Myotis, it looks like you have plenty of experience within this area. I guess you've been a consultatnt yourself?
My point was this -
It is the developers who pay the bills, so is there ever a temptation on the side of the consultants to get the results the developers are looking for? Have you ever suspected that might be the case?
That is a more complex question than you maybe realise, the simplistic answer is no, based on my experience.
Which is about 30 years experience in consultancy, with the last 15 years teaching University courses on impact assessment and nature conservation (as well as continuing my consultancy work, and teaching animal behaviour, decision sciences and statistics).
Ecological consultants (at least all that I have met) come into the job because they are conservationists, and want to work in a conservation related job. For some, consultancy is their first choice, but for others they just end up there because they can't get a job in ecological research or with a Wildlife Trust etc.
But you still trying to help a developer get his project through planning, your job is to ensure that the scheme presented to planning has the least possible impact and therefore increases its chances of having planning permission granted, but you never an advocate for the development, even if it sometimes sounds that way when trying to give a balanced view of the potential impacts.
We always try to write objective, evidence based reports, which will often include things that are detrimental to the development. For example we had client pay for a desk study on Marsh Fritillary butterfly mitigation schemes, as the development would destroy a Marsh Fritillary site. Our study suggested that none of schemes has been successful long term, (not the outcome that was wanted) but there was no pressure to exclude those results in our reports, or to not present them at the public Inquiry that decided whether the scheme should go ahead.
What does happen, is that when you discover an ecological issue that could seriously undermine the objectives, timetable, or costs of a project, you are put under pressure to justify your case and to come up with a solution e.g. mitigation that will still get the project through planning and ameliorate the concerns of people protesting against the impacts of the scheme. The only pressure to "change things" I've ever come under has been to "tone down" the wording of my reports, which I have assessed on a case by case basis. And this was an experience shared by others. On one occasion a colleague felt that the pressure put on her, by the developer's barrister, went beyond just toning things down, and went beyond acceptable levels of persuasion, this required more effort than usual to resist the changes being asked.
But, I've never personally, come across a case of a developer blatantly trying to get an ecological consultant to suppress or falsify information, if that's what mean by "...get the results the developers are looking for"
But most of my clients have been "good" clients, working with big projects (e.g we did the Impact assessment and post construction monitoring of the Second Severn Crossing) even if I have often had difficult meetings with them. And I have chosen to not bid for work where I didn't like the tone of the tender document, or the tone of the potential client when I have phoned up to discuss the tender.
Would their be a temptation to falsify results to please a client and keep a contract with them, well given the strong nature conservation ethic of ecological consultants I think the vast majority would strongly argue they have never done that, and never would.
Does it never happen? Every walk of life has people who break or bend the rules, so I would be surprised if it never happens, but in my experience its going to be rare.
I need to put a rider in here, as there are still massive problems with Ecological Impact Assessments, but I don't think the integrity of the people who carry them out is one of them.