Subject benchmark statements
Academic standards - Town and country planning

Subject benchmark statements

Subject benchmark statements provide a means for the academic community to describe the nature and characteristics of programmes in a specific subject. They also represent general expectations about the standards for the award of qualifications at a given level and articulate the attributes and capabilities that those possessing such qualifications should be able to demonstrate.

This Subject benchmark statement, together with the others published concurrently, refers to the bachelors degree with honours.

Subject benchmark statements are used for a variety of purposes. Primarily, they are an important external source of reference for higher education institutions when new programmes are being designed and developed in a subject area. They provide general guidance for articulating the learning outcomes associated with the programme but are not a specification of a detailed curriculum in the subject. Benchmark statements provide for variety and flexibility in the design of programmes and encourage innovation within an agreed overall framework.

Subject benchmark statements also provide support to institutions in pursuit of internal quality assurance. They enable the learning outcomes specified for a particular programme to be reviewed and evaluated against agreed general expectations about standards.

Finally, Subject benchmark statements may be one of a number of external reference points that are drawn upon for the purposes of external review. Reviewers do not use Subject benchmark statements as a crude checklist for these purposes however. Rather, they are used in conjunction with the relevant programme specifications, the institution's own internal evaluation documentation, in order to enable reviewers to come to a rounded judgement based on a broad range of evidence.

The benchmarking of academic standards for this subject area has been undertaken by a group of subject specialists drawn from and acting on behalf of the subject community. The group's work was facilitated by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which publishes and distributes this statement and other statements developed by similar subject-specific groups.

In due course, but not before July 2005, the statement will be revised to reflect developments in the subject and the experiences of institutions and others who are working with it. The Agency will initiate revision and, in collaboration with the subject community, will make arrangements for any necessary modifications to the statement.

This statement is © The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2002.

It may be reproduced by educational institutions solely for educational purposes, without permission. Excerpts may be reproduced for the purpose of research, private study, or review without permission, provided full acknowledgement is given to the subject benchmarking group for this subject area and to the copyright of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

The statement's purpose

1. The purpose of this Subject benchmark statement (statement) is to make explicit for the subject community of town and country planning (hereafter referred to as 'planning'¹) the standards of awards for undergraduate honours degree programmes in the United Kingdom (UK). It will also provide useful guidance where planning studies is a significant part of a programme's content. Programmes in planning include a variety of delivery models (eg 3, 3+1, 4 or 5 years, including those with linked undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications). It is for institutions to explain and justify the particular programme that they have adopted in relation to this statement.

2. In most developed societies the practice of planning is a statutory and professional process that has major impacts on the economic and social life of everyone. This professional activity of planning takes place at a variety of scales (local, regional, national and supra-national), and within communities in a wide range of forms). In the UK most planners belong to a regulated profession with its own professional organisation, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

3. Whilst the professional requirements for planning programmes have influenced this statement, diversity is an important characteristic of planning as an academic subject. The guidance here is therefore deliberately wider than that required to inform professional accreditation. Providers may, however, wish to use this statement when meeting the specific accreditation requirements of the RTPI.

The challenge of planning

4. Planning is a activity that has an important role to play in delivering and safeguarding many of the aspirations that civilised societies hold dear - environmental sustainability, social equity, cultural diversity and economic prosperity. It needs committed, talented and creative individuals to help deliver its evolving agenda, working across the private, public and voluntary sectors.

5. Current challenges faced by planning graduates include:

the deterioration of global and local environments;
the regeneration of declining or under-utilised urban and rural assets;
the opportunities and threats posed by globalisation and new technologies;
changing living patterns and redistributing populations;
the delivery of high quality public and private environments.

6. Planning generates creative proposals for change, by means of negotiation and advocacy within a complex web of competing interests. Positive action is at the heart of planning, and it operates within a wide context of environmental, social, economic, legal and governance constraints.

7. As an academic discipline, planning is the study of the way societies plan, design, manage and regulate change in the built and natural environment. It therefore includes the study of why and how (and with what consequences) societies intervene, shape, organise and change natural and built environments, in order to secure an agreed range of social, economic and environmental objectives.

