Ruth Reed met minister to argue for registration board’s abolition.
The RIBA has been actively lobbying the government to scrap Arb since the formation of the Tory and Lib Dem coalition government on May 12, BD has learned.
A Freedom of Information request showed that unnamed RIBA bosses wrote to and met with government officials on numerous occasions over the summer, pushing for confirmation that the registration board would be axed and that RIBA would take over its main functions.
Before the election, Conservative MP and shadow architecture minister Ed Vaizey, who was last week made an RIBA honorary fellow, repeatedly promised to abolish Arb.
In the first letter obtained by BD, dated May 24, RIBA approached the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to advise on the procedure necessary to abolish Arb and transfer its powers to RIBA.
The letter was forwarded to the Communities & Local Government department’s principal architect Richard Harral, who wrote back to say that legislation would be necessary to amend the 1997 Architects Act.
“Parliamentary Counsel’s role is to advise government and it does not in general deal with correspondence relating to matters of policy,” Harral added. “As the official within CLG responsible for the Architects Act, your letter has been passed to me.”
RIBA president Ruth Reed later met with decentralisation minister Greg Clark and, in late July, wrote to his departmental colleague MP Andrew Stunell , who has overall responsibility for Arb.
“We believe in the interests of the consumer and to reduce the regulatory burden, the functions of the Arb could be delivered by the RIBA,” Reed wrote. “This would avoid the duplication that occurs currently and fits with models used in other countries and other professions in the UK.”
In a statement issued this week Reed added: “The RIBA’s proposal is to act as registration and charter body, with register and membership lists maintained entirely separately. We believe that through this efficiency, we can deliver the Arb’s duties at a lower cost (than the current ARB registration fee) to the registrant.”
Last year a report into the functions of the two bodies, undertaken by academic Christopher Ball, suggested that the RIBA waited until after the election to approach the government over the possible scrapping of Arb.
The Arb declined to comment.
How Eric Pickles might abolish Arb
The RIBA is not lobbying for the scrapping of protection of title which is why it is suggesting it takes over the administration of the register of architects.
Andrew Stunell, the minister in charge of the 1997 Architects Act, has revealed that communities secretary Eric Pickles is to be handed the power to carry out such a change following a review of all public bodies and a subsequent change in the law.
“Legislation is scheduled to go through parliament in the form of a Public Bodies Bill to give secretaries of state powers to make any agreed changes as a result of the review process,” Stunell said in a letter to an unnamed MP acting on behalf of a constituent.
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