Two architecture practices received a total of £1.1m in fees by acting as Client Design Advisers on Birmingham council’s Building Schools for the Future scheme, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
The figures were obtained by Building Design under the Freedom of Information Act, show that Birmingham paid £1.1 million to architects who acted as CDAs on its £2.4 bn BSF project. The project was secured last year by a Bovis Lend Lease consortium.
The revelation support criticisms from education secretary Michael Gove that architects “creamed off cash” from the £55bn BSF programme, which was axed in July amid criticism from government that it did not offer value for money.
Sole practitioner and 2004 RIBA presidential candidate Simon Foxell was paid £724,250 over four years. This included £382,021 in a single year. The remaining amount went to Matthew Springett’s MSA Architects which received £375,054.
The news has revived the debate sparked by education secretary Michael Gove, who has faced criticism from the RIBA when he accused architects of “creaming off cash” under BSF.
Graham Stuart, Tory chairman of the Commons education select committee, called the payments “morally offensive”, but said he did not blame the architects involved.
“Most of the school estate is now in desperate need of attention,” he said. “If I was a school that needed repairs I would be horrified and furious to know that hundreds of thousands of pounds can be passed on to one [consultancy] firm. It’s bad business and morally offensive.
“I don’t blame the professionals, it’s entirely the fault of the burdensome and bureaucratic BSF system that was set up by the last government. We wasted all this money and the money wasn’t even ours because we were borrowing it.”
On Monday, Gove – who was opening Penoyre & Prasad’s new BSF school in Tottenham – said he stood by his original claim.
But RIBA president Ruth Reed maintained her criticism of the minister’s views.
“There is no suggestion that fees for architects are out of control — quite the reverse,” she said. “If you are trying to suggest £100 an hour is unreasonable for professional consultancy then you are not going to get much sympathy from the profession.”
In August 2009, Simon Foxell wrote about his experiences as a CDA in Birmingham for RIBA Journal, CM’s sister title. He wrote: “As a result of the complex procurement process, many public projects will see innumerable architects even before they get to planning. A school project in the first phase of a local authority’s Building Schools for the Future programme will have a firm doing a feasibility and options appraisals design (RIBA Stages A&B) and a Partnerships for Schools (PfS) design manager; it will also have a CABE enabler and a client design advisor (as I am in Birmingham), as well as three separate firms doing competitive scheme designs, each advised by a design champion.
“The project may then be presented to CABEs design review panel (with probably another three architects on board) and possibly a local panel (perhaps with a couple of architects or more) to judge. That is about 15 different architects (but probably more since the design teams will be represented by several individuals) but with very little collaboration.”
