So what did the Technical Advisers that sat on the client side and were meant to scrutinise and advise the client both on technical standards in the brief and the contractors response to that do in all this? Take the cash and run??

Factors at play include:
1. Design and build contracts generally
2. Poorly executed performance specifications
3. Creation of a fairy role of "Procurement specialists" who know little of construction/design and are "buyers"...
4. EU procurement rules
5. Reduction of the importance of a Clerk of Works role within the contract/client mindset
6. Contractual risk apportionment in favour of the client
7. Erosion of professional advisor fees
8. Lack of scrutiny of design proposals.
9. Funding pressures and a client reliance on lowest price (quality is still not a public sector procurement criteria of any significance despite what the public sector say)
10. Public sector procurement teams motivated by demonstrating their "value" to an organisation by savings made. (Causing the issues above).

It's a long list of ills but it comes back to the issue of Design and Build and the PFI/PPP model generally. Things were perceived to be better when clients designed what they wanted and bought in a contractor to build it. Maybe we need to look at the procurement models first and foremost and move away from Design and Build?

@2, hindsight is obviously through rose tinted glasses. Buildings leaked, collapsed, and were badly designed under traditional procurement too. Sadly client dissatisfaction with what was produced through traditional build was one of the factors that drove the public sector towards D&B as they were told all that’d put risk and control in one place, and with the folk who had the expertise to manage it, the building industry...

As a profession architects are primarily party to this ongoing procurement disaster. RIAS, RIBA members and all the non aligned architects consistently failed to have the conviction to challenge the nonsence of procedural procurement. You agreed to non economic fees,You agreed to delusional protocols and procedures and You persisted in wallowing in the illusional and underperforming professional bodies. The pattern repeats and how can You or others really take the RIAS mutterings seriously.