The Arboricultural Association recently completed a survey of UK tree officers to assess the impact that local authority funding constraints are having on the standard of tree care and the day-to-day ability of tree officers to fulfil their roles.
There is a critical need for specialist arboricultural expertise within local authorities. This is essential for the implementation of policies which protect and nurture trees, and covers areas such as planning, highway street trees, housing, parks and open spaces.
Indeed, when granting planning permission for new development, the local planning authority has a duty to make adequate provision for the preservation and planting of trees.
Unfortunately, recent anecdotal evidence has suggested that the important role of the local authority tree officer is increasingly under threat from cuts to local government budgets. The AA wanted to better understand the extent of the problem so that it can work to support this segment of its membership and protect the tree officers’ contribution to the wider profession.
"One way or another all of us in arboriculture work with tree officers and yet their role is in danger of erosion," said a spokesman. "The tree officer role is diverse, but within the planning system, their role is to scrutinise planning application submissions to a local authority in respect of trees and this will regularly include wider landscaping provisions. They also have a statutory duty to consider the making of tree preservation orders and administer the associated applications and Conservation Area notifications.
"The role of tree officers is a technical and professional field demanding highly specific knowledge and is not a function that can be readily undertaken by those not qualified to the same degree.
"The ability to assess and advise where applications affecting trees are made to an LA is of paramount importance to ensuring that the long-term benefit of trees endures – this being a common thread of environmental policies. The recognition of poor practice and the damaging impact it has upon trees is not a function that should be entrusted to non-professionals.
"There are instances where the role of professional tree officers has been discarded, but more frequently other responsibilities are being attached to the post, such that the officer is faced with a challenging conflict of time apportionment. If the role of tree officers continues to be diluted it will take no imagination to realise that the spatial and environmental qualities of urban and rural landscapes will suffer.
"Many take our national landscape for granted, but it is under increasing pressure. LAs have a pivotal responsibility and this can only be achieved effectively by dedicated and professional tree officers.
The government’s 2008 publication Trees in Towns II recommended ten targets for local authority tree management. The first of those targets was for each local authority ‘To have at least one specialist Tree Officer, preferably qualified in arboriculture at Higher Education level’. This recommendation is now almost ten years old and does not take account of the changing landscape in terms of how local authorities are delivering their services.
More recently the government White Paper Fixing our broken housing market highlighted the fact that local authorities are reporting that they are having difficulties in recruiting and retaining planners and others with specialist skills. In response to this the government states within the White Paper that it will ‘take steps to ensure that the planning system has the skilled professionals it needs, and to provide targeted support to address areas of specialist weakness’.
"Notwithstanding the general recognition that there is a shortage of expertise in the planning system, we are very concerned that the government is unaware that there is a specific and significant problem with the reduction of tree officer numbers, and the impact upon their functionality which the pressures of additional duties exert," added the spokesman.
"Inevitably this erosion is resulting in an increasing number of local authorities having a lack of professional and impartial expertise at their disposal.
"In some cases services are being split, or outsourced via Private Finance Initiatives and other partnerships, in an attempt to bridge the gap in funding. These situations could potentially lead to conflicts of interest or situations whereby the proper care of trees in our towns and cities is not at the core of the decision-making process when it comes to their ongoing management."
The key findings of the survey include:
- There are 418 principal councils in the UK. Of the total 163 responses received from the survey, 83% of tree officers considered that the on-going austerity measures had adversely affected their ability to do their job well.
- In terms of what was causing this negative impact, 72% felt that a combination of reduced staff capacity, and reduced support functions such as administration and enforcement, had the greatest effect.
- Tree officers were also concerned that reduced budgets for training and continued professional development (CPD) were having a detrimental effect on their ability to carry out their work effectively.
"What is clear is that these issues need to be addressed at the highest levels for any action to be sufficiently wide-reaching and effective," continued the spokesman. "The AA therefore intends to use the full findings of the survey to inform its own strategy and to petition central and local government and associated organisations concerning the actual and potentially major negative consequences to our urban forest and the wider environment if the professional, impartial and essential expertise of tree officers continues to diminish.
"On a practical level the AA will also continue its recent direct support of tree officers by ensuring that specialist training and CPD are made available free of charge or at price points that are affordable to local authorities whose training budgets are continuing to shrink.
"We have already begun to act on these objectives, firstly by setting up an event in July 2017 to lobby MPs in our Parliamentary Group to take notice of the serious consequences of the diminished role of the tree officer.
"We will also be running a social media campaign and submitting articles to associated industry press. More free events for tree officers have also been scheduled later in the year."
