Can you offer candidates taking the new RICS General Practice Test of Professional Competence any guidance?
The General Practice Division of the RICS ran their new TPC for the first time in October 1987 and inevitably there were a few teething problems. Hopefully those of an administrative nature will be resolved by October 1988. Other issues have been raised with the RICS by various individuals, firms and no doubt many other points will have been noted following the debriefing of the Assessors and Interviewers. For the moment it must be assumed that the 1988 test will follow the pattern of the 1987 Specimen Papers and the 1987 Test.
Selection of test area
Currently separate tests are set on:
(a) Commercial estate management and landlord and tenant;
(b) Rating;
(c) Commercial and investment agency, including valuation, sale, letting and purchase of land and buildings for occupation and investment;
(d) Residential estate agency, including valuation, management, sale, letting and purchase of land and dwellings for occupation and investment;
(e) Property development and town and country planning; and
(f) Housing administration (excluding private-sector housing management).
Little guidance is given on the question of selection, but the following points should possibly be taken into account by candidates making their choice.
(1) The RICS has indicated that the subjects listed identify the central theme only “All may cover repairs and maintenance, and, except for ‘Housing Administration’, valuation and taxation”.
(2) It would seem sensible to select an area that is supported by work experience and the Diary entries, particularly as the interview may pick up points made by the candidate in his or her practical test and/or Diary.
(3) It may be safer to select an area that coincides closest with the work experience scheduled or expected for the six to nine months running up to the test.
(4) Topic (b) seems most appropriate for employees in the Valuation Office; topic (d) is clearly designed for those employed in offices or departments where residential estate agency predominates; topic (e) appears to be very specialist even at this stage and would suit candidates working for development companies or employed in appropriate specialist firms or planning and development departments offering consultancy services to landowners and developers; topic (f) is obviously for public sector housing managers.
(5) The most difficult choice for many will be between topic (a) and topic (c). Those in public sector and institutions’ estate departments should opt for (a). Those gaining the right experience in private practice may find (c) to be the most appropriate.
(6) When selecting a test area candidates must recognise that as a professional test the candidate will be expected to know all the relevant legislation and case law pertinent to that test area. It is very difficult to give good professional advice if the fundamentals are not properly understood.
The practical test is not an examination
The RICS emphasises that there are “no set solutions to the problems”. That statement in itself does little to alleviate the belief that in many respects it is an examination. Prior to the test candidates are issued with basic details of one or more properties in respect of which problems are to be set. Sadly these details are not as full as they could be so that on current evidence candidates can expect to receive further information together with the practical problems on the morning of the test. The nature of this package can bear a very strong resemblance to university and polytechnic coursework exercises and final year examination problems. The fact that a quantity of facts and figures have to be assimilated in a very short period of time during the test makes this too much like an examination. However, the rules indicate that candidates are assessed on:
(a) their professional competence;
(b) their ability to see and assess competently all the implications arising from the task(s) set;
(c) their all round practical and professional approach to meet the test’s objectives. As part of this, assessors will be looking, in the responses, for:
(i) awareness of and the intention to act in accordance with the letter and spirit of the institution’s rules of conduct, possession of the highest level of professional integrity and objectivity and recognition of duties both to clients or employers and to the community as a whole;
(ii) awareness of the need to pay particular attention to accuracy and essential detail to safeguard the interests of the clients and employers; and
(iii) ability to communicate effectively and produce reports which are well structured, grammatical and without spelling errors.
In assessing a candidate’s responses some regard will be taken of the experience as set out in the diary, and other records of their experience.
Those points should be kept in mind by the candidates when sitting the test. How then does the test differ from an examination and how does it relate to the professional experience gained during the two years of professional training?
In practice, instructions to act or to provide professional advice generally precede the surveyor’s inspection of the subject property or site. Thus in practice the inspection of the property is coloured by the knowledge of why the property is being inspected or referenced. In the TPC, candidates have effectively to complete the inspection and other inquiries before being instructed — the instructions are given at the test centre. Apart from this oddity it is a test of the professional competence of an individual who is seeking to establish that he or she is competent to be elected an associate member of the RICS as a general practice surveyor.
In practice a GP surveyor may become a specialist in a particular area such as commercial estate management or investment agency and hence the opportunity to select a subject area for the test. However, in addition a GP surveyor should be able to respond to clients’ questions across the full spectrum of property matters, not as a specialist but as a generalist. A professional must be aware of his or her limitations so it would not be normal for a rating surveyor to offer detailed professional advice on investment agency nor for an investment agent to offer detailed professional advice on the changes proposed for the 1990 revaluation. Both, however, should be able to comment in general and to be able to advise a client on the kind of professional guidance needed to solve a specific problem. In this sense the test is a test of the candidate’s professional competence.
