Risk & Assurance
Everyone vets the contractor. Almost no one checks the architect holding the project together.
The architect holds the brief, the drawings and the client relationship — often more sensitive information than the contractor ever sees. Legacis assesses that practice the way a risk team assesses any other supplier: ownership, continuity, financial resilience and information security, before appointment and on an ongoing basis once one is engaged.
Where risk actually sits
Before appointment, during, and across the panel
Risk shows up in three ways: a practice you are about to appoint, a practice already holding a live commission, and every practice sitting on a standing panel or framework. Most first enquiries are the middle one — a specific concern on a specific project — not the other two.
All three draw on the same dataset — ownership, leadership, planning history and financial signal, tracked continuously across the profession rather than refreshed once a year.
Right now
Worried about one project, not the whole panel?
For development and project directors, heads of estates, and family-office principals with one live scheme.
Most first enquiries are not about a panel, and not about a new appointment. They are about one practice, on one live scheme, where something does not look right — and the answer is needed this week, handled quietly, in a form you can put in front of your own board if you need to.
- A missed milestone with no clear explanation
- A partner or director leaving the practice
- A rumour the firm is for sale, merging, or in difficulty
- A sudden change in fees, resourcing, or the named team
Practice review
Fee confirmed on enquiry · results in c. 5 working days
- Full risk register on the one practice in question
- A written Practice Note setting out what has changed, and what it means for your project
- A call to talk through options for protecting the commission
What you receive
A sample Practice Note
A worked example, so you can see the format and the depth before you commission one.
Every Practice Review and pre-appointment vetting engagement ends with a written Practice Note: a risk register, a short account of what an interview with the practice actually revealed, and a plain recommendation. Below is a full example, built around a fictional scenario, to show what that looks like in practice.
Practice Note — Hollis Vane Architects
Reason for review
Ashcombe Developments engaged Legacis after Hollis Vane Architects’ founding director announced early retirement six months into detailed design, with no successor yet named to the client.
Risk register
- Ownership & controlBeneficial ownership, group structure, recent change
- Low
- Key-person dependencyShare of delivery led by one individual
- High
- Financial resilienceFilings, reserves, debt trend
- Low
- Information & data security postureHandling of sensitive drawings and site data
- Medium
- Delivery track recordPlanning results in the relevant borough
- Low
- Regulatory compliancePI insurance, ARB registration
- Low
What the interview found
The managing director confirmed a handover plan is in early discussion but not yet formalised with staff or with Ashcombe. Two associate directors have delivered comparable schemes but have not yet taken client-facing responsibility on this one.
Recommendation
Continue with the current team. Require a written handover plan naming a client-facing lead within 30 days, and revisit this review at the next RIBA stage gate.
Once engaged
Panel and supply-chain risk assurance
For heads of procurement and supply-chain risk, and for corporate security and defence-related procurement leads.
A standing risk assessment of the architecture practices already on your tender lists or frameworks. For procurement and risk teams, that means governance you can show a board or audit committee, and a clean answer under the Procurement Act 2023. For security and defence-related buyers, it means the ownership, control and information-handling questions a design consultant is rarely asked — sitting alongside, not instead of, formal personnel and facility security clearance.
Illustrative risk register
Practice A — not a real firm- Ownership & controlBeneficial ownership, group structure, recent change
- Low
- Key-person dependencyShare of delivery led by one individual
- High
- Financial resilienceFilings, reserves, debt trend
- Low
- Information & data security postureHandling of sensitive drawings and site data
- Medium
- Delivery track recordPlanning results in relevant authorities
- Medium
- Regulatory compliancePI insurance, ARB registration
- Low
Panel audit
Priced against panel size · confirmed on enquiry
- Risk register for every practice on the list
- Summary for your risk or security committee
- Recommended safeguards
Pre-appointment vetting
Priced per practice · confirmed on enquiry
- A full risk register and Practice Note before contract award
- Interview-based check on succession and capacity
- Suggested contract safeguards
Ongoing monitoring
Annual subscription · scoped to your panel
- Alerts on ownership and leadership change
- Quarterly panel risk report
- Annual full refresh
This is an independent commercial and continuity risk assessment. It does not replace, and is not a substitute for, formal personnel security vetting, List X status, or other government security clearance processes — it is designed to sit alongside them, covering the ownership, continuity and commercial risk that formal vetting does not.
At appointment
Architect selection for new projects
For development and investment directors entering an unfamiliar market, region, or planning authority.
Independent selection of the right UK architect for a new scheme, for UK and international developers without an existing relationship or a reliable internal view of who actually delivers there — from a shortlist through to appointment and, where needed, oversight through planning.
Shortlist
Fee confirmed on enquiry · c. 10 working days
- Filtered by building type and planning authority
- Checked for team depth and financial stability
- Delivered with a rationale for each practice
Managed selection
Fee confirmed on enquiry · brief to appointment
- Brief written and interviews run
- Fee bids benchmarked
- Appointment terms reviewed
Client representative
Monthly retainer · scoped to the scheme
- Design and programme review
- Planning authority liaison
- Early warning on delivery risk
Site, scheme, budget, programme.
Filtered from the dataset.
Track record and stability.
Five practices, with rationale.
Interviews, recommendation.
Independence
No fees from the practices assessed
Neither service accepts fees, commissions or referral payments from the practices being introduced or assessed. The client is always the party making the decision — never the practice being judged. Any connection to a practice under review is declared, and we step back.