8. The academic core of the discipline is the study of the rationale for planning and how it is practised. This necessarily involves understanding not only the processes of spatial change in the built and natural environments, but also studying the arguments for intervening in these processes. It requires an understanding of the operation and outcomes of land, property and development markets from a variety of perspectives, including the economic, financial and legal aspects. It also requires an understanding of design, and the development of sustainable built and natural environments.

¹ Because of its diversity planning has been referred to by a variety of terms (including 'spatial planning', 'land-use planning', 'town and country planning', 'town planning', city and regional planning', 'urban planning', and so on). In this statement, 'planning' is usedas a generic title, and 'planners' as a general term to include all those involved in planning as an activity, whether professional, statutory or otherwise.

Defining principles

9. A number of principles can be defined that distinguish planning from other academic disciplines

(i) Planning is concerned with relationships between society and space

Planning is about determining the quality of the relationships between people and space. Planners are as much concerned with the impact of their decisions on people and communities and on their quality of life, as they are with the treatment and development of space. Thus the roles, aspirations and powers of politicians, professionals, landowners and developers, organisations and community groups, and other communities of interest, are of critical importance within planning; alongside the importance of an awareness of design, and the physical organisation and sustainability of space.

(ii) Planning is holistic and integrative

A key strength of planning education is its ability to develop and consider the overview. A key skill of the planner is to synthesise; to recognise the core issues within multi-faceted problems; and to be able to propose focused, effective courses of action, and responses to these problems. Planning is as much concerned with managing the whole environment as with the detail of any of its constituent parts.

(iii) Planning attempts to manage processes of change through deliberate and positive actions

Planning is a discipline concerned with creating and co-ordinating action in the environment, and as such requires students to be familiar with a wide range of material, with a view to taking well-informed prescriptive actions in the real world of the built and natural environments. Planners are therefore, first and foremost, creative problem-solvers. Planning prescriptions require an understanding of the balances of power within societies and organisations, and the limitations that these impose upon effective planning action.

(iv) Planning requires appropriate administrative and legal frameworks for implementing action

Planning invariably involves societies in developing appropriate administrative organisations and processes to regulate development within legal frameworks related to individual and collective property rights. Knowledge of such frameworks is essential for those wishing to understand planning.

(v) Planning involves the allocation of limited resources

Planning actions often result in changes in the distributions of social, economic and environmental costs and benefits on different individuals and groups within societies. Thus planning requires an evaluation of the likely impacts of decisions, and value judgements about their effects, and how they might be influenced. Planning can be used for oppressive as well as altruistic purposes, and students need an understanding of the contexts in which each might occur.

(vi) Planning requires the study, understanding and application of a diverse set of multidisciplinary knowledge

Planning requires an understanding of the relationships between underlying theory; conceptual thinking and analysis; and policy formulation, evaluation and implementation. It is an activity whose scope and legitimacy is contested, and in which a variety of justifications and views about its purposes and possible outcomes have to be understood, discussed and reviewed.

Knowledge and understanding in planning

10. Key areas of knowledge and understanding that a planning graduate should be able to demonstrate might typically include the following :

(i) Processes of change in the environment

processes of socio-economic change and their spatial outcomes;
development processes and the nature of land and property markets;
processes of environmental, ecological and physical change;
processes of interaction in the built and natural environments;
interrelationships between land-uses and human activities in multi-dimensional space, including traffic and transport.

(ii) Practice of planning

impacts and consequences of planning upon individuals, communities and key interest groups;
political and institutional frameworks at all levels, and their procedures;
legal and administrative arrangements for planning;
plan and policy-making methods, techniques and processes at a variety of scales;
planning as a tool for development, conservation and sustainability;
awareness and understanding of design in the environment;
application of knowledge to action, and theory to practice;
a familiarity with the professional organisation and practice of planning in a variety of international institutional, legal and cultural settings;
a familiarity with planning professional and administrative arrangements as a management discipline and activity;
a familiarity with the management, financing and implementation of planning projects.

(iii) Debates in planning

the development of planning thought and practice;
the philosophical and theoretical explanations underpinning the evolution and practice of planning;
the arguments for and against planning as a part of intervention or non-intervention in processes of societal and environmental change;
substantive theory concerning the processes of societal and environmental change (drawn, for example, from the disciplines of geography, sociology, economics and environmental science);
the conceptual basis of value-systems and ethics, and the justification of the choices made in planning in terms of goals, actions and outcomes;
political structures and processes and the nature and use of power.