It should also be clear that professional means acting within the laws of the land — in particular within the law as it relates to consumer protection — and within the RICS rules and regulations. So all responses made in the test need to be technically correct and opinions professionally supportable; responses need to have proper regard to RICS guidance notes, to professional codes of conduct, to the provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, and to the provisions of the Estate Agents Act 1979 etc.
As a guide the test can be considered to be subject to an unwritten additional question “If this were for real how would a chartered surveyor respond to the problem posed?” In preparation for the test candidates need to be clear as to the nature of and need for office procedures — How does the firm, company, or government department handle instructions or tasks? What office procedures have to be followed before responding to a client’s letter? What procedures have to be followed when solving or resolving specific tasks? How does one deal with conditions of engagement, professional negligence, misrepresentation, fraud, conflicts of interest? All these points and others are as important as the giving of the professional advice.
The test of professional competence is much more of an integrated test than most written examinations taken by trainee surveyors. It is not a valuation examination, it is not a law examination, it is not a planning examination, it is not a building examination, it is not an economics examination, it is not an agency examination — it is everything plus a test of professionalism.
It is not a test of memory
The practical test is not a test of memory. You may bring for reference such books, Acts of Parliament and other documents, valuation tables, calculators etc as you wish and as you would normally have available at your office. It is not expected that the material will exceed a maximum volume of 0.1m3 but the invigilator’s decision in this respect is final. Computers and typewriters are not permitted.
The night before the test is not the time to hunt around for the material to be taken into the test. In effect this is an open book test, but as books are unlikely to contain the answer to the test questions, they should be selected carefully for their usefulness as references. The breadth of general practice knowledge expected is such that candidates may find a number of reference texts useful, such as Emeny and Wilks on Rating Valuation, Tim Stapleton on Estate Management Practice, John Murdoch on the Law of Agency and Auctions, Andrew Baum on Statutory Valuation.
Teaching books are far less appropriate as at this stage candidates should not need reminding of, say, valuation techniques.
Consideration should also be given to RICS rules and regulations, guidance notes, leaflets dealing with conditions of engagement, house buyers’ reports, extracts from the “AVSC Red Book”, sets of office procedural documents and statutory forms under the Landlord and Tenant Acts which may all be useful. The case material may also suggest the need for specific statutory or other material.
A number of candidates are now so accustomed to handling valuations by computer that they find difficulty in coping with valuations under test conditions. It is a waste of valuable test time to write out all the headings and subheadings for typical valuations when it would seem quite acceptable to take in to the test pro formas so that the only task required is to fill in the blanks for rents, terms, rates per cent. Such pro formas could be easily obtained from a computerised system.
Candidates dealing with agency may find it useful to take in copies of sales details, auction details, tender documents, aides memoire etc.
Finally, as the afternoon test may relate to the morning test it may be sensible to keep a copy of the morning’s valuation solutions for reference in the afternoon.
The material selected should fit into a box of approximately 0.1 m3 and it is to be hoped the desks at centres used in 1988 will be able to accommodate candidates and their material.
The case material
You should envisage the property or properties as being situated at a place with which you are familiar and which maintains consistency with the case material supplied. You must make such additional reasonable assumptions as you may consider necessary.
Hearsay suggests that candidates who took the greatest care in preparing their files before the test tended to perform better in the test than those who were poorly prepared.
The data need to be prepared bearing in mind that the problem(s) will not be known until the day of the test. Nevertheless, it can help to prepare a typical “office file”.
Some candidates may find it easier to locate an actual building, thus if the material refers to an industrial estate — find one; if it refers to a market-hall — find one; if it refers to a country house — find one; if it refers to a 1960s office block — find one. However, it is not necessarily essential to locate an actual building, although it is essential to make appropriate assumptions relevant to such a building in the selected area. The easier it is to “feel” the property and to “know” the market, the easier it should be to react in the test. However, because of the way in which the test currently operates it may be necessary to adjust the file data during the test.
This aspect of “assumptions” would be much easier if candidates were to be given a file and only had to imagine the location.
Base data assumptions should be translated into normal office practice; for example, it may be possible to prepare floor plans on squared paper. If measurements are given they must be interpreted in accordance with the RICS code of measurement practice, and the different areas needed for rating, leasing, insurance, depreciated replacement cost, etc should be noted. Some candidates, given a sufficient description of the property, also include photographs. The advantage of all this preparation is that it should make it easier for the assessor to appreciate the issue as the candidate has seen it!
