physical, economic, and social efficiency, health and well being of urban and rural communities.”

Is that how you and your school defines planning?

2. Planning for the Future changes how you join CIP as a professional

Who decides what a professional planner is? Who decides what process you follow and how long it takes to be a professional planner? This is all being decided by Planning for the Future.

Planning for the Future proposes that new professionals be required to take a national exam (probably written) to see whether you meet 1) knowledge and skill competency standards and 2) ethical standards. See the Competency Standards Task Force report for more detail.

• Knowledge Competency standards (functional):
  • Human settlements
  • history and principles of community planning
  • government, law and policy
  • plan and policy considerations
  • plan and policy making
  • plan and policy implementation
  • developments in planning and policy
• Skills Competency standards (enabling):
  • critical thinking
  • interpersonal skills
  • communication
  • leadership
  • professional and ethical behavior

To become a Full member of CIP under Planning for the Future…

• If you receive a CIP Accredited Planning Degree and are employed in a planning job, you will have to:
  • have 2 years of professional planning experience
  • complete a 1-year mandatory mentorship program
  • complete a mandatory ethics and professionalism course, and
  • take a national exam.
• If you did not receive an accredited degree, you have to:
  • have a minimum of 5 years of professional planning experience
  • complete a Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition of Competencies
  • complete 1 additional year of professional planning experience (this makes at least 6 total)
  • finish a 1+ year mentorship
  • take the ethics and professionalism course, and
  • take the national exam.
  • This is an increase in time compared to the current system. The Certification Standards report states, “The actual number of years to satisfy the competencies will often exceed the five year requirement.”

Details about the ethics and professionalism course are in the Ethical Standards Task Force Report. Details about mentorship and PLAR are in the Certification Standards report. PLAR is also defined in the Membership Standards Manual.

In smaller communities, it may be hard to find a professional mentor, and it will be your responsibility to secure one! You will only have 90 days to find a mentor, too.

Also, if you graduate from a program that is not certified by CIP, you’ll have to have 6 years professional experience before you can become a full member. 6 years is a long time for someone to work without having professional certification. Finally, the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition of Competencies (known as PLAR) isn’t well defined at the moment, but could be quite an onerous process.

3. Planning for the Future defines the curriculum for planning schools

Basically, the Professional Standards Board would accredit schools and curricula. So, the way that planning education is structured and recognized will change. All currently accredited programs as well as new programs looking to be accredited will have to abide by Professional Standards Board requirements, especially regarding the knowledge-based, skills-based, and ethics competencies identified by the Professional Standards Board. Will the Board adopt the strongly progressive standards that students want?

Right now, it is proposed that the board be made up of 8 representatives appointed by each Affiliate. However, there is no seat at the table for educators or students.

Check out the Accreditation Task Force Draft Report (attached) for how Planning for the Future expects schools to structure their curricula. Are you in a school with fewer than 4 full-time professors who are primarily appointed to the planning program, have a planning degree, and are members of CIP? If not, your planning school may not be recognized.

4. Council has already endorsed in principle  the Planning for the Future reports, but a lot of details about the framework are still unknown.

For example, we still don’t know how much all of this will cost you. We don’t know what kind of fee you will have to pay to take the exam and the ethics and professionalism course. It certainly won’t be free, as the whole accreditation and certification program will be self-funding through fees.

The Planning Accreditation Board, which remember is 8 appointed people, will be shaping the direction of the whole planning profession by determining how schools will meet accreditation standards, by writing the professional examination, by writing the professionalism and ethics course curriculum, etc. But, nothing outlines what kinds of skills or competencies these people should have. None of these members will be specifically educators or students. And, according to current reports, they could each serve on the Board for 6 years, take 3 years off, and then serve another 6 years until someone else is appointed. What do you think about the whole planning profession being controlled by 8 appointed people?

Finally, none of the paperwork that schools would be required to fill out to become accredited has been developed yet.

5. A large portion of membership, including students, has been completely left out of the process of Planning for the Future.

So far, the process has involved the CIP National/Affiliate Membership Committee working with a consultant to draft a series of reports about various aspects of Planning for the Future. Drafts of the reports have been sent to Affiliate leadership for feedback and comments. The affiliates are charged with educating their membership about the proposed changes.

Critics of the Planning for the Future process have identified the lack of participation in some of the task forces, such as the Accreditation Task Force (that’s the one with the 60 year old definition of planning). For example, the Accreditation task force only had one (1) face-to-face meeting, one (1) teleconference, and exchanged comments about draft reports via email. Members of the task forces did not have the opportunity to review comments made about draft reports by their fellow members. How representative does that process sound to you?

Furthermore, the Task Force reports were often not approved by the consensus of task force members. This is worth knowing, especially as the task forces generally only had about 10 members each. Although this whole process has been ongoing since 2006, the first time that many people saw these reports was two months ago.

Comments? Confused? Concerned?

Contact your planning program head and affiliate President to tell them what you think. Or, you can let me know and I’ll bring up comments and concerns at our Council meeting. Please copy me on any written submission you make to your program head or Affiliate President, so that I am aware of what you think and am more prepared at our Council meeting. The most recent 4 reports (Accreditation of Planning Programs, Membership Standard, A proposal to Establish a Professional Standards Board, and Report of the Fellows Task Force) have been endorsed in principle by CIP Council, and are currently under review by the Affiliates, with feedback/endorsement requested by June 21, 2010. So, you have just under a month to tell your affiliate and department head what you think.

About Planning for the Future

In 2006, the Canadian Institute of Planners decided to re-examine and upgrade the professional membership standards and processes in Canada. The project, originally called Membership Continuous Improvement Project (MCIP), is now known as the Planning for the Future (PFF) project. The professional membership standards of other countries, like the UK and the US, have been referenced in justifying the need for change but strangely their experiences with reform and their specific innovations have not been examined. Planning for the Future was seen largely as necessary for lobbying provinces to change legislation to require professional accreditation for people in the planning field. These changes are being justified in part as a result of Federal labor mobility requirements.

Generally, some practitioners are concerned that other professions will encroach on the type of work that planners do. Also, there is a perception (correct or not) that if planning professionals have to take a test to become certified, then planning becomes a more “legitimate” profession, like law, medicine, architecture, etc. where practicing professionals have to pass a test to become certified.

Want to learn more?

Here’s an article in Planning West by Karen Russell MCIP, PIBC Membership Committee, and Dave Crossley, PIBC Administrative Director. http://www.pibc.bc.ca/classified/files/1336-PlanningForFuture-PlanningWest-Mar2010.pdf

CIP also has a website that details more about the process here:http://www.planningincanada.ca/

Thanks for reading this whole email! You are the future of the planning profession, and it’s important that your views are considered in this important change!

Daniella

—
Daniella Fergusson

M.A. Planning Candidate, University of British Columbia
National Student Representative to the Canadian Institute of Planners Council
http://daniellafergusson.com