The Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) has issued architect Neil Pike, of Neil Pike Architects, Bolton with a penalty order of £1,000 after he admitted unacceptable professional conduct
Neil Pike was instructed to provide architectural services in relation to the conversion of a terrace house into two flats. The clients submitted their complaint to ARB following a lack of response to the complaint they raised with the architect in May 2018.
In his response to the ARB investigation, Neil Pike accepted he failed to provide any written terms of engagement to his client prior to undertaking professional work, as required by Standard 4.4 of the Architects Code, and that he had failed to respond to a formal complaint made by the client. He conceded that he was not aware of the complaint as it had remained unopened under a pile of paperwork.
Pike also faced the allegation of failing adequately, or at all, to put in place effective procedures for supervising less qualified technical staff and/or for the administration of written terms of engagement. Neil Pike submitted that he did not meet the clients, had no communication with them, and did not visit the site. He accepted that as the principal architect he had an obligation to supervise the architectural work carried out by less qualified technical staff, and that he failed to do so adequately in this case.
He admitted the allegations and accepted that they amounted to unacceptable professional conduct, and that a penalty order of £1,000 was an appropriate sanction. He waived his right to have the case heard at a public hearing, and agreed that the decision could be made by the PCC on the basis of the papers alone.
The PCC found these failings to be serious breaches of the Architects Code but having taken note of Neil Pike’s good disciplinary history, and steps taken to change the processes within his practice, considered a penalty order to be the appropriate and proportionate sanction.
