Episode 1 - Differences Between the RIBA & ARB

Hi and welcome to the Part 3 With Me podcast. [Music] The show that aims at helping Part 3 students jumpstart into their careers qualified architects. I'm your host Marie Escudari and this week we will be talking about the differences between the RIBA and ARB and their relevant codes of conduct. So let's start with some background for each organisation. So the RIBA, if you don't know already, stands for Royal Institute of British Architects and it was founded back in 1834 and it mainly relies on its members, sponsors and other charitable donations and operations for its funding. So it's not governed by anyone or has a fixed income, it just mainly relies on its members for its income body whereas going into the ARB, ARB stands for Architects Registration Board and that is a statutory body that if you want to be registered and to be able to call yourself an architect and use the title architect you have to be registered with the ARB. So the key difference between the RIBA and the ARB is that the RIBA is an optional body where you can choose to become a member whereas the ARB you have to be registered with them to be able to call yourself an architect. So if you call yourself an architect without being registered with the ARB then you can be sued or fined for misusing that title. So it's very important to understand that RIBA is voluntary, ARB is mandatory. So a potential question that I think might come up in your exams or your coursework is what might happen with the recognition of the profession post Brexit? So what the government and the ARB have announced is that if you were registered with the ARB before Brexit happened then you can continue to be recognised with the ARB but if you applied after Brexit which was after the 1st of January 2021 so the UK has outlined that it will retain a system for recognising EEA architects which is from Europe, the European Economic Area but some EU countries haven't maintained their mutual recognition agreement with the UK so if you are a UK qualified architect and you want to move to the EU to be able to practise as an architect you would have to check the country's qualifications and if they recognise your qualifications from the UK under their national rules so just double check that if you were planning to move to Europe or this is also just a note in case a question or coursework comes up with this subject. Now circling back to the RIBA and the ARB and what their differences are one key thing that ties both of them is that they both have their own respective codes of conduct so these can be found free on their website if you wanted to go ahead and have a look the codes for both bodies are key requirements when we are studying part 3 so you must show through your coursework, your exam or your interview that you understand these codes and that you will follow them once you have passed your part 3 and you qualify as an architect and that you will adhere to them throughout your career as an architect just to make sure that you uphold the standards of the profession and you promote good conduct and best practise by using them if you fail to comply with the ARB specifically then you would be considered to have unacceptable professional conduct and the ARB will be able to discipline you for not following that code so these are very key for our profession so once I start outlining the codes of conduct for each body then you will notice that they have similarities between them and that some standards interlink between them so it will be a lot easier for you to remember them because they have similar values and similar outlines now let's start with the ARB code, so the ARB code consists of three main principles first one is integrity, second one is competence and the third one is relationships now I'll just quickly outline what each principle stands for so integrity stands for its members behaving with integrity obviously and strive to safeguard and improve the standing reputation and dignity of the institute and its members in all their professional activities and members shall constantly promote and protect the public interest and social purpose taken into account future generations the second principle, competence, expects its members to continuously strive to improve their professional knowledge and skill and persistently seek to raise the standards of architectural education lifelong learning, research, training and practice for the benefit of the public interest those commissioning services, their professions and themselves members should strive to protect and enhance heritage and natural environment and lastly relationships stands for their members respecting and seeking to uphold and the relevant rights and interests of others and treat people with respect and strive to be inclusive, ethical and collaborative in all they do and to seek and promote social justice now each principle has substandards now I won't go into too much depth with these I'll just quickly outline what each one of them is and then you can read a bit more on them from yourselves once you look up the codes so for principle one, principle one has seven substandards the first one is impartiality and undue influence second one is statements third one is conflict of interest fourth one is confidentiality and privacy fifth is handling client money sixth is bribery and corruption and seventh is criminal conviction disqualification as a director in sanction principle two has fourteen substandards first one is skill, knowledge, care and ability second one is terms of appointment third one is times, cost and quality fourth one is keeping the client informed fifth is record keeping fifth is health and safety seventh is inspection services eighth is building performance ninth is heritage and conservation tenth is town and country planning eleventh is law and regulations twelfth is certification thirteenth is the environment and fourteenth is community and society for principle three we have twelve substandards first one is copyright, second one is previous appointments third one is peers fourth is equality, diversity and inclusion fifth is modern slavery sixth is employment and responsibilities as an employer seventh is competitions eighth is complaints and dispute resolutions ninth is advertising business name use of RIBA crest and logo tenth is insurance eleventh is nondisclosure agreements and twelfth is whistleblowing now the ARB code of conduct consists of twelve standards and these are standard one is honesty and integrity which ties into the RIBA's first principle, integrity standard two is competence which is similar to the RIBA's second principle standard three is honest promotion of your services again linking to the RIBA's second principle standard four is computer management of your business linking to the RIBA's third principle standard five is considering the wider impact of your work which touches on principles two and three of the RIBA code standard six is you should carry out your professional work conscientiously and with due regard to relevant technical and professional standards similar to the RIBA's first principle standard seven is trustworthiness and safeguarding clients money linking to the RIBA's first principle standard eight is insurance arrangements which is similar to the RIBA's third principle standard nine is maintaining the reputation of architects again the third principle of the RIBA standard ten deals with disputes or complaints appropriately like the RIBA's third principle standard eleven is cooperative with regulatory requirements and investigations similar to principle two of the RIBA and standard twelve is respect others which links to the RIBA's third principle for a full breakdown and details of both codes of conduct please check out the links in the episode description below where you'll be able to find the above information that I just talked you through for those of you who wish to look at the codes in a bit more detail now you might think how may we be asked about the codes of conduct in an exam or in coursework so to help you understand a bit more on what a potential exam question might be I thought I'd bring up an example for you just to talk you through the