Background

Regulatory context

The architecture profession is regulated by Architect Registration Boards, which have been established in every Australian State and Territory. In Victoria and NSW, the respective regulatory frameworks are administered by the Architects Registration Board of Victoria (ARBV) and the NSW Architects Registration Board (NSW ARB), collectively referred to in this report as “the ARBs”.

The regulatory frameworks in Victoria and NSW (collectively referred to in this report as “the regulatory frameworks”) comprise the following legislative instruments:

• The Architects Act 1991 (Vic) (Victorian Architects Act), the Architects Regulations 2015 (Vic) (Victorian Architects Regulation) and the Code of Professional Conduct (Victorian Code), which is a schedule to the Victorian Architects Regulations.
• The Architects Act 2003 (NSW) (NSW Architects Act), the Architects Regulation 2017 (NSW) (NSW Architects Regulation) and the NSW Architects Code of Professional Conduct (NSW Code), which is a schedule to the NSW Architects Regulation.
• The Victorian and the NSW Codes set out the standards required of architects when they have been engaged to provide architectural services.

The regulatory frameworks impose a range of obligations on architects that are aimed at ensuring that they act professionally and in accordance with applicable standards. In turn, compliance with these obligations helps to protect the interests of clients of architectural services, end-users of buildings and infrastructure that involve the provision of such services, as well as the public interest more generally.

As regulators of the architecture profession in Victoria and NSW respectively, the ARBV and NSW ARB are responsible for ensuring compliance with the regulatory frameworks governing architects in each of those jurisdictions. In practice, the ARBV and NSW ARB employ a combination of proactive and reactive regulatory activities to pre-empt, prevent, detect and respond to non-compliance by architects with the regulatory framework.

The ARBs’ work on systemic risks in the Australian architecture sector is part of their proactive regulatory activity. The focus of this work is at a systemic level, to understand key systemic risks facing architects across the entire sector, particularly those risks that could affect architects’ ability to comply with their professional standards obligations. The main purpose is to assist the ARBs to determine whether and how they need to adjust their regulatory activities so that they can better support architects to navigate the current context, as well as to deliver positive outcomes for clients and users of architectural services and the general public.

Systemic Risks Report

In 2022, the ARBV and the NSW ARB undertook a joint research project to identify current and future systemic compliance issues and associated risks affecting regulation of the architecture profession in Australia. The report on “Systemic Risks in the Australian Architecture Sector” (Systemic Risks Report) contains the results of that research project and can be found on the ARBs’ respective websites.[1]

The Systemic Risks Report was largely based on a desktop review of Australian and global sources of information, including surveys and studies of the construction and architecture sectors, both in Australia and abroad. The desktop review was used to identify high-level contexts and issues that could give rise to systemic risks for the Australian architecture sector. In summary, they were:

• the market for architectural services;
• procurement models;
• client-architect relationships and agreements;
• building defects, professional standards and compliance culture;
• risk, liability and insurance;
• climate change, sustainability and the transition to net zero;
• automation, digitalisation and innovation;
• education, training and continuing professional development.

These topics were the focus of two in-depth workshops with a working group comprising staff and Board members from the ARBV and NSW ARB respectively to determine their relevance for the regulation of architects and the architecture sector in Australia, particularly in Victoria and in NSW. During those workshops, complaints data and other anecdotal evidence available to the ARBs that validated or disaffirmed the observations and findings from the desktop review were considered.

The Systemic Risks Report includes implications and recommendations for the ARBs – particularly, regulatory responses that could be employed in the context of their proactive regulatory activities to pre-empt harm that could otherwise occur. The Systemic Risks Report also includes implications and recommendations for other stakeholders, including architects themselves, with the intention of fostering a collaborative and coherent approach to the management of systemic risks affecting the Australian architecture profession.

Focus Groups

To further interrogate the results of the desktop review reflected in the Systemic Risks Report, in 2023, the ARBs decided to collaborate once again to conduct a series of focus groups to undertake “deep dives” in relation to some of the main themes identified in the initial research.

Themes

The following four themes were identified for discussion during the focus groups:

• Client-architect relationships and agreements: The need to enhance outcomes in the architecture sector through improved client-architect relationships.
• D&C procurement: The need to support architects to overcome challenges and mitigate risk in the context of design and construct procurement (D&C procurement).
• NCC compliance: The importance of enhancing architects’ understanding of and compliance with the National Construction Code (NCC).
• Disruptive change: How architects’ preparedness to respond to disruptive change associated with climate change and technological developments can be maximised.

These themes were identified for further detailed consideration based on feedback from and discussion with stakeholders about the Systemic Risks Report and from the ARBs’ collective understanding of the key issues confronting the sector at present. Each focus group dealt with one of the above themes.

Sectoral participants

In order to ensure a diversity of perspectives and insights, each focus group included a mix of around 10 participants from the following stakeholder groups:

• Architects/industry bodies
• Clients/users of architectural services
• Developers/builders
• Building surveyors
• Insurers/brokers
• Academics
• Government agencies and other regulatory bodies

Two sessions were run for each theme to enable an opportunity for a large number of participants to express their views and share their insights. Each focus group also included a mix of Victorian and NSW stakeholders. Most of the above stakeholder groups were represented in each of the focus groups but, due to unavailability, there were some focus groups where not all stakeholder groups were represented. The focus group participants are listed in alphabetical order in Appendix A.

Board members and staff

Current and former Board members from the ARBV and the NSW ARB also attended the focus groups as observers. The observers are listed in Appendix B.

In addition, the focus groups were attended by the focus group organisers – namely, Glenice Fox (Registrar and CEO, ARBV), Shane Pearse (Manager, Governance, ARBV) and Kirsten Orr (Registrar and CEO, NSW ARB). The focus groups were facilitated by Dariel De Sousa (Director, Dart Legal & Consulting).

Participation

The focus groups took place online to facilitate participation and to enable participants from Victoria and NSW to attend focus groups together.

Participants were provided with the questions for each focus group in advance of each session. Every participant was provided an opportunity to provide oral responses during the focus groups as well as written responses. Some participants conferred with colleagues before the focus groups took place and shared those views during the focus groups. Each focus group was two hours in duration.

Record of focus group discussions

Following conclusion of the focus groups, a summary of comments made during the focus groups was prepared and circulated to participants to check for accuracy before the summary was finalised. The summary has been used to prepare this report, but does not form part of the report in order to protect the privacy and identity of the many focus group participants who generously gave up their time to participate in the focus groups and candidly shared their beliefs and opinions so that understanding of systemic risks in the sector could be enhanced.

Deep Dive Report

The analysis and findings from the Systemic Risks Report have been combined with the comments and insights from the focus groups to prepare this “Deep Dive Report into Systemic Risks in the Australian Architecture Sector” (Deep Dive Report). The Deep Dive Report focuses on the four themes that were discussed during the focus groups, namely:

• client-architect relationships and agreements;
• D&C procurement;
• NCC compliance; and
• disruptive change.

The primary purpose of this report is to share the additional insights gained by the ARBs in relation to the four themes addressed during the focus groups as well as the implications for the ARBs and for other sectoral participants – including government bodies, industry bodies, research bodies, education and training providers and architects themselves – so that sectoral outcomes can be improved.