What we do
ARB has a small staff team of 21. There are three operational teams – Qualifications, Registration and Professional Standards – as well as a corporate function which manages, amongst other things, finances and budget, HR and communications. A management team – the Operational Management Group – headed by the Registrar, oversees and manages the operational functions of ARB.
Our work, with its supporting functions, is derived from the 1997 Architects Act. Our key statutory functions are:
- Prescribing – or ‘recognising’ the qualifications needed to become an architect
- Keeping the UK Register of Architects
- Ensuring that architects meet our standards for conduct and practice
- Investigating complaints about an architect’s conduct or competence
- Making sure that only people on our register use the title ‘architect’.
The activities we undertake to support these functions are:
Corporate
- Management of ARB’s IT system
- Development and maintenance of the website
- General office management
- Maintaining building services
- Health and safety
- Running the business of the Audit and Remuneration Committees
- Budget management and financial information
- Annual budgets and cashflows
- Monitoring investment portfolio
- Banking administration
- Managing the direct debit system
- Production of ARB’s literature
- Communications
- Human resources
- Support services: secretarial, front of house, administrative
Qualifications
- Developing and implementing policies relating to the Board’s prescription of architectural qualifications
- European legislative process and European affairs
- Liaison with government departments/RIBA/other external bodies in relation to educational issues/Architects Council of Europe
- Managing the process for prescription of Qualifications
- Liaison with UK schools and institutions of architecture
- Presentations to architectural students
- Managing the department’s budget
- Dealing with correspondence
Registration
- Production and maintenance of the Register
- Maintaining and updating ARB’s database
- Data Protection
- Dealing with applications from newly-qualified architects
- Issuing certificates of registration
- Overseeing the prescribed examination
- Implementing the Architects Act and European Directive
- Retention and other fee collection
- Managing the issue of registration cards
- Readmissions and reinstatements to the Register
- Removals from the Register due to death, resignation and non-payment of the retention fee
- Managing the process of competency standards where a person has been off the Register for more than two years
- Managing the department’s budget
- Dealing with correspondence
Professional Standards
- Managing complaints processes
- Running the business of the Investigations and Professional Conduct Committees
- Monitoring the development of regulation in society generally
- Liaison with stakeholders in the regulation process
- Keeping the Code of Conduct under review
- Monitoring and evaluating costs of investigation process and PCC hearings
- Prosecuting cases of misuse of title in the courts
- Monitoring progress of disciplinary cases sent to the Board’s solicitors for reports
- Dealing with post PCC judgment correspondence and queries
- Managing and maintaining the regulation database
- Managing the department’s budget
- Dealing with issues relating to Professional Indemnity Insurance