Any information given with the case material needs to be carefully interpreted; it is an opportunity to check up on possible key points and possible legal and other issues — for example, the description may refer to Queen Anne, Georgian, listed, conservation areas, housing action areas, enterprise zones etc.
Data should be collected on rents, rate poundages, rebuilding costs, repair costs, service costs, capitalisation rates, and the normal lease terms for that type of property. Thought also needs to be given to marketing budgets, sales campaigns and basis of assessment for rating. Historic rents may be needed or historic rents may be based on a fraction of current rental values. How much material and assumptions are necessary may be dictated by the test area and the description of the property. The wise will brush up on the legislation most likely to affect that type of property.
As the property is to be located figuratively in the candidate’s area, so it is vitally important for the candidate to convey clearly to the assessor the relevant assumptions pertinent to that area that have been assumed, such as assumptions on highways, planning, and the supply and demand of comparable properties in the area.
Throughout the test assumptions must be consistent with the data. This can cause problems when, for example, the candidate works in a very depressed area and the test problems put forward suggestions which are totally inappropriate to those market conditions. Clearly one cannot prejudge the response under such circumstances particularly if the true circumstances of the market-place would totally nullify the test problem. Nevertheless, it would be professionally negligent to prepare a glowing but unsupportable report.
All preliminary data needs to be presented on A4 paper — it should be typed, it must be concise, and could include fire insurance and market valuations. It should be sufficient for the purpose of the test but not so lengthy as to deter the assessor from reading it.
Two copies are needed in case inadvertently the file is handed in with the morning test instead of with the afternoon test as prescribed by the regulations.
The test
The problems as set will probably require a response in the form of a report or letter to a client or as a draft for consideration by a partner or senior member of staff. The response must be in the form requested, but the assessor needs to see both the response and the reasoning. The response should, we presume, be prepared as it would be for the person specified in the test — tone, style, jargon, technical language must all be adjusted to suit the status and technical knowledge of the recipient.
Thus, again it can be seen that this is a professional test, not a written examination. In a written examination the answer has to be as full as possible. In a professional test the response must be appropriate to that recipient. For example, a law examiner asking a compensation question would require statute, section and case law. The secretary to the local church initially needs to be assured that compensation will be paid and to know broadly the basis of assessment and possibly whether or not it will be sufficient for the church to build a new church. A file note or a memo to the senior partner or district valuer would be far more detailed.
In the test the response needs to be professionally correct and the assessor will need to see details to support the response. The balance may be difficult to achieve, but a surveyor’s letter to a 95-year-old lady living in a country house about to be bulldozed for a motorway has to be phrased carefully and differently to that to her grandson who is the managing director of a large national housebuilding company.
The solution may be to resolve the problem in rough, prepare a full report for the file and then respond at the required level as per the problem set.
When taking the test candidates need to consider the question of conditions of engagement, the Unfair Contracts Terms Act, caveats and the need to use with care phrases such as “without prejudice” and “subject to contract”. Those in the public sector may need to think about similar procedural requirements when corresponding with the public or with surveyors in private practice.
You should assume for all three tasks in this morning test paper that you are employed in a private firm, but for candidates not employed in private practice it will be accepted that you may not know the form of letters or reports normally sent to a client. However, you should set out all relevant points in the letter or report requested.
Success in the test is the result of good professional training, sound preparation and care and attention during the test; it is not a test of memory — “the assessors are looking for a realistic, practical and professional approach to the task(s) set”. For the candidate it is best to think of it as just another day in the office, admittedly an unusual day, and to respond as a newly qualified surveyor should respond under the circumstances described in the test.
The interview
Candidates who pass the written test are then called for a professional interview before a panel of surveyors who themselves have knowledge of the test area selected. In theory the panel should have full knowledge of your diary and written assessment. The only advice that can be given is to be prepared and to be firm and to be professional. If candidates are asked questions outside their professional experience they should say so; if pressed for an answer the reply might well be:
As I have explained, my education and experience to date is such that I do not feel I am competent to answer that question. If approached by a client I would refer him/her to a colleague with experience in that area. However, in theory — or logically — the approach might be …
If it is impossible even to come up with a suggestion then it is essential to say so.
As a general practice test the interview can apparently cover a very wide range of topics from the size of bricks to the valuation of gold mines. Editorially, we can only suggest that it should, perhaps, concentrate on professional matters rather than technical matters, as it is a test of professional competence, and further that both the test and the interview should be constructed in the light of the level of competence and experience the profession expects of an individual with just two years of practical experience.