The profession rules, OK

Hurrah for the Office of Fair Trading. It has begun to ask a very dangerous question. It wants to know if the rules of your professional body, institute or trade association are in truth a scam. The OFT is asking whether an institute, which has exclusive rights to supply certain services, tends to drive up costs and prices, limits access and choice, and causes customers to receive poorer value for money than they would under properly competitive conditions. I will give you an example. I am a barrister, you are a chartered builder, a member or fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building. You have a construction industry dispute and want to take advice from a barrister. Well you can't, not unless you first see a solicitor or chartered surveyor. The reason is that the barrister is tied hand-and-foot to his professional "institute" rules. Big wigs have dreamed up this private rule that prevents you and me doing what we both want to do. If I break the rule, I am hauled up in front of the big wigs and get a wigging. The OFT is ready to poke these folk – the ones that have dreamed up private law, the in-house law – in the eye. Dangerous? Dear me yes. Probably twice as tricky as poking a trade unionist in the eye.

The OFT is poking at barristers' rules, solicitors' rules and accountants' rules. Now, bless my soul, why on earth is it dragging in poor old architects? The RIBA asks that, too. It squeals at being lumped with so-called fat cats, saying: "our architects earn only £30k average a year". The RIBA misses the point. The OFT is looking under stones to see what crawls out that might injure the customers in 10 years' time, not just today.

Architects could tweak or improve their private rules to get better fees. For example, if they restrict the number of new architects, demand will outstrip supply. Bingo, up goes fee income.

We can dress up a restrictive practice, but the OFT will ask if the private law distorts competition, to the detriment of the client

Of course, we can dress up a restrictive practice and make the reasoning look good, but the OFT will ask different questions. It will ask if the private law might distort competition, to the detriment of the client now or in the future. Is the private rule a tad too cosy? Now, I like architects, they are the brightest point of our industry, but quirky. They come over as a few bricks short of a full load. For heaven's sake, why are they earning an average of only £30k a year? Is the decline in new entrants because of poor pay or because it is being made deliberately more difficult to become an architect? Is there a grand plan afoot to cull members and get shot of the competition? Are architects leaving the profession because the Architects Registration Board has become too oppressive, via its private-law right to impose fines, suspend or even remove them from the register? Then there is the use of the word "architect". Does it really serve the customer to deprive members of the British Institute of Architectural Technologists of the right to call themselves technical architects? The suggestion is that those who are equally well qualified for certain types of work ought to be on a par with each other. Better surely to have design architects, technical architects and landscape architects. Right now that would be a crime.

And why oh why is a practice forced to have more than 50% of its staff as registered architects? The RIBA goes further, 80% of the architects in a practice must be members of the RIBA for that practice to be listed in the RIBA directory. It says it does that to "maintain professional standards". Oh yes? Then what about those "recommended fee scales"? Yes, we know they are only an indicator and a basis for negotiation. The perception is one of collusion; no wonder the OFT is interested. It looks wrong … and it's looks that count in this inquiry. If a builder can estimate a fixed price to build the Guggenheim, the architect Frank Gehry can damn well estimate his design fee.