BRITISH PROFESSIONS TODAY: THE STATE OF ... - Property Week

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Introduction continued >> Knowledge has become more specialized and technology more complex, resulting in greater power for established professions as well as the growth of new professions. Journalism, management consultancy, and public administration are just a few of the many occupations which have attained professional status in the twentieth century (Ibid.). The origins of many modern professional bodies are to be found in social clubs, formed to provide a forum to exchange ideas on a particular subject without any conscious intention of becoming a regulatory institution. For example, RICS counts as its antecedents the Surveyors Club (1792), the Land Surveyors Club (1834), and the Surveyors’ Association (1864). By 1868 surveyors in these and other clubs saw enough identity of purpose to create the Institution of Surveyors, and a Royal Charter was granted in 1881. The Law Society was founded in 1825, after several prominent lawyers met to call for the formation of a law institution to raise the reputation of the profession by setting standards and ensuring good practice (Sugarman 1994). As professions became more established, with distinct sets of interests, memberships, and bodies of knowledge, so they began to seek monopoly and privilege. To attain this, they had to enter into a special relationship with the state so as to achieve a monopoly, or at least licensure (MacDonald 1995). This agreement has come to be called the ‘regulative bargain’ with the state (Cooper et al. 1988). The political culture of a society, which influences the style of this regulative bargain, can be seen as crucial for the development of a profession. As a “mixed economy” Britain falls somewhere in between the extremes of the most capitalist or free-market oriented states, eg the United States, and the state-controlled, command economy of the former USSR (Perkin 1996). In continental Europe, professions generally have been and are mainly employed in the public sector, closely connected to and controlled by state authorities (Torstendahl and Burrage 1990). The Anglo-American ‘ideal type,’ by contrast, stresses the freedom of self-employed practitioners to control working conditions (Collins 1990). These differences are also reflected in the types of professionalisation; the Anglo-American type focuses on “private government” within an occupation, whilst the Continental type focuses on the political struggle for control within an elite bureaucratic hierarchy (Ibid.). So, the evolution of professional structures has not been a static or isolated series of events. Professions have been, and continue to function as, part of an important dialectical movement within British society. Professionals play key roles in reflecting and developing societal views, norms and procedures. One of the most obvious manifestations of this process is the standardised procedure of ‘precedent’ in English common law. Common law can be contrasted with the more rigorous, code-based civil law systems of continental Europe, in which judicial precedents are considered persuasive as opposed to binding. Professions have matured and evolved whilst influencing the concurrent development of the British system of government and constitution. 4
The unique role of trust in professional societies Just as individuals have grown increasingly dependent on professionals, so society as a whole has also become reliant upon them. We depend on professionals to maintain our health, handle our legal and financial affairs, protect our political interests, and manage businesses that provide us with employment and consumer goods (Jennings et al. 1987). People rely on the ethical integrity of professionals in a way unprecedented in other occupations because the services offered by a professional are characteristically different from goods that are sold by a manufacturer, merchant or retailer. A professional provides intangible services, and the purchaser has to take them on trust. It is in the nature of some of these services that they are going to be unsuccessful: half of legal advocates appearing before a court of law may lose their cases, and doctors will inevitably lose patients. Strong educational background and qualifications are thus necessary, but trust, measured by outward appearance and manner fitting the socially accepted standards of repute and respectability, is often just as important (MacDonald 1995). Professional bodies accordingly have a twin function in assuring quality services to the public, as well as representing their members in the regulative bargain with the state (Cooper et al. 1988). “ As the world has grown more specialized, countless such experts have made themselves similarly indispensable. Doctors, lawyers, contractors, stockbrokers, auto mechanics, mortgage brokers, financial planners: they all enjoy a gigantic informational advantage. And they use that advantage to help you, the person who hired them, get exactly what you want for the best price. Right? It would be lovely to think so. But experts are human, and humans respond to incentives.” (Levitt and Dubner 2005: 5) 1.3 Declining public perceptions Though the professions have gained power in numbers and societal importance, equally they are criticised now more than ever before as, what George Bernard Shaw originally dubbed, “conspiracies against the laity.” It has become more and more popular to question the motives, ethics and value of our expert class. University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner summarise this view in the chart-topping book Freakonomics: British Professions Today: The State of the Sector © Spada Limited 2009 5
Page 1 and 2: BRITISH PROFESSIONS TODAY: THE STAT
Page 3 and 4: Foreword >> This research by Spada
Page 5 and 6: > > > > > The professions represent
Page 7 and 8: 1Introduction >>
Page 9: 1.1 What is a profession? There is
Page 13 and 14: Because the professions can only ex
Page 15 and 16: Changing regulatory structures >> W
Page 17 and 18: 2.2 Historical development The curr
Page 19 and 20: 2.3 Regulated self-regulation Regul
Page 21 and 22: The Clementi review concluded that
Page 23 and 24: 3The professional economy >>
Page 25 and 26: Our data has been sourced from the
Page 27 and 28: 3.3 Productivity Industry productiv
Page 29 and 30: 3.5 Employment A considerable porti
Page 31 and 32: Social and political contributions
Page 33 and 34: Civil society Given the decline in
Page 35 and 36: The period of analysis is, for most
Page 37 and 38: The Law Society, too, felt that the
Page 39 and 40: Conclusion >> The best augury of a
Page 41 and 42: 5.2 Vision for the future Professio
Page 43 and 44: Harris, Charles Phillip. 1999. Lobb
Page 45 and 46: 2. Personal interviews Name Title A
Page 47 and 48: All photography by Warwick Sweeney

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