Hi, John, how are you doing?

 

Very well, thank you, David. 

 

Good. Congratulations on being appointed as a compliance inspector as part of the government's Building Safety Act. I wanted to really ask you firstly, in practice, what that entails, for people who might not know how that operates? What will happen, and why were you chosen, indeed?

 

A compliance inspector is basically a government appointment. As you know, David, the government is investing a lot of money into remediation projects nationwide, clearing up combustible materials that have been left in walls and probably shouldn't have been put in there in the first place. And we are employed as designers of many of these projects to lead a design team and remediate these high-rise residential buildings. The government have introduced two new roles; one, the compliance inspector, and the other one is the Clerk of Works, which is a familiar role which we used to have on site and has been re-introduced on remediations schemes for all government-funded projects. The compliance inspector, which is the one that I've been asked to look at by several clients now is a role separate from the design team and separate from the construction team. It is appointed by the building owner – the client, as I call it – and they're on funded projects. So, what our role is, as a compliance inspector is to ensure that part B of the Building Regulations is being complied to. We will have a look at all of the design drawings; we will go to site five times during the project's lifetime – 20%, 40% 60%, 80% and 100% and prepare a compliance report. And what that means is that I will go to site, or one of my guys will go to site, and we will inspect works ongoing. So, 20% of the work, I would expect to see cladding panels removed and taken away from site, and some cladding panels going back on. And it's as simple as that. What we do look at very carefully is how those materials, which are non-combustible, are being assembled in the external wall. It's not just having a non-combustible panel, it's also the way those panels are assembled, so that there are no dangerous cavities, shall we say, that fire can get into and creep up the building. So, it needs a lot of experience.  I've been working on this now for about four years, not as a compliance inspector, but as a designer, helping design teams and construction teams. So, a compliance inspector needs to be a qualified architect. They actually stipulate RIBA - I think, it probably should be ARB, but they say RIBA; and should be suitably competent and experienced in fire safety matters, which of course, I am. And responsible for confirming that works are compliant with the guidance. And that guidance is what I described to you earlier, which is the part B of the Building Regulations. And then we are responsible for certifying that any work is completed in good industry practice, etc. So, cavity barriers and I'm sure you know, what one of those is, should be fixed properly, because quite often when we reveal what has gone on before, we take off cladding panels and have a look inside the wall, and you will find missing cavity barriers, which is a big no-no. And if we do find them, they haven't been fitted correctly, because they should be fitted fixed to the wall and then under compression, when you put the panels back on – I might be getting a little bit too technical now! But these reports are absolutely essential to go back to government so that the client, the building owner is confident and comfortable that the works that have been carried out by his design team, and by the construction team, are being carried out correctly.

 

So, a couple of questions arising from that. Firstly, how much of your time will be spent doing this as opposed to your other work? Secondly, are you banned from inspecting work that your own practice has been working on? And thirdly, and this is a larger question, really - what is your view of the general cladding landscape these days in the shadow of Grenfell? Is it getting safer out there?  What's your perception?

 

Yeah, good questions. Question two first, if you don't mind. Yes. I wouldn't say 'banned'...

 

(laughs) No. Prevented!

 

I am actually a designer, I'm Senior Director of DMWR. When I say, I, I mean in DMWR - if we're a designer on any of these projects, these remediation projects, we cannot be compliance inspector as well. You can't; it's a separate appointment. So, we don't. And in fact, I've got several projects, where I can't reveal the client’s name because they're confidential, because quite a few clients don't want it to be known out there that they are having to remediate these buildings – although they are doing, and they're paying for that, privately. They're paying for that themselves. On those projects, I have been asked to recommend compliance inspectors, and clerk of works, to those clients, which I have done. But they're not necessary. Because in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, David, if you've got a good design team: a professional, competent design team, which I have, and I'm not just including us as architects, I'm including fire engineers, facade engineers, structural engineers, and approved inspectors, and then a very competent cladding remediation construction team, you shouldn't need a compliance inspector. You shouldn't need it. Because you should be getting all of the work that I described by your design team, by the report. So, it's really a compliance inspector is doubling up on what's needed. And I think the government were concerned that the money that they were investing in these projects might not be being spent correctly, and they just needed to know that it was being. And the whole thing about the 20, 40, 60, 80% is about the money spent on the projects. The last question…just remind me what it was?

 

What is your view of the cladding landscape as it were these days in the shadow of Grenfell, and is it safer? What's your perception?

