We are making a final call out to all members to complete a survey that is collecting data for the Professional Services Practice Guide. The survey will close on 4 October.
Some important questions you might have
What information exactly does the survey want?
It asks for some basic information about your practice’s main location, size and main typologies of work. We do not ask you or your practice’s name.
For each project the information sought is as follows:
- Is the project a new build or alterations and additions?
- What is the total building area of the project and area of the site the land area of the site in square metres?
- Project location by post code
- What is the postcode where the project is located?
- What is the Cost of Works for the project
- What type of contract/ agreement was used? (a) Standard CAA, (b) Modified CAA, (c) Other
- Was the project was short-listed for any industry award?
The Professional Services Practice Guide will provide practical information for architects on the hours required to provide full services to clients associated with the six stages of design and delivery of projects as set out in the Client Architect Agreement. Therefore, for each project the hours of architectural services are asked as follows:
- A1. Concept design
- A2. Design development
- A3. Planning/development application
- A4. Construction documentation
- A5. Contractor selection
- A6. Contract administration
How could practices benefit from the guide?
Practices would be able to plan a project with a client and apply the data presented in the guide to ensure their practice’s capacity to deliver services for each project throughout its stages.
Practices will be able to use the guide to help clients better understand the scale of services being provided when negotiating a Client Architect Agreement.
Practices will be able to use the guide better understand their apportioning of architectural services as delivered hours across a project and benchmark their projects against an “industry pool”.
Why is the survey important – can’t the Institute just write a guide?
In order to produce an evidence-based guide, data needs to be derived from actualprojects. We are also considering an Acumen note to support the guide.
I am worried about sharing sensitive information about my practice or clients?
The survey seeks no information to identify you or your practice and your contribution will, therefore, be anonymous. Before release, the guide will be reviewed to ensure that the data itself does not identify any projects or practices.
Why is this just about Class 1a projects?
While the first iteration of the guide, and therefore this survey, is for Class 1a residential buildings, other typologies and classes will be added later through separate surveys.
Class 1a projects enable us to focus on the type of project where architects are most likely to deliver full services.
More thinking will be required about the gathering of data for projects where only partial services are provided, and particularly under novated design and construct procurement.
We learnt in 2018 through an earlier piece of work that asking for data on all typologies did not gather sufficient data for most typologies to publish a statistically reliable and trustable guide.
