Ben Addy

Comment on: The Thatcher years: architects reflect on the legacy of the Iron Lady

Ben Addy's comment 11-Apr-2013 9:20 am

I agree entirely with Max Hutchinson that architects often have an "immature attitude to fees" - I believe that this might stem from historic [unthinking?] reliance on the fee scales themselves, rather than, for example, understanding your costs, determining the profit you intend to achieve and constructing your fee from there. There are also myriad ways of expressing a fee - in some situations enabling an entrepreneurial attitude to practice - that the scales didn't address. A part of why fees have been hammered down subsequent to the abolition of the mandatory scale has been that the successor 'indicative' scales have been based on survey data of previously achieved fees. Being non-mandatory these scales became the measure against which certain clients expected architects to bid [in effect undercut]. Ultimately, when successful, these low bids themselves became a part of the source data for the scale - thereby causing it to act as a downward ratchet. Plus at the lower end of the scales the fees provided weren't high enough.