Professionals and Qualifications – Page 3

Checking an agent's accreditation before appointment

No register, no licensing and no protected title, so verification is the client's job. Fifteen minutes of checking tells you whether there is a qualification, insurance and a usable complaints route.

What a chartered planner adds to a small application

On a householder extension a planner buys you an accurate reading of the policies the case officer will apply, and someone who knows what a mid-case query means. Here is when that is worth paying for.

Air quality assessor competence and the IAQM guidance

Air quality competence is judged on method rather than letters after a name. Here is what the professional guidance expects, and the six objections officers raise.

Who prepares a flood sequential test and how it is judged

Anyone may write a flood sequential test, which is why so many are rejected. Here is what the planning officer assesses, and what the Environment Agency will not look at.

Structural engineer or building surveyor: who to instruct

A structural engineer designs and calculates. A building surveyor diagnoses what is wrong. Here is which report a council wants, which regime each belongs to, and the order to appoint them in.

Who is qualified to apply the BRE daylight guidance

Daylight and sunlight assessment has no statutory competence requirement, so the test is experience and method. Here is how to judge an assessor, review a report and tell planning daylight from rights of light.

Who signs a viability assessment and on what basis

A viability assessment is signed by a practitioner working to the RICS professional statement, which requires objectivity even when one party is paying. Here is what that means for the inputs, the reviewer and publication.

Heritage consultant competence for listed building work

No statute says who may write a statement of heritage significance for a listed building. Here is what a conservation officer reads for, which accreditation routes exist and how to brief an author on a small application.

Archaeologists, registers and who may excavate

The archaeological adviser decides who may excavate by deciding whose written scheme of investigation they will approve. Registers, accreditation, specialists and the archive problem.

Who can prepare a Phase 2 contamination report

Phase 2 is intrusive investigation producing quantitative risk assessment, so the competence question is sharper than for a desk study. What councils look for in the author, the laboratory and the sign-off.

When a council insists on a named professional author

A council can require a competent author. It cannot invent the requirement at the validation desk, and local list items must be published, proportionate and current.

What chartered status means across planning disciplines

Chartered status means an institute has tested competence and holds the member to a code. On a few planning reports a qualification is a legal requirement; on most it is an expectation.

Planning agent, consultant or doing it yourself

It comes down to whether the application needs an argument or just correct drawings and forms. Conservation areas, flood zones, protected trees and previous refusals are where an agent pays for itself.

Reviewing an AI drafted report as the named professional

Signing a draft makes you the author for professional purposes. The checks that decide your exposure are policy editions, traceable site facts and the gaps a draft filled instead of flagging.

Energy and overheating modelling: who holds what

Compliance modelling and dynamic simulation are done by different people with different accreditations. Asking which software and which accreditation is more useful than asking whether they have done one before.

Who can sign off a structural appraisal for a conversion

No statute names the qualification, but a conversion appraisal carries weight when a chartered engineer has inspected the building, states the limitations and answers the capable of conversion question directly.

Viability assessments: who may prepare and who reviews

Planning viability is valuation work, not spreadsheet work. The competence the authority expects, the benchmark land value questions a reviewer asks, and how to prepare for publication.

Archaeological competence and who holds the standard

Councils test both the practice and the individual directing archaeological fieldwork. What registration covers, what the written scheme must contain, and where the programme risk sits.

Transport planner competence and agreeing the scope first

Settle the scope of a transport assessment in writing before commissioning surveys. This covers professional competence, trip rate justification, junction model audits and where transport fees overrun.

Who may hold a European protected species licence

A mitigation licence names the ecologist whose competence Natural England has accepted for that species. Survey licences and mitigation licences are not the same thing.

Checking who actually wrote a consultant's report

The quality assurance page tells you whether anyone senior read the report. Here is how to check authorship, spot recycled templates and raise a concern properly.

Ecological clerk of works: when a site needs one

The ecological clerk of works implements the mitigation somebody else designed. The role only works if the authority to stop an operation is written into the contract.

Structural engineers for basement and retrofit work

Chartered status is the easy check. The gap that causes trouble on domestic basements is who designs the temporary works, and it is rarely explained to the homeowner.

Lighting designers and the obtrusive light guidance

Councils judge a lighting report by whether the author can demonstrate the scheme against the obtrusive light guidance for the right environmental zone. Here is how to pick and brief that person.