The NLA Expert Panel on Technical Competency met again last week and the theme that peppered the whole meeting was around competencies, and likely expectations from the HSE, the industry and insurers.

 

Arita Morris opened the meeting explaining that the Mayor of London was interested on feedback from NLA and expert panel on how the industry would meet challenges that would arise from the enactment of the Building Safety Bill (BSB). She asked on the subject of competence whether the panel thought that we were going to end up with competence registers?

 

Nattasha Freeman shared that she was aware that the Building Safety Alliance were talking to the HSE, CITB, RIBA, RICS, and others to agree on a common definition of “competency” to prevent ambiguity in the industry and people having to meet different standards. She added that the industry was struggling however, to define how we would evidence “behaviours” to meet the HSE desire to change the culture of construction, property and project management.  

Peter Capelhorn’s response was that a lot of work was being done by CIC competence groups especially around the subjects of products and materials so that those who design/build know what they are talking about. He shared that the CEO of CITB had been talking about how manufacturer training can be recognised and progressed as a vital part of this whole picture.  Brendan Treanor welcomed the news as he added that regional colleges and manufacturers need to be joined up: core principles need to include what people need to know to apply what they have learned. 

 

John Roberston added that we should be starting to underline competency through architectural education, with students learning how to think rather than how to do architecture: even that early, there is confusion about who a designer might be. The BSB should inspire but instead seems to be looking at non-compliance with building regs. They should provide as part of the training fundamental elements like 3-D diagrams showing what building regs compliance looks like for cladding and above ceiling works. He also voiced a concern that the Building Regulator may replace Building Control and the emphasis would be on compliance and action rather than learning and working together.  Michael Morgan who has been guest lecturer at a lot of university events noted how there was a lack of building regulations covered as part of standard architectural training.

 

Moving onto the subject of design itself, David Murray noted that there had been an increase in contractor claims where they were being blamed for omissions in design, for designs that were “instructions” for delivery. Michael responded by saying that he had seen many more enquiries pass through him in his Building Control role, where Designers think they can design a building around the building regs, but don’t include fire safety engineering in the designs. He said that he was worried that Designers were looking at building control as being their final protection against compliance possibly caused by the short supply of recognised fire engineers (approx 300 in the UK).

 

Simon responded by saying designers need to be given sufficient time to perform competently. We have seen more and more jobs passed on to the contractors at the end of RIBA stage 2 which are not coordinated and impossible to include quality and detailed information. David Murray agreed and said, that in his experience more contractors were being involved at R2, who would then bring in their own designers and influence the outcome/deliverable perhaps not in the way the Client originally intended. 

 

Karyn Williams added that she agrees that with design time cut short there is no time to consider procurement and materials strategies impact: this is needed at R3 for there to be any coherent feedback to the Client on likely pricing. She would like to see one standard approach to how design is delivered to remove these hamstrings and arrive at standard shared policy that does not detract from building regs. requirements, and leave you with problems which end up needing a value engineering solution. 

 

To end the discussion Neil Farrance spoke about the BSB’s lack of focus on the collaborative nature of building procurement. Clients still distrust contractors and that puts more emphasis on liability. Consequently you are finding more contractors/ subcontractors that can’t get the requisite insurance to engage and deliver. His experience in contrast to Simon’s, was that often design was being progressed to R5 and presented to the contractors as a fait accompli: with any suggestions from the contractor at that stage being viewed as suspicious – a response does not engender a collaborative / team approach. 

 

As an aside Nattasha mentioned that she had been delivering many briefings and presentations around the BSB – now with the Lords for questions and then back to the Commons in April for possible implementation in part/whole before they rise at the end of April – simply because the messaging around a timetable for enactment and implementation through changes to secondary legislation was poor. Nattasha commented that if the HSE wanted to bring about a real change in the industry that messaging has to be clearer and signposted sooner rather than later, if the intention was to prevent another Grenfell.

 

Arita thanked everyone for talking frankly and sharing their knowledge of where we are in the industry in the face of the BSB enactment.  It was agreed that at the next meeting the panel would look at BIM and how that plays a part in producing 3D imaging particularly above ceilings in design, how we define MMCs as there is more than one archetype and we need to identify why this type of building is selected, how we use technical roles to capture requirements around the performance of buildings and how far the codes for product information have progressed and whether their release will be out to meet implementation of the BSB recommendations.