RIBA Members

By Sunand Prasad

When recovery is eventually under way, will members be able to look back and say that the institute helped them ameliorate the worst effects of the downturn or even beat it altogether? Will the institute itself be seen to have managed a potentially significant lowering of revenues without serious damage to its programme and profile?

Right now no one knows what is likely to happen. By the time you read this, the picture will already be different. Hopefully the G7 states will have agreed a package that makes banks function again with credit flowing. Even if then, most commentators estimate that there will be a two-to-three-year recession at a minimum. The more gloomy projections, especially from the US, say that the wounds of the last three weeks will take more than a decade to heal, not least because of the taxation impact of the multi-trillion-dollar investment of G7 states into the banking system.

Gordon Brown, in his Labour Party conference speech, said that the world had shifted on its axis. Most people accept that the credit crunch, initially triggered by the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the US, is the inevitable denouement of unsustainable global banking practice. If that leads to more sustainable and responsible banking, it will be some compensation for the pain that many individuals, overwhelmingly those least at fault, will suffer. Our attitude therefore should be to be positive: pressing as hard as we can as citizens for a better regulated and responsive banking system, while we as a profession seek opportunities and markets we may not have sought before, and undertake the best damage limitation exercise that we can mount.

The financial crisis has been a top concern at the RIBA for many months now and is being strongly factored into business planning, helped by intelligence from members about how they are being affected. Additionally, the vice-presidents, honorary officers, the president-elect and I as a group are focusing on taking the best longer term view that we can, for example by looking at some of the gloomier scenarios. These may be impossible to plan for but information itself is one of the principal offers of an institution to its members.

Of more immediate effect is the decision of RIBA Council to make a below-inflation increase, rather than a nil increase, in subscription rates to help ensure that architects who suffer a significant loss of income can remain members through the low income rate of subscription that offers a truly significant reduction. In the meantime, the RIBA has been stepping up its marketing of members’ services more globally, holding events with UKTI in Beijing and at Cityscape in Dubai. Coping with harder times is also very much on the agenda of the small practices conference in October. Diversifying workload is a standard measure in difficult times, but I believe there may be a particular opportunity for architects in the UK planning system, which is (or should be!) crying out for design skills. It is a great pity that there are far fewer architect planners than there used to be and I am in conversation with the RTPI to examine more effective routes to planning qualifications for experienced architects.

The financial crisis has already damaged political will for action on climate change. But a programme of improving our existing building stock could actually help mitigate both climate change and the impacts of a recession. There are some 20 million homes in the UK to be made energy efficient. VAT on refurbishment should be immediately reduced to 5% and a package of grants, tax incentives and action by utility companies put together so that thousands of small and medium sized architects and building and engineering companies can continue to work while helping reduce carbon emissions and alleviate fuel poverty: snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, perhaps.