Board decision on legal advice - Reputation of the Profession

The request was successful.

Dear Simon Howard,

This is a follow-up request to the prompt and full reply that I have received to my earlier request of 20 June.

In that request I asked whether or not the Board has received external advice on whether or not the Professional Conduct Committee may consider the reputation of the profession as a valid reason for imposing a sanction on a registered person, and if it had received that advice, to provide me with a copy of it. You declined to provide this copy, saying that in your view it was exempt from disclosure pursuant to s42(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.

1. Please inform me whether or not this advice, either in its original form and/or in précis, and/or if oral, was communicated to the Board and/or the Professional Conduct Commitee and/or any member of the Board and/or the Professional Conduct Committee. If so communicated in any form other than the original, please let me know in what form it was communicated and to whom the advice was communicated.

2. If so communicated in any form other than in its original form, please provide me with a copy of any such communiation containing that advice or referring to it. For the avoidance of doubt, if the only form of communication was the Guidance referred to in my earlier request, please confirm that without providing a copy of it.

3. If any decision has been taken by the Board and/or the Professional Conduct Committee in consequence of the comunication of that advice, please provide me with a copy of the relevant minute(s) of a meeting or meetings of the Board and/or the Professional Conduct Committee in which that advice was taken into into account in the formulation, preparation and/or approval of the Guidance referred to in my earlier request.

If the Board considers that it is exempt from providing any of the information I am asking for, please state the exemption category and the reasons for applying it.

Yours sincerely

Ian Salisbury

info@arb.org.uk, Architects Registration Board



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Architects Registration Board
8 Weymouth Street
London
W1W 5BU
t: (020) 7580 5861
f: (020) 7436 5269
w: http://www.arb.org.uk/

Simon Howard, Architects Registration Board

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Salisbury

Thank you for your follow-up request of 29 June 2016. Turning to your numbered points:

1. The advice was communicated in its original form to three members of the Board - Nabila Zulfiqar, Ros Leveson and Alex Wright.

2. It has not, so ARB does not hold information in relation to this request.

3. It has not, so ARB does not hold information in relation to this request. I do however attach a minute of the meeting at which the Indicative Sanctions Guidance was adopted by the Professional Conduct Committee, which may be of assistance.

I trust this answers you request; you still have the right to have my response reviewed as explained in my earlier letter. Furthermore if there are matters which concern you over and above requests for information under FOIA, then I would be happy to address them as through the course of business correspondence.

Yours sincerely

Simon Howard
Head of Professional Standards
Architects Registration Board
T: +44 (0) 20 7580 5861 F: +44 (0) 20 7436 5269
E: [email address]
W: www.arb.org.uk

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Dear Simon Howard,

Thank you for your full and prompt reply to my inquiry.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Salisbury