I have previously written about how responses to the disaster at Grenfell Tower, the climate change emergency and the UK’s departure from the EU are fundamentally changing expectations about standards and regulation of those professionals that work in the built environment. The Board heard during the autumn from experts in the field of climate change and life/fire safety and the perspective of other sectors about modernising regulation, as well as directly from a range of architects in practice.

These experiences, and others, have convinced the Board that the time is right for a ‘big conversation’ across the profession and its key stakeholders to re-establish what it is that defines a competent architect. As part of this we’ll be looking for views on how can we define the UK architect of the 21st Century and who is respected in the global marketplace. We have already started working with our partners and stakeholders to get that conversation going, and we want to hear directly from architects on this topic next year. Watch this space…

The Board has also heard from schools of architectural education about the risks, challenges and opportunities that the providers of prescribed qualifications are facing now and in the future. The Board has agreed that we must streamline our approach so that it integrates more effectively with funding and quality assurance developments in higher education, and the general pressure that the sector is under.

The Board believes that we should look to reduce the time it takes to achieve registration currently, but it also believes that significantly more clarity is needed about the competences that are required at the point of registration than we have currently- we must work to provide that definition for the future.

The Board takes the view that it is no longer appropriate that professional competence is not tested through regulatory processes from the point of registration until an architect leaves the Architects Register-we intend to change that.

In due course, we will revisit our standards to ensure that existing architects, as well as those joining the Architects Register, can achieve and maintain suitable competence in these core areas. Our future regulatory model will need to encompass the entirety of a professional’s life on the Register, in addition to how they join it in the first place.

When the Board met on 9 December, we discussed all these areas which are set out in our business plan for the year ahead – you can read what we plan to do here.

In the meantime, I would like to wish you and your families a happy and peaceful Christmas.

Yours sincerely,

Alison J White

Chair
Architects Registration Board