Architects Act 1997 - Changes: Before and After July 1997

Changes: Before and After July 1997

The previous legislation had enabled and required the Register of Architects to be established, maintained and published; and for that purpose there had been a Council, called the Architects' Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK), which had been established as a body corporate by the originating Act, namely the Architects (Registration) Act, 1931.

The changes embodied in the consolidating Act of 1997 had first been enacted in Part III of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. The changes had been made on the basis of a government consultation document dated 19 July 1994 which the Department of the Environment had issued with the title "Reform of Architects Registration". The consultation document had set out fourteen proposals for reform, stemming from a request from ARCUK to the Government in 1992 that the Architects Registration Acts should be reviewed; and stated that a report on the review which had been carried out had been published by HMSO in 1993. The report had been made by Mr E J D Warne, CB, and is commonly known as "The Warne Report".

The legislation which followed carried the proposed purposes into effect only in part. In the consultation document the purpose of the reformed body was stated to be: setting criteria for admission to the Register; preventing misuse of the title "architect"; and the discipline of unprofessional conduct, and the setting of fee levels. To that end, fourteen proposals had been enumerated. Some were later abandoned; and others substantially altered, whether in the Bill which was presented to Parliament or in its passage through Parliament, including:

• that the reformed Board would be given statutory authority to make regulations consistent with the provisions of the legislation governing architects registration;
• that the reformed Board would publicise a statement of the criteria for disciplinary offences; and
• that in disciplinary cases, there would be a range of non-monetary penalties, and hearings would be before a small statutory committee composed of both architects and non-architects, with a right to appeal to the full Board.

Proposals mentioned in the consultation document which were later enacted and are now operative were:

• that ARCUK would remain as a legal entity, but, with no impact on its role or status, the name would be changed to "Architects Registration Board" (ARB);
• that there should be an office of Registrar whose functions would be to maintain the Register and carry out the instructions of the Board;
• that the Board would be made up of 8 lay members appointed by the Government, and 7 architects elected by registered architects; and
• that the Board of Architectural Education would be abolished, by reason of it being an unwieldy body which would be unnecessary for fulfilling the functions of the reformed Registration Board.

The Table of Derivations, set out at the end of the Act after Schedule 3, by showing the changes which had been made by the 1996 Act to the originating Act of 1931 (as it had by then been amended by the 1938 Act and other legislation), distinguishes them from the provisions which were in the legislation before the 1996 Act, and so were operative in the time of ARCUK and have remained operative from 21 July 1997, when the reconstituting changes took effect.