Fee competition - ‘a form of lunacy'

Since fee scales were abolished 20 years ago, the professions have, by and large, operated under a system of ‘first past the post' in terms of securing commissions. There are, of course, some notable exceptions among clients and thankfully my firm has a few who do not operate in this way. These exceptional clients put the quality of service and the eventual outcomes above any thoughts on minimum fees.

The potential drawback of the ‘first past the post' system is that it can give rise to poor service from less qualified members of staff, who are employed to ensure that profit is made on the project, often at the expense of a client's requirements.

This is not a whinge. We all have choices and many of us can, and do, make a good living out of the system. My concern lies not with the situation as it stands, but with future generations of professionals and our national construction industry.

Without the necessary funds coming in we cannot invest enough to ensure we attract the brightest and best from our schools, colleges and universities.

We talk about our industry as being ‘a people business' but unless we manage to fight off the competition in terms of recruitment from lawyers, accountants and management consultants, the expertise and commitment required to keep the industry in the vanguard of world construction will all but disappear.

Let's be clear, no one comes to work to do a bad job and I am sure most firms take on a commission for a fixed fee and then do their best for their clients, as we do. However, this often means expending more resources than are covered under the fee arrangement, and often leaves us unable to claim what can be quite substantial additional costs.

The drawback of the ‘first past the post’ system is that it gives rise to poor service from less qualified members of staff

So what must we do? I think it is time to reintroduce fee scales for professional services, so that firms are once more competing on their knowledge and expertise and the capabilities of those they employ, rather than haggling over the ‘first past the post' system and coping with the drawbacks that can be derived from it.

A licence to print money some might cry, but I disagree. We need a review body that sits every three years to decide on adjustments, which are based on the results of control monitoring and feedback.

Furthermore, a proportion of a firm's fee income should be taken as a levy and used to capture and support the brightest and best to put them into the construction and property industry, much along the lines of the legal profession.

This is not something that should be handled by the professional institutes and institutions because they have failed the rank and file members on this and many other areas of our industry over the years.

If we could achieve this change I believe we can get the right people on the bus, in the right seats and then the bus that is our industry can go anywhere.