Skills in planning

11. Key planning skills that a planning graduate should be able to demonstrate might typically include the following:

(i) Subject skills

identification and formulation of planning problems, and the writing of clear aims and objectives;
translation of theory and knowledge into practical planning policies and actions, including the formulation and articulation of strategies, plans and designs;
collecting, analysing, evaluating and synthesising planning data;
academic research and professional investigation in the planning field;
monitoring and evaluation of planning interventions and outcomes;
creative problem-solving skills;
practical design skills;
negotiating, facilitating and networking skills;
role-playing skills for multi-professional working environments.

(ii) Transferable skills

preparing and presenting arguments and illustrative materials in a variety of presentational formats - written, graphic and oral;
numeracy and use of statistical data;
information sourcing and literacy;
using IT in work preparation and presentation, and for problem-solving;
self-learning, and managing and producing work to time on an individual basis; and working effectively in and with groups;
being aware of, listening to and evaluating the opinions and values of others;
demonstrating an ability to exercise initiative, original thought and independence, within a system of personal values.

Specialisms in planning

12. In addition to a defined set of core knowledge and understanding, and skills, planning programmes should generally expect students to obtain specialist knowledge and skills in one or more areas of planning activity. Such areas might include, for example, countryside planning, economic development, European planning, housing, regional planning, sustainable development, transport planning, urban design, and urban regeneration.

Teaching, learning and resources

Strategies

13. Learning, teaching and assessment strategies for planning programmes should meet the normal precepts for good academic practice, set out in the Code of practice of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and internally within institutions. They should foster in planning students an enthusiasm for taking responsibility for their learning, and developing a life-long appetite for critically reflective appraisal and career development.

14. Strategies should be based around developing a clear, progressive accumulation of the required knowledge and understanding, skills, and specialism(s), which enables students to test their own personal development as planning graduates as they progress from level to level.

15. Where appropriate, strategies should be developed with advice, collaboration and inputs from suitable professional colleagues in planning practice. Where outside professional assessors are used (ie for such elements as project work, field studies or work placement experience), planning programmes should integrate such learning, teaching and assessment procedures within their general programmes of quality assurance, training and assessment, and ensure that they meet the programme's overall standards.

16. All forms of planning teaching and learning should actively involve the student, and should seek to build upon its traditions of project-based work.. Individual student coursework, undertaken both on its own and in group working situations, is particularly to be encouraged within planning programmes.

17. On completion of honours undergraduate planning programmes, graduates should typically have completed at least one major piece of work that demonstrates their individual research, problem-solving and evaluative competencies in planning, within a capacity for reflective, self-directed learning.

Resources

18. Planning programmes require a comprehensive teaching and learning resource base, equipped to deliver effectively the wide range of planning education. A well-founded planning programme should have :

a variety of teaching and learning spaces, including spaces for project work. A diverse range of situations and locations should be used, including, where appropriate, the use of the professional workplace for case studies and study placement opportunities;
a wide variety of learning resources, such as: specialist libraries; IT and computer-aided teaching and learning; graphics, audio-visual and recording facilities to support student learning.

Standards

19. The intention of this part of the statement is to establish standards against which planning students can be examined. The standards apply to all the areas of knowledge and understanding, skills and specialism discussed previously. The intention is that the table (below) should be used as a means to assess particular student learning outcomes for which planning programmes have responsibility. In this regard, as the standards are generic rather than specific to particular areas of planning, they can be applied across a diverse range of programme requirements.

20. While the standards given here for 'threshold' and 'excellent' students may be generally equated to Third and First Class students within the general UK degree classification system for undergraduate honours candidates, it is not expected that such students should perform at the suggested level of attainment in all aspects of every given standard. This comprehensive attainment requirement is not expected of 'typical' planning students either. The standards set out in the table are meant as guidelines only, for students completing honours degree planning programmes.

