New National Standards Program Set To Raise Professional Competence In The Built Environment Sector

Professional competence recommendations set out in Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building a Safer Future report are set to be fulfilled by BSI with a new standards program. BSI, in its role as the UK National Standards Body, announced a new National Standards program to raise professional competence in the built environment sector.

The standards aim to tackle the competence challenges 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.

Delivery of regulatory policy

The government-funded program 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, while also enabling the large-scale industry-led program to raise competency across the sector.

New regulated roles reliable for building safety are set out in the forthcoming Building Safety Bill

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 pioneering and managing safety, communicating safety, delivering safety, risk management, regulations and processes, building systems, ethics, and fire/life safety.

Competence requirements

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.

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 fulfill these roles set out in the government’s new Bill, to ensure the safety of residents.

Built Environment industry

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 competencies in addition to any discipline-related competencies, relating to their overarching role to ensure that the design intent of the building is maintained and that workers employed and used in design, construction, refurbishment, maintenance, and operation are suitably competent.

Key roles have overarching duty for the main stirs affecting building and life safety

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 as the UK’s National Standards Body, has launched the Professional Competence Standards Program. The new industry-led standards will support the Building Safety Bill by ‘raising the bar’ across workforce competence.”

Guidance of BSI

Dame Judith Hackitt, Author of Building a Safer Future: Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety 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.”

Stakeholder-led national standards program, under the guidance of BSI"

Graham Watts OBE, Chair of Competence Steering Group and CEO of Construction Industry Council said: “This new stakeholder-led national standards program, under the guidance of BSI, is the welcome and vital next step in raising and setting the bar for enhanced competence standards for all those engaged in ensuring that buildings are safe for their residents and occupants, through the design and construction or refurbishment phases and into the management of buildings in use. It builds upon the framework of occupational competencies across all sectors that the Competence Steering Group has developed over the past two years.”

BECS Strategy Group

Building Safety Minister, Lord Greenhalgh, said: “This government is determined to put residents’ safety first by bringing about the biggest improvements in building safety regulations in 40 years. Regulatory reforms alone won’t achieve this – we need to raise skills across the industry, backed by a strong national competence framework, and we are working together with the BSI and industry to make this happen. We welcome the expertise they bring to the vital work of raising standards of competence to make sure all residents are safe, and feel safe, in their homes.”

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