Conflict of interest checks before an independent review
Run the conflict check before you open the documents. The six questions to ask, the three categories of conflict, and how to decline without breaching a confidence.
Run the conflict check before you read the documents, not after. Once you have seen a confidential appraisal or an unpublished officer view, a conflict you then discover cannot be cured by handing the file back, and the professional codes treat the possession of that information as the problem. A conflict of interest check on a planning review instruction takes twenty minutes and protects the only thing the review is worth anything for, which is independence.
Most conflicts in planning work are not dishonest. They come from long careers in small markets, where the same consultancies, the same sites and the same authorities recur.
Why conflicts surface late
Instructions to review someone else's work arrive with thin information. An authority asks for an independent view on a viability appraisal and names the scheme but not the appellant's advisers. A developer asks for a second opinion on an ecology chapter and sends the chapter without the covering correspondence. A solicitor asks whether a transport assessment stands up, and the site address arrives three emails later.
So the facts that create the conflict, the identity of the other parties and the planning history of the land, often turn up after the fee has been agreed. By then the reviewer has an incentive to find no conflict.
The three categories worth holding in your head come from the way the surveying profession frames them, and they work across planning disciplines. An own interest conflict, where your interests or those of your firm cut across the client's. A party conflict, where you act for two or more parties with adverse interests in the same matter. And a confidential information conflict, where duties of confidence to one client collide with a duty of disclosure to another.
Checks to run before accepting instructions
Ask for six things in writing before you say yes:
- The site address and, where there is one, the application or appeal reference, so the planning history can be searched.
- The identity of the client, and whether the client is acting for a disclosed principal.
- The identity of every other party and adviser involved, including the author of the document under review.
- The purpose of the review and who will see it, because a review for internal decision-making differs from one that will be published or used in evidence.
- The decision the review will inform, and the date by which it is needed.
- Whether any other adviser has already reviewed the same material and declined.
Then search your own records by site address, by client name and by adviser name, and search the authority's planning register for the site. The register search is the one people skip, and it is the one that catches prior involvement by a colleague who left two years ago.
Prior involvement with the site
Previous work on the same land is the most common disqualifier. Advising an earlier owner on development potential, preparing a pre-application submission, acting for a neighbour who objected, or sitting on a design review panel that considered the scheme all create a position you have already taken.
A position taken in good faith years ago is still a position. The test is not whether you would change your mind, but whether a reasonable observer would think your earlier involvement affects the weight of your review. On appeal that question gets asked out loud, and an inspector who hears it will discount the evidence rather than exclude it, which is the worse outcome because you will have been paid to weaken your client's case.
Where the prior involvement was peripheral, disclose it and let the client decide. Where it went to the merits of the same proposal, decline. Authorship history is relevant too, and why a planning report should name its author and date matters here because the document under review may carry a name from your own firm's past.
Acting for both sides on different matters
Firms above a certain size will almost always hold an instruction from the other party on something. That is not automatically a bar.
The question is whether the matters are related and whether the information held creates an adverse position. Acting for a housebuilder on a site in another region while reviewing its appraisal for an authority is a party conflict in substance even though the matters are geographically separate, because the commercial relationship is the problem. Acting for the same housebuilder four years ago on a completed scheme, with no live relationship, usually is not.
Information barriers are sometimes offered as the answer. Treat them with scepticism in a small team. A barrier works where there are wholly separate offices, separate systems and no shared supervision, and the codes expect informed written consent from every affected client even then. In a practice of twelve people, the honest answer is normally to decline.
Disclosure wording that satisfies an authority
Where you disclose and proceed, put the disclosure in the review document itself rather than only in the engagement letter. A short declaration near the front, covering four points, does the job: who instructed you and on what terms as to fee, any previous involvement with the site or the parties, confirmation that no part of the fee is contingent on the conclusion reached, and a statement that the opinions are your own professional opinions.
Contingent fees deserve a separate sentence. A success-related fee on a review instruction is close to indefensible, and where a reviewer is giving evidence, the duty to the tribunal overrides the duty to the client. Authorities increasingly ask the question directly in their terms for independent viability review work, and a reviewer who has to be asked has already lost ground.
The same declaration helps when the other side's expert reaches the opposite conclusion, which happens often enough to plan for. How that plays out in practice is set out in what happens when the council's expert disagrees with your consultant.
Declining and referring on
Decline in writing, briefly, and without explaining the conflict in a way that itself breaches a confidence. A line to the effect that your firm is unable to accept the instruction because of a conflict arising from a previous matter is sufficient. Do not return a partially completed review.
Then refer on properly. Give the client two or three names in the right discipline with the right competence, and say why the discipline matters. A viability review needs a valuer, an acoustics review needs a member of the relevant institute with measurement experience, and an ecology review needs the right licence class rather than a generalist. PlanScope's professional directory is one route for finding a reviewer who can sign off a draft report, and a request made through it records the scope and the status of the review.
Where the work is being done by a junior and signed by a chartered author, the conflict check belongs to the signatory, which is one of several reasons supervision chains need to be explicit.
Recording the check in the file
Write the check down on the day you do it. The note should record the date, who ran the check, what was searched, what was found, what was disclosed, and the client's written consent where consent was needed. Keep it with the engagement letter and keep it for as long as you keep the file.
Two years later, when a costs application or a complaint asks whether you were independent, the file note is the whole of your defence. A reconstructed answer is worth very little.
PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This article is general guidance rather than advice on your own professional obligations, which are set by your institute's code, so read the current version of that code. Browse all 66 PlanScope report types to see which ones carry a professional sign-off requirement.
Frequently asked questions
What should I ask for before accepting a review instruction?
The site address and any application or appeal reference, the client's identity and whether they act for a principal, the identity of all other parties and advisers including the document's author, the purpose of the review and its audience, the decision it informs, and whether another adviser has already declined the same work.
Does previous work on the same site always disqualify me?
Not always, but it often does. The test is whether a reasonable observer would think your earlier involvement affects the weight of the review. Peripheral involvement can be disclosed and the client left to decide. Work that went to the merits of the same proposal should normally lead you to decline the instruction outright.
Can an information barrier solve a conflict?
Only in limited circumstances. A barrier needs genuinely separate systems, offices and supervision, and the professional codes still expect informed written consent from every affected client. In a small practice with shared supervision it is very hard to operate one credibly, so declining is usually the honest answer.
Are contingent fees acceptable on a review?
No. A fee that depends on the conclusion reached undermines the independence the review exists to provide, and where the reviewer gives evidence the duty to the tribunal overrides the duty to the client. State in the review that no part of the fee is contingent on the outcome, because authorities commissioning independent work now ask directly.
How should the conflict check be recorded?
As a dated file note made on the day, recording who ran the check, what records and registers were searched, what was found, what was disclosed, and any written client consent. Keep it with the engagement letter for the life of the file, because it is the only evidence available if independence is challenged later.
Sources and further reading
This article is general guidance about the planning system in England and, where stated, the rest of the UK. It is not legal or professional advice. Check your local planning authority’s validation requirements and take professional advice for your specific site.