Industry Competence Steering Group to Restructure and Renew Competence Focus

THE INDUSTRY COMPETENCE STEERING GROUP (ICSG) has today announced a comprehensive restructure to renews its focus on competence and safety standards across the built environment.

The ICSG was first established in response to the Grenfell Tower Fire and subsequent Hackitt Review. ICSG has now transitioned to become a formal working group of the Industry Competence Committee (ICC) under the Building Safety Regulator (BSR). The move signals a strategic shift towards more rigorous industry-wide competence frameworks.

Competence Focus

Hanna Clarke, Co-Chair of the ICSG and Digital and Policy Manager at the Construction Products Association, said: “The new relationship between the ICC and the ICSG is key to transforming the competence of the industry.

“ICC aims to set expectations for industry and challenge it. The ICSG is where industry can collaborate to meet those challenges.

“The ICSG also provides the ICC with a clear picture of what industry is doing, feeds back on what challenges industry is facing, and which levers can be pulled to improve competence. We are able to work together on developing solutions and aim to provide clear messages and guidance for the industry and the public about competence.”

ICC and the ICSG Relationship

ICSG Purpose 

ICSG was set up to enable culture change in relation to competence across the built environment. It does this by providing the UK built environment industry access to appropriate competences, so they may safely contribute to the creation and use of built environments and can demonstrate their competence to others. 

ICSG Structure 

The Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG), formerly known as the Competence Steering Group, is Co-Chaired by Hanna Clarke, Digital and Policy Manager at the Construction Products Association and Gill Hancock, Head of Technical Content at the Association for Project Management. 

Restructure

Under its new chairs, the ICSG has restructured to better cover the built environment’s disciplines and support existing work across the industry. 

The new structure includes sector-led groups, key topic groups, and working groups. They currently bring together contributions from over 60 professional and trade bodies and 1500 individuals in the built environment, with membership of the sector led groups still growing. 

These groups will produce competence frameworks mapped to the BS 8670 series. They will also create guidance and implementation programs to enable culture change in relation to competence. Another key role of these groups is to provide forums for industry feedback relating to the understanding of legislation and barriers to its implementation. 

Communications Hub

ICSG is working with the BSI to create a communications hub. It will be a central repository of all ICSG’s work for the industry to access. More information on this and the competence frameworks will come in spring 2025. 

ICSG’s focus is to keep people safe through competent practices and ethical behaviours throughout the built environment. Central to this is enabling collaboration and ongoing sharing of best practice, learning and resources to support continuous improvement in industry competence. ICSG closely collaborates with the BSI and its committee CPB/1 – Competence in the Built Environment, contributing to many of the standards that are in development. It also has a strong relationship with the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), contributing to their work on competence and joining up with other industry initiatives that the CLC is leading on. 

“By collaborating with both industry and the Building Safety Regulator we believe we can enable real culture change,” said Gill Hancock, Co-Chair of the ICSG. 

If you are interested in helping shape competence frameworks and guidance within your sector or want to find out more about the ICSG, contact the relevant sector group lead.

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