Built environment governance and professionalism: the end of laissez-faire (again)

The regulation of the built environment depends upon a combination of governmental regulation, robust professional practice and market forces. The balance between these varies over time and different jurisdictions. This essay considers the recurrent rise and fall of the principle of laissez-faire. The growth and public purpose objectives of the professional institutions are examined, as is their decline under the ascendency of neoliberalism in the UK, though the analysis is relevant to other countries. A reconsideration of professional attitudes and attitudes to the professions resulting from the catastrophic fire in the UK’s Grenfell Tower residential block in 2017 is currently underway. A return to the founding objectives of the institutions is recommended if they are to equip themselves with renewed purpose and to avoid over-restrictive regulation by government. Any such renewal needs to include a focus on behaviour, ethics, competence, research-based evidence and, above all, a transformation in the governance of the professions. Policy relevance The recent history and current public purpose obligations of governmental and non-governmental organisations are considered to ensure that built environment professionals under their jurisdiction have the competence, authority and freedom of action to make reasonably certain that those obligations are fulfilled effectively. An approach to appropriate organisational governance and policy following several high-profile building failures, including the Grenfell Tower fire, as well as future environmental challenges, is described and discussed. A coordinated system of governance involving both market regulation and professionalism (guided by robust institutions) have an essential role to play in making an equitable and rules-based economy work and delivering both short- and long-term objectives.