Professional Conduct Committee Decisions

ARCHITECTS REGISTRATION BOARD

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT COMMITTEE

IN THE MATTER OF

MR RICHARD SAVAGE (034427C); &

MR JEFFREY HAYWARD (046370A)

Present:

MR PETER VERDIN
(CHAIRMAN)
MRS BARBARA SAUNDERS
(PCC MEMBER)
MR DONAL HUTCHINSON
(PCC MEMBER)

MR STEPHEN BATTERSBY appeared as Clerk to the Committee
MR JONATHAN GOODWIN appeared on behalf of the Board
MR HAYWARD attended and was represented by MR PETER COLLIE of No 5. Chambers and Mr ALAN EDGINGTON of LDJ Solicitors
MR SAVAGE did not appear and was not represented

ALLEGATIONS: Mr Savage faced the following allegations:

That he made representations orally and in writing to his client which were misleading and untrue, and in doing so he failed to act with integrity, contrary to Standard 1 of the Architects Code Standards of Code and Practice 2002 (the Code);
That he failed to undertake his work faithfully and conscientiously, contrary to Standard 4;
That he failed to undertake his work without undue delay, contrary to Standard 11.4;
That he failed to adequately, or at all, set out his terms of engagement in writing, contrary to Standard 11.1, and
That he failed to adequately, or at all, deal with a complaint concerning his professional work, contrary to Standard 12.

THE CHAIRMAN: There have been aspects of this case which have not been particularly easy for us, and that is why we have been giving considerable consideration to them. I am going to deal first of all with the case of Mr Savage, and I should say that we find him guilty of unacceptable professional conduct, and serious professional incompetence. Mr Savage has not appeared before us today, and he has not been represented. He has had letters from the office notifying him of the intention to proceed with this case today, and notifying him of the possible consequences of a finding against him.

I will briefly deal with the facts. I do not intend to deal with them extensively. In April 2005 Mr and Mrs Halborg and their associate company instructed Mr Savage, who practiced in partnership in the firm Savage Hayward, and Mr Hayward, to whom we will refer later, was a partner of Mr Savage. Mr Savage was instructed to prepare an amended planning application, and a planning appeal, to the Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, and this was in respect of a proposed development, which Mr Savage had been dealing with on behalf of the Halborgs for some considerable time previous to those instructions being given.

On 11 July 2005 Mr Savage wrote to the Halborgs, and he wrote to say, in explicit terms, that he had submitted the revised planning application and the appeal, and in the letter he said that he enclosed a copy of the relevant documents. These documents were not in fact enclosed. It is hardly surprising, because in fact Mr Savage had not submitted the revised application, nor had he submitted the appeal.

From then on Mr Savage continued to maintain, on various occasions in 2005, that he had made the applications and that they were being dealt with by the appropriate authorities. In December 2006 in fact he met Mrs Halborg in a local supermarket and he assured her then that a decision could be expected from the Council on the planning application by the first week in January 2007.

In January 2007 Mr Scott Halborg , who is the son of Mr and Mrs Halborg , and is a director of the associate company, discovered that the revised planning application had not been submitted, and that no appeal had in fact been lodged. So there was all that period when Mr Savage had maintained that events had happened which had not taken place at all.

The Halborgs then confronted Mr Savage at his practice on 31 January, and there was correspondence afterwards. Now at that confrontation Mr Savage admitted that he had neither submitted the revised application, nor the appeal. Then in letters later, on 26 February 2009 to the Architects’ Registration Board he confirmed this admission. So we are satisfied that Mr Savage had made untrue statements to his clients, and not only that but he had embarked upon a course of deliberate and dishonest misrepresentations to back up his earlier misrepresentation. This in itself amounts to unacceptable professional conduct, and the way in which he conducted the matter, it was clear that he was also guilty of serious professional incompetence.

Now there are two other headings under these charges which have been put by his solicitor for the Board. I can deal with those this way: that when the Halborgs wrote to Mr Savage and his partner on 17 November 2008, and on 4 December 2008, and on 16 December 2008, Mr Savage failed to reply. Mr Hayward in fact never saw those letters as he was away on holiday at that time. So we find that Mr Savage did not in fact deal with complaints that had been made, and they are part of the head of this charge of unacceptable professional conduct.

Now it is alleged that terms of engagement were not provided in writing, and we are not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that they were not provided. There is a great deal of doubt about what happened with regard to the terms of engagement, and the suggestion that Mr Savage failed to adequately or set out the terms of the engagement in writing have not played any part in our finding that he was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct. We are satisfied that he has been guilty of dishonesty, serious dishonesty, and there is only one sanction that we can impose in those circumstances, and that is erasure of his name from the Register. We have seen correspondence, and we have seen the documents where Mr Savage has stated that he wanted to retire, and that he had actually asked for him name to be removed from the Register, but of course that could not be done when these proceedings were in progress. However, although we have no power to make this order, we do make a recommendation to the Board that no application for reinstatement to the Register should be entertained within a period of 10 years from the erasure.

ALLEGATIONS: Mr Hayward faced the following allegations:

That he failed to report the conduct of Mr Savage to the ARB contrary to Standard 10.1 of the Architects Code Standards of Code and Practice 2002 (the Code); and
That he failed to adequately, or at all, set out his terms of engagement in writing, contrary to Standard 11.1.

CHAIRMAN: Now Mr Hayward has appeared before us, and he has been represented by Mr Collie of Counsel. Mr Hayward has admitted to unacceptable professional conduct in as much as, contrary to standard 10.1 of the standards that were in force at that time, he had failed to report to the Registrar a serious breach of the Code which had come to his attention, namely the conduct of Mr Savage.

Now these matters first came to Mr Hayward’s attention on 31 January 2007 when he was visited at the office by the Halborgs. He did nothing until contacted by ARB in January 2009 when he dealt with the complaints from ARB quite promptly.

He has also made an admission that terms of engagement of the firm failed to set out the fact that architects are subject to regulation by ARB, and he has argued also though that this requirement need not be in writing.

We are not happy with the evidence about the terms of engagement, and again, so far as the finding of unacceptable professional conduct against Mr Hayward is concerned, we consider that there are too many gaps in the evidence, and this allegation has played no part in our findings of unacceptable professional conduct against him. We are bound to say that we have got considerable sympathy with Mr Hayward. As Mr Collie has told us, he is an honourable man, and he has always behaved honourably, and we accept that, and it is quite clear that this is the case. Mr Hayward had been a friend of Mr Savage for some 30 years. Mr Savage had been his partner for 23 years. We certainly do not consider that Mr Hayward was involved in what might be termed a deliberate cover up. Nevertheless he was in breach of the requirement of standard 10.1 that he reports conduct of this nature to the Board. It was serious, dishonest conduct, and we have already expressed our opinion on that.

We have to consider not just the profession of the architects; we have to consider the public interest in these matters, and in the circumstances we consider that the appropriate penalty in respect of Mr Hayward is a reprimand, and that reprimand is so given Mr Hayward.

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