 

Certainly, I think yes. Yes. The answer to that is very definitely. We've got about 30 of these projects, not compliance role, but design role. And we've got about six compliance roles, just on all of my projects, so, all of the DMWR projects, are going extremely well. One of them went over time, because you quite often find things that you don't know are going to be there, David. When you start peeling off panels, you might find a slab edge in the wrong place, and you have to deal with that on site. As I said, we've got an excellent, responsive team that quickly address all of these issues, and all of the projects are now going according to programme. We're not overspending. As a compliance inspector, when I'm reviewing other people's other architects, other facade engineers, other construction teams, I have to tell you, I'm really pleased with what I'm finding. I've been on a 20% visit, and I've been on an 80% visit. And I'm just about to do 100% visit on a scheme up in Newcastle, and I’m very impressed with what I'm seeing. 

One thing I would just add into this is that when I first started in this four years ago, we had to remove all combustible materials from the external wall in order to get what's known as an EWS1 ‘A’ certificate. An EWS1 is a mortgage valuation certificate. It's issued by a fire engineer; it means External Wall certificate and 'A' rated means nothing left combustible in that wall at all. Since, probably in the last two years, the government has introduced a PAS document, PAS 9980 document, which allows design teams to look holistically at buildings. So you'd go inside the building; you don't just look at the external wall. You look at everything inside the building, the means of escape distances, compartmentation, sprinklers, all the fire things that you'd expect to find inside. And by doing so, it would allow you to leave some combustible materials inside the wall. Why is that important? Because, for example, I've got a scheme in Birmingham which is brick – brickwork everywhere. I don't want to be taking down all of the brickwork and certainly the client doesn't, just to get to the insulation behind it. So, we are allowed to keep that insulation, which is combustible, inside; keep the brickwork where it is, but you make sure that you encapsulate it completely with horizontal and vertical fire barriers. So, it's much less intrusive on the external wall. But you don't get the A-rated certificate, you only get the B-rated certificate. It's still a certificate, you can still sell your flat at the end of the day, it's got a value, but it's not as high a value as the A-rated certificate.

 

I'm sort of picturing you with a clipboard, arriving unannounced, or at least at least like an OFSTED inspection where people know you're coming. Is that too simplistic a way of thinking about it, or is that pretty accurate?

 

No, I don't come unannounced…

 

Do some? Is that a personal thing? 

 

No, I agree:  I mean, I need to know when the 20% is ready. Or the 40% is ready. Do you see what I mean? I'm not going to waste my time.  I actually want to come to site, want to get up on scaffolding, I want to walk the site. I always arrange my meeting with the clerk of works, who is also on site. And his role is, you know, daily inspections, basically – or six weekly inspections. And we look at the work together. We examine everything that we can see. So: has it been fixed back properly? We even have micrometers with us so, we can measure the width of cladding rail fixes, we look at rivets, rivet size, cetera, et cetera. We do everything, and then we do a report. So, I can't just turn up unannounced, because the work might not be ready - You see what I mean? I always try and tee it in.

 

Right, change of gear question. As a practice, you're celebrating 60 years in the business, I think, and you've now got around that number – 60 or so staff in London, Manchester, and Hertfordshire. I wanted to just ask you as a last question how the firm has changed in that time? I mean, you haven't been there the whole time, but in the time that you've been there, or at least anecdotally? And what would your advice be to practices just starting out on that journey?

 

So, we're 66 (staff), Yes. And we have three offices, as you know, one in London here, which I'm Senior Director of, and there are 23 of us here now. We're at capacity, actually, we need to look at expanding. Manchester's about 10 of us there; the remainder is in Baldock in Hertfordshire. It's about 10 years since we created this new office in London, and we've tripled in size. I think we started off as…I think there were five of us, so, we're 23. And work has really come in as a result of a lot of hard work, particularly during COVID, because we were all shocked by COVID. I mean, that couldn't have come across at a worse time. We had a lot of work leading up to COVID happening. But we got bigger. We got bigger during COVID because I think a lot of our clients, developer clients, existing ones, have a lot of faith in us. And that's, I think one of your questions at the end there was about advice: build relationships. You need relationships. Because repeat work is the best type of work you can get. You don't have to work on finding new clients, repeat work – how do you keep repeat work? Do a good job. You've got to do a good job; you've got to understand what your client wants. Not what you want. (laughs) What your client wants – really do understand that. So, get the brief working, understand them. We have fantastic staff here in London – well, all over, and in Manchester, and Baldock. But we attract very, very good Part Ones and Part Twos, who we train up. And we train them very well. And we're a design company, as well as nuts and bolts - can I describe it as nuts and bolts?

 

You can!

 

We're a delivery practice as well. And we are very proud of both of those aspects. But we try not to silo; we don't want a design team, and an implementation team – we try and mix it up. So that's my advice: build relationships and build really good staff competence.

 

Lovely. Well, that's brilliant. Thank you very much. And congratulations on that anniversary. And hopefully you'll be around in another 60 or so years! 

 

Yes! (laughs). 

 

Great. Thanks, John.

 

Cheers David! Bye now.