New National Standards to Raise Built Environment Professional Competence

A NEW National Standards programme to raise professional competence in the built environment sector has been announced by BSI, as the UK National Standards Body.

The standards aim to tackle the competence shortcomings identified in the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, Building a Safer Future, conducted by Dame Judith Hackitt. They are a part of the package of measures recommended by the Steering Group on Competence for Building a Safer Future (CSG) which were set out in Raising the Bar.

Building Safety Bill

The government-funded programme is designed to support the delivery of regulatory policy and the new regulated roles responsible for building safety set out in the forthcoming Building Safety Bill. It is hoped the programme will raise competency across the sector.

Competence framework

It includes an overarching competence framework standard for everyone working on a building. This is intended to be used by key professions and trades including designers, contractors, fire risk assessors, building managers and others in specialist technical or corporate roles.

The framework will provide a set of core principles of competence, including leading and managing safety, communicating safety, delivering safety, risk management, regulations and processes, building systems, ethics, and fire/life safety.

The framework will be developed and made available for use from this autumn. After three periods of public consultation and refinement, it will then be published as a British Standard.

Competence requirements

It will also include a set of competence requirements for the three newly-regulated roles: Principal Designer, Principal Contractor and Building Safety Manager.

A set of fast track PAS standards will be produced to meet the urgent need for competent individuals to fulfil these roles set out in the government’s new Bill, to ensure the safety of residents.

These key roles have overarching responsibility for the main activities affecting building and life safety at each stage of a building’s life-cycle: design, construction and operation.

They require enhanced competences (in addition to any discipline-related competences) for their overarching role to ensure that the design intent of the building is maintained.

They will also be responsible for ensuring that workers employed and used in design, construction, refurbishment, maintenance and operation are suitably competent.

Scott Steedman, Director of Standards at BSI said: “Dame Judith Hackitt’s report asked the built environment industry to change its culture to safeguard people and their properties.

“In response to the call to put clear responsibility at the heart of the system, BSI has launched the Professional Competence standards programme. The new industry-led standards will support the Building Safety Bill by ‘raising the bar’ across workforce competence.”

Dame Judith Hackitt who set out industry recommendations following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy said: “The work of the Competence Steering Group has been a “tour de force” and all of those who have been involved thus far are to be congratulated. As the baton is handed over to BSI to lead us through the standards development process, the whole industry needs to keep up the pace – not just to agree on the new standards, but to make them a reality in practice. That will require collaboration and cooperation, and demolition of silos – part of the culture change that is so urgently needed.”

Since the standardization programme began in April 2020, it has been overseen by the BSI Built Environment Competence Standards (BECS) Strategy Group. The group consists of technical and policy experts from organizations involved in the design, construction and management of higher risk buildings. The programme will run until 2022.

Find out more about Built Environment Professional Competence Standards