Issue 21

It is, of course, a very great honour to be elected and installed as President of this Institution. As with all of my predecessors, I am conscious not only of that honour, but of the duties, challenges and opportunities which will occupy us during the coming year, in a world of such astonishing change. D.W. Lazenby

It is some 10 years since my firm first published a guide to the avoidance of professional indemnity claims. That guide took the form of a set of notes distilled from the experience of our clients and of the problems they had encountered. We have updated that original paper from time to time, and its latest version now reads as follows: M. Griffiths

The relationship between a client and a professional advisor can be a delicate and complex one. A client has a duty to appoint an advisor who has appropriate competence on fair and reasonable terms and should understand the difference between buying advice and buying a manufactured article. The advisor, for his part, should try and stand in his client’s shoes, should look beyond the mechanics of the job to the interface with anything on which the project might impinge, and should advise impartially. That, at least, is the theory! J.A. Waller

The past 2 decades have seen many changes in the demands made on the construction industry and the ways its work is tackled. Some have been to the benefit of the industry and its clients; some have not. Important among the latter is the erosion of trust and confidence between many clients and their consultants: happily, there are exceptions. A rash of failures, commercial and other pressures, risk aversion, pursuit of cost effectiveness (sometimes with too little regard for quality), have all contributed to increased litigation and, perhaps more importantly, to the threat of litigation, to risk transfer, and to the increased cost of professional indemnity insurance, now temporarily abated. Professor D. Bishop

All professionals do research. The essence of any professional job is ‘careful search or inquiry’ and ‘critical investigation’ in the ‘endeavour to discover new or collate old facts’. The purpose of such endeavours may be the design of a building, or the construction of a bridge, but in each case the gathering and assessment of relevant information as a basis for professional cecision is an essential feature - especially when, as usual, the building or structure is unique. P.L. Bransby

The classical theory of travelling and standing waves is applied to the case of wind blowing across a fabric structure. Results are obtained which are of practical importance for the design of fabric structures. C.J.K. Williams