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Is Angela Brady saying that architectural competitions are fairer than the OJEU system? That wouldn't be hard. My experience of architectural competitions is that they are generally extremely unfair and that they send a message to those who appoint us that we are prepared to work for nothing. There is much anecdotal evidence available of a lack of fairness including one instance where a government agency held a competition and advised one practice that it was minded to award it the contract, dependent upon agreement of a reduction in the proposed architect's fee. The architect refused to reduce the fee, so the goverment agency gave the award to the second-placed architect, along with details of the first placed architect's scheme, to which the second-placed architect was told to amend his proposal. The second-placed architect did so, administrated the contract for the development of the original first-placed architect's scheme and the first-placed architect got nothing. The first thing that the first-placed architect knew about is was when he saw his building completed with another architect's name on it. He asked the second-placed architect to send him a copy of their competition entry, which they did. What he found was that it was nothing like the completed scheme. Is that fair? Of course it isn't, and there are many other such instances of abuse. What is needed is a comprehensively regulated competition system, where all short-listed entrants are remunerated, copyright conditions are upheld and where the process is transparent and available for public audit. To maintin the integrity and value of the profession's intellectual property there should also be no financial benefit to accrue to the intended client through competition, in relation to normal appointment preocedures, effectively meaning that the benefit of having six practices coming up with soluitons, leads to an uplift in the fee paid to the winning practice, with remuneration paid to all participants and any partial use of design is also remunerated.

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