Professional Self Responsibility

Professional self responsibility means minimum regulatory intervention. Every individual professional has to bear his own responsibility for his own decision, and hence absorbing risks incur related to any of his decision. For building construction sector, the designer has to design, endorse, build and certify his work until completion and compliance. The designer has to adhere to the agreed standard operating procedures, to observe professional code of ethics and conduct as well as standing firm on his decision without any compromise that will affect the quality of the projects. Professional self responsibility is parrallel to the call for good governance and corporate social responsibility. Professional are trained in their field of specialisation and entrusted by the society to work with high ethical value to perform their duties based on their professional knowledge and skills. In summary, they are trusted by the general public to safeguard societal interest and individual right. Thereby, rightly so if the professional observes self responsibility in full.

For professional self responsibiwlity to be implemented successfully and effectively, the professional must be ready to design with full technical and management capacity without fear and favour. The nation must have sufficient number of professional to undertake the jobs or else the shortage of manpower might have eluded into the quality of output if everybody is rushing to complete the jobs. The client must respect the work of the professional and should not trying to influence the professional of going against the rules, perhaps bending the rules is also not encouraged. The Authority should establish clear and transparent rules and guidelines to facilitate self regulation to take place.

Since 2007, Certificate of Completion and Compliance or CCC system has been introduced to replace the Certificate of Fitness for Occupation or CFO system for the building industry in Malaysia. Under the new system, architect or engineer as the submitting person for building plan approval is the authority to certify and acknowledge that the building has been completed and complied with the approved building plan and its conditions. They bear full responsibility of any defects and wrongdoings once the CCC has been issued. The building owners can take the authority issuing CCC to task if they are not satisfied with the work done. The Local Authorities can also report any non compliance of building work to the respective Board of Engineers or Board of Architect if it is found that CCC has been issued without compliance with the approved plan. The authority is given to the professional subjected to them absorbing full responsibility and risks.

During the 40th AGM of MIP recently, a motion to study the possibility of planners to become certified body on planning permission was discussed. It was mentioned that in Brisbane, Australia, registered planners that verified by the city council are empowered to recommend the issuing of planning permission by the council. They will help in analysing the submission and making recommendation for approval. The planners' involvement is to help expedite the process of evaluation and consideration, and hence the regulatory involvement of the council will be lesser. It was noted that absolute power to approve or reject the application is still laid with the council, and not the planners. In this respect, I think the principle of self responsibility is exercised in which duty of evaluation has been delegated to the planners. The planners have to practice higher code of ethic and professional practice in making recommendation to the Council for final approval. Their recommendation is highly at stake and can be challenged if inappropriate decision has been made.

I believe similar arrangement was institutionalised in the Town and Country Planning Act, 1976 (Act 172). Under the provision of Act 172, any submission of planning permission application has to be accompanied by the Planning Proposal Report (LCP) amongst others. LCP is the development brief or report detailing the proposed site profile, the development plan policies related to the site, site analysis, the proposed development concept and detail proposal, the implementation stages, phasing and financial and others. LCP is a document highlighting the suitability of the proposed development in concurrence with the development plan. It will help to bring to the attention of the local planning authority that the most suitable type of development is proposed for the site. Hence, the format, content and context of the LCP is very important and critical as an useful document and references to the local planning authority in making correct decision on planning permission application. In this respect, the planners is practicing self responsibility with high code of conduct and ethic if the LCP is prepared with high professional skill. LCP must make easy for local planning authority to refer for consideration or else it will not serve the purpose as stipulated in the law.

If a LCP is becoming a document because of its statutory requirement for submission without being use as a "MUST READ" document to be referred during the process of considering the application, then I strongly believe that the planners have not done the justice of practicing higher code of professional ethic as embeded in the Act 172. The more lightly we, the practicing planners and the public sector planners look at LCP, the lesser self responsibility we are, I presume. I believe in adopting the motion as brought up in the AGM, we need to discuss in details the way forward for LCD. We should study the modus operandi, the content, the context and the process of LCP preparation and evaluation for planning permission application. This, itself is the first step towards self responsibility.