In the RIBA report Building Ladders of Opportunity the particular consequences of skewed UK procurement policy and practice were researched and evaluated.
This highlighted the extensive barriers to access but also indicated that glass ceilings in procurement are experienced by practices well above the RIBA’s definition of a large practice (50 or above).
That this has progressively worsened since adoption of the EU procurement directives from the late 1990s onwards is no surprise. The UK’s particular implementation of these regulations has led to disproportionately poor access to work for all SMEs, increasing contract aggregation and the needless depletion of resources for the entire profession, while micro practices (less than 10) have been virtually excluded (News April 19). This is not nearly so apparent in Europe, where there is much we can learn, because different approaches have been adopted.
The issue for the UK has significant consequences for our architectural culture — with barriers and polarisation undermining potential growth and innovation, leaving the construction economy precarious.
While international work is an extraordinary export achievement to be proud of, it relies on many practices that have grown from the “front room”. To allow innovators such as Rogers, Foster, Chipperfield and Wilkinson Eyre to emerge in future, we should respect our “front room” architects and afford them a proportionately responsive system in which to practice, or such international gains will be only short-term.
Singular overly simplistic equations won’t deliver the necessary solutions. Malthusian arguments that the profession is oversupplied, that economies of scale delivered by ever larger aggregation are always best, that we should pursue more productivist industrial strategies, or recoursing to an “us and them” fail to fully engage with our society, architectural culture or provide the necessary holistic responses.
An inclusive, sustainable and naturally diverse UK construction industry should be capable of contributing efficiently in all sectors and contexts, at all scales, while engaging the whole of society to enhance future growth nationally and internationally.
Walter Menteth
Chair, RIBA Procurement Reform Group
Owen O’Carroll
Hon Treasurer, RIBA
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