The guv'nors

The commission is best known for its review department, which scrutinises designs put forward voluntarily by architects and planners. But now it is setting up centres for the built environment around the country and tackling the skills shortage in local authorities, and its next aim is to become the consumers' champion. But to do so, Cabe will be treading on the toes of other organisations – and it is in danger of overreaching itself.

Cabe will be more than doubling in size later this year, having landed a massive increase in funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – £12m a year, and £17m over the next three years for new unit CABESpace, which will promote good design in public spaces (see "Park life", page 44). Cabe wants to expand its remit to become the general public's champion for architecture and urban design. To do this it will increase its staff to 96 by the end of this year, and later this month will announce a detailed restructuring and recruitment plan. This will mean its three directorates – Design Review, Enabling and Partnerships – will become six, including CABESpace, Development and Learning, and Policy and Communications.

Chief executive Jon Rouse is confident he can avoid the obvious problem with such an inflation of roles and responsibilities – that CABE will change from a gazelle to a hippopotamus. "The trick is not to let the expansion change us," he says. "This is the great dilemma we face. Since I arrived – when CABE was established – our turnover has increased 1000%; our staff team has gone from three people to nearer 100. The original culture was dynamic, lightfooted, fun, irreverent. The new directorates must keep the same vibrancy that was in the original team two years ago."

Rouse says he has had an easy ride so far and admits that CABE's expansion could make his life more tricky. He compares its growth with that of a child: "When you're a baby, people coo over you and say 'how fantastic'. Then around the age of two you start throwing tantrums, learn to talk and people realise you're serious and they have to engage with you on a different level."

Surprisingly, CABE has received a pretty warm welcome from an industry that is notoriously hostile to interference. "It's impossible not to be impressed by how CABE has risen to the forefront of design standards in such a short time," says Peter Crossley, managing director of architect Broadway Malyan – a firm that has knowledge of CABE's sharp end. "CABE has been an extraordinarily successful phenomenon," agrees Ben Derbyshire, chairman of architect HTA. "It has succeeded in raising the importance of design, quality and value in building and construction."

CABE's culture – its flexibility, openness and willingness to debate its architectural judgments – is in stark contrast to the hierophantic aesthetes that made up Norman St John Stevas' Royal Fine Art Commission.

"The RFAC had a narrow focus," says Sir Stuart Lipton, chairman of CABE. "It had a remit of reviewing building quality. CABE's is much more extensive, covering education, public space, new ideas in housing, regional representatives, working with government, helping clients understand how to go about procuring a good building."

Some put it more frankly. "The RFAC was a superfluous organisation that meddled in the planning process," says Maxwell Hutchinson, architect and former RIBA president. "When it was wound up I raised a hearty cheer. At first, I thought CABE was a reintroduction of the same layer of bureaucracy, but I've been pleasantly surprised. It's shown it can do things in a very different way and has extended its remit for the better."

In fact, Hutchinson is so keen on CABE that he wants it to take over from English Heritage the responsibility for listed buildings. "EH has a massive deficit problem and it's not fulfilling its obligations," he explains. "It should stick to looking after ancient monuments."

CABE's not quite ready to go that far but – in a sign of what is perhaps to come – it's about to relaunch EH's urban panel as a joint venture. "The help many local authorities needs spans the expertise of both EH and CABE," says urban panel chairman and EH commissioner Les Sparks. Sparks is also CABE's chairman of the regions, so he's in a unique position, with a foot in both camps.

"We look at places with a history but that are undergoing significant change," Sparks says. "EH can look at the character of a place, archaeology, heritage, listed buildings. CABE can advise on regeneration and how to incorporate new design. They're complementary roles."