question and then we can break it down together so you can understand what they might be asking for and how it can be linked to different elements of the codes so let's jump into the question now this is a bit of a long one so bear with me when I was doing my part three I was given a few pass papers to work through so I thought this would be a good question to explain to you what you might be asked for when it comes to explaining how you can use the codes to achieve the conduct that you need to achieve so here are the bullet points of the question very high level very quickly so it's about you being within a practice and your boss comes to you and tells you that a former client was doing a refurbishment project on her barn and she asked us to get involved but the project was too small for us at the time so we recommended someone else to carry out the work so this was someone that worked for us previously in the practice and he left to start his own business now what he did, he left a complete mess of the project leaving our client very upset and very distraught they didn't even discharge the conditions for the planning permission and didn't provide any detailed drawings for the tender so the client had to end up using their own builder and she's not completely sure if what was built was what was given permission on top of that the client received an invoice from the original architects which she's refusing to pay for obvious reasons and that she wants nothing to do with them and she wants them nowhere near the project now she's come back to your practice, our practice to finish the job and to sort out all the mess the other key thing that the architects did was that they used the drawings and photos of the project and posted them on their website suggesting that they did the original project which they hadn't, we did the original project our make-believe architecture practice so because we feel so bad about our client we want to do a favour for her and because we feel partly responsible for all the mess we're not completely sure if we want to charge her for the work now where the key requirements come up that you will need to address with your answer is that our boss is basically asking should we take on this project and do it at a loss what can our client do about the architects and the unpaid invoice and what should we do about the website and as a hint at the end they basically say that you should consider taking into account the architect's code and the code of professional conduct when you're doing your recommendations for the answer now let's start by addressing the first key thing where if we should take the job on and if we should do it at a loss so here is whether I would recommend that we say that we should definitely looking to help our client because it's our duty as architects and it is part of our code to help where we can and to be impartial unlike the other architects that resulted in damaging the reputation of the profession so here we can steer the answer towards the ARB code of conduct standard 9.2 which mentions to maintain the reputation of the architects so we can answer saying that as architects we are expected to conduct ourselves in a way to bring us and our fellow professionals into disrepute so if we do decide to take on the job we have to consider a couple of risks that might come along with it so although our boss is saying that they don't want to charge anything it might not be such a great idea not to charge anything at all so we can recommend here that we could charge something but at a much reduced rate and as a fixed rate as well instead of a percentage rate just to help our client out and to do it out of good will but before we do that and before we do look to take on the job another thing that falls under the RIBA principle 2 competency the substandard 1.2 is to check that we can actually take on the job that we have in our capacity in terms of resources can we afford it in terms of our cash flow will we make a profit if not would the loss to the practice be minimal and if so how many people can we afford to put on the job so then after we've established all those we can proceed to approach our client and to help them with the job now before we start that we need to highlight again that we need to put an appointment in place and because we might be on a reduced fee or no fee at all then we need to double check that with our PI insurance to make sure no disputes or problems come up when we're doing it because if we're not getting paid and say something happens with the client with us this time and they raise a complaint if we don't have an appointment in place then we won't be able to cover ourselves so it's always best to do these just for our own peace of mind and just for best practice really rather than although we're doing it as a favor to our client it's still good to be diligent with these things and to at least do some amount of appointment documentation and then once all that's sorted then we would need to double check that the client has terminated the appointment with the other architects that falls under the RIBA principle 3.2 previous appointments for us to make sure that before we accept an appointment with the client that they have terminated the previous appointment and that they hold the license to use their information so if these items are not met then we really need to reevaluate our position in taking on the job the dispute between the client and the previous architect may affect the progress of the project which might ultimately end up affecting us so we have to make sure that the client has the necessary insurance for the works and that we'll be able to proceed however with caution with the job now in terms of the unpaid invoice here we could recommend that the client refers to their initial appointment and under the appointment she'll be able to outline the architect's responsibilities their scope of services and their provisions for suspending or terminating their agreement and the complaints handling procedure that they have in place now if she finds that the previous architects have not been undertaking their responsibilities and their scope of services as agreed under the appointment it means that they are in breach of contract and the client if she wishes can proceed to terminating their appointment and if they were using an RIBA standard form of appointment this means that she can terminate the contract at will by giving a reasonable notice and stating the reasons for doing so now she should initially though try and talk through the matter with them to see if they can come to a mutual agreement through negotiation and then they can proceed with their in-house procedures and handling the disputes in-house and if that doesn't work they can proceed to either mediation, adjudication or arbitration I'll be covering those in a different podcast the other thing she could do is to raise a complaint with the ARB and if they are indeed in breach of their contract and the code then the ARB may remove the more suspender from the register but obviously before she takes any action we would highly recommend that she just seeks legal advice straight away so to sum up we recommend to uphold the name of the profession to try and help the client which falls under the ARB standard 9.2 check that we can undertake the work which falls under RIBA principle 2, competence note 1.2 and check if the previous architect's appointment has been terminated and relevant licenses have been obtained which is under RIBA principle 3, relationships note 2 and to enter into a written agreement to cover ourselves covered under the ARB standard 4.4 and then our final piece of advice to the client would be to raise a complaint with the ARB regarding the previous architect's if they are indeed in breach of contract and to definitely consult legal advice regarding the paid invoice if you would like to get in contact with me please feel free to email me on the address provided in the show notes thank you so much for listening this is an educational show aimed at supporting the future generation of architects the information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk please join me next week for some more part 3 with me time