Threshold students should be able to :

1. demonstrate basic understanding in the treatment and exposition of the subject matter, making basic connections between the different areas of the curriculum;

2. describe and illustrate arguments for planning as a form of action within processes of change;

3. describe and illustrate political, legal, institutional and administrative frameworks and procedures in planning;

4. exhibit basic understanding of the complexities of planning issues and problems;

5. demonstrate basic understanding of theory and make elementary connections between theory and practice;

6. have a basic understanding of the meaning of values and ethics in planning;

7. define and analyse simple planning problems;

8. make basic use of evidence and information sources;

9. describe, illustrate and utilise some plan and policy-making methods and processes;

10. formulate and propose elementary policies, strategies and courses of actions as responses to planning problems;

11. communicate basic planning information, ideas, principles, arguments and proposals through written, graphic, oral and electronic means, and demonstrate basic written, numeracy, oral, IT and information literacy skills;

12. work both individually and in groups;

13. demonstrate a basic awareness of professional working practices, roles and responsibilities, and values;

14. besides having a general knowledge of planning, can demonstrate some specialist knowledge in one or more areas of planning activity.

Typical students should be able to :

1. demonstrate understanding and insight in the treatment and exposition of the subject matter, making connections between the different areas of the curriculum;

2. evaluate arguments for planning as a form of action within processes of change;

3. evaluate political, legal, institutional and administrative frameworks and procedures in planning;

4. exhibit a good understanding of the complexities of planning issues and problems;

5. demonstrate a good understanding of theory and make appropriate connections between theory and practice;

6. demonstrate a critical understanding of the place of values and ethics in planning;

7. define and analyse planning problems effectively and appropriately;

8. make effective use of evidence and information sources;

9. evaluate and effectively utilise a variety of plan and policy-making methods and processes;

10. formulate and propose cogent policies, strategies and courses of action as responses to planning problems;

11. effectively and fluently communicate planning information, ideas, principles, arguments and proposals through written, graphic, oral and electronic means, and demonstrate effectively, written, numeracy, oral, IT and information literacy skills;

12. work effectively individually and in groups, demonstrating some initiative and autonomy;

13. demonstrate a good awareness and understanding of professional working, roles, responsibilities and values; together with some professionalism in undertaking assignments;

14. besides having a good general knowledge of planning as a discipline, can demonstrate good specialist knowledge in one or more areas of planning activity.

Excellent students should be able to:

1. demonstrate originality and flair in the treatment and exposition of the subject matter, making excellent connections between the different areas of the curriculum;

2. critically evaluate arguments for planning as a form of action within processes of change;

3. critically evaluate political, legal, institutional and administrative frameworks and procedures in planning;

4. exhibit an excellent level of understanding of the complexities of planning issues and problems;

5. demonstrate a depth of insight into theory and to make excellent connections between theory and practice;

6. demonstrate critical insights into the place of values and ethics in the profession and practice of planning;

7. define and analyse planning problems rigorously and with excellent insights;

8. synthesise and integrate a wide range of evidence and information;

9. critically evaluate and effectively utilise a wide variety of plan and policy-making methods and processes;

10. formulate and propose incisive and innovative policies, strategies and courses of action as responses to a variety of planning problems;

11. effectively and fluently communicate a wide variety of planning information, ideas, principles, arguments and proposals through well-prepared written, graphic, oral and electronic means, and demonstrate effectively and fluently written, numeracy, oral, IT and information literacy skills;

12. work very well individually and in groups, demonstrating high levels of initiative, autonomy and leadership;

13. demonstrate an excellent awareness and understanding of professional working, roles, and responsibilities and values; and a high professionalism in undertaking assignments;

14. besides having an excellent knowledge of planning as both a discipline and a professional activity, can demonstrate in-depth specialist knowledge in one or more areas of planning activity.

Appendix 1 Membership of the benchmark group

Professor J. Alden (Chair)	Cardiff University
Ms. C. Booth	Sheffield Hallam University
Mr. R. Bristow	University of Manchester
Dr. M. Carmona	University College London
Professor C. Couch	Liverpool John Moores University
Professor A. Crook	University of Sheffield
Mr. J. Derounian	University of Gloucestershire
Professor B. Field	De Montfort University
Professor A. Hull	University of the West of England, Bristol
Mrs. B. Illsley	University of Dundee
Ms. S. Percy	South Bank University
Dr. S. Tiesdell	University of Aberdeen
Ms J. Boggan (Secretary to Panel)	Cardiff University

Subject benchmark statements Academic standards - Town and country planning

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