Could some of this work be done by the RIBA, though? The architects' society has changed direction in recent years, leaving a gap in the market that CABE has stepped into. "I'm not sure the RIBA is as interested as it used to be with the politics of architecture," Hutchinson says. "CABE has found plenty of things to do that could have been done by the RIBA, but the RIBA is increasingly interested in the practice of architecture – it's moved on as a professional institute." "The RIBA has had to make space for us," Rouse adds. "But there's no bitterness, absolutely not. They've been very gracious – they could have kicked up a fuss but haven't."

All this expansion means the recruitment of more Bright Young Things – CABE staff are notorious for being very young, with little industry experience. Some see this as a problem, especially when it comes to dealing with wise and cynical housebuilders.

"CABE have a lot of intelligent young staff, skilled in research and media strategy, but with no real understanding of industry values and needs," one observer told Building. "They don't have a grip on reasons why companies do certain things."

Bur Rouse considers his staff's youthfulness to be a benefit. "Below director level we do have quite a lot of inexperienced staff," he says. "But I wouldn't swap their drive, their enthusiasm, their intelligence and their ability to think laterally for anything. And I don't believe for a moment that my team of directors don't have credibility with companies; they have massive credibility; they are senior industry players."

The government is certainly taking CABE seriously; the commission is funded by Labour, but is far from being a political stooge. "CABE regularly clashes with government over policies it wants to see," says David Birkbeck, chief executive of non-profit company Design For Homes. "It's not a puppet of the government; CABE challenges policy and tries to redefine it. I've been in meetings where the air has turned blue because of the difference in the way CABE sees the world and the way the ODPM sees the world."

A good example is Britain's housing crisis. Birkbeck credits Rouse with getting the message through to government that thousands more homes were desperately needed, and a massive building programme commenced. "Rouse has done the housebuilding industry a much bigger favour than they realise," Birkbeck says. "He's lobbied the government for many of the things the industry has wanted for years. He made the government wake up to the fact that there was a lack of housing being built."

Unsurprisingly, the House Builders' Federation doesn't quite see it that way. "I'd credit us with alerting the government," sniffs an HBF spokesperson. And although the HBF is working with CABE on design through the joint Building For Life initiative (see "In bed with Wayne Hemingway", page 44), they're not too keen about E E its expanding role. "We appreciate CABE's views and we're demonstrating our happiness to work with CABE on the design issue," the spokesperson said. "But it's important that issues of design and density aren't confused. There's a grave danger in trying to decide what kind of dwellings people should live in. Housebuilders are aware of what customers want and we resist any notion that this can be brushed over."

But Chris Murray, formerly CABE's director of partnerships and now head of the development and learning unit, is adamant that simply building whatever sells is not justifiable. "You can sell a shed in some parts of England for huge amounts of money – that doesn't mean it's right to build sheds, and it also doesn't mean it's right to use social housing in the way housebuilders do," he says. "I've seen a lot of developments in which they use social housing to shield the private housing from a railway or a motorway. It's extremely poor quality, it's just not good enough and it's not on."

CABE doesn't just want the industry to change – it wants the public to become more choosy. With the forthcoming staff and budget increase, the body is repositioning itself as the people's champion – a role that perhaps the Consumers' Association would have relished?

"It's not an area we'd think of going into," a Consumers Association spokesperson told Building. "There are other people – such as CABE – that would do a better job than us."

CABE's Murray clearly agrees. "Consumers need to know more about what's on offer and what the possibilities are," he says. "We need a different kind of consumer. People are very interested in design but they haven't made the link between design that affects them personally and the urban landscape as a whole."

And Lipton takes an even broader view, seemingly wanting to change the nation's psyche. "We want to encourage people to think about the holistic design of spaces," he says. "Not only should something look good, it should function efficiently. We want the nation to think that architecture isn't just something you add on to a building, like wallpaper."

Perhaps over the next 10 years, the country will rethink its approach to design and construction to such an extent that CABE will be obsolete. That's Rouse's dream. "I'd like to see that the importance of architecture and design is so embedded in the culture, CABE can go back to being three or four people," he says. "CABE should be looking to put itself out of business."