The Construction Industry Council (CIC) has published the final report that sets out roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved, which should help prevent a repeat of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster in June 2017.
The report entitled: ‘Setting the Bar: A new competence regime for building a safer future’ (Setting the Bar), is described as a blueprint to improve competence for those working on higher-risk buildings and drive culture change.
It has been produced by a cross-industry group, representing more than 150 organisations in the fire and built environment industries, comprising the social housing sector, commercial and residential management, facilities managers, health and safety practitioners, fire safety specialists and construction professionals.
Setting the Bar is the second and final report of the Competence Steering Group (CSG), and is an update of its interim report, Raising the Bar, which was published in August 2019.
The work was initiated by the recommendations in Dame Judith Hackitt’s 2018 review Building a Safer Future, which was itself commissioned in the wake of the Grenfell fire.
Alongside Setting the Bar, the steering group has also published a separate report covering the new role of a building safety manager, entitled: ‘Safer people, safer homes: Building Safety Management.’ The responsibilities of building designers, engineers, installers, building standards and others are all set down in different annexes to the main report.
The proposed system of competence set out in the Setting the Bar report is made up of four key elements:
- A new competence committee sitting within the Building Safety Regulator
- A national suite of competence standards – including new sector-specific frameworks developed by 12 working groups
- Arrangements for independent assessment and reassessment against the competence standards
- A mechanism to ensure that those assessing and certifying people against the standards have appropriate levels of oversight.
These competence frameworks set out the skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours required for specific roles, and deliver a more rigorous approach to the essential training and assessment that is required.
Among these is the proposed new role of the building safety manager, whose job specification is set out in the report Safer people, safer homes: Building Safety Management, from the CSG’s Working Group 8. The contents of this report will be used by the British Standards Institute to develop a new national standard that building safety managers will be expected to meet.
Under legislation being introduced by the draft Building Safety Bill, published in July, those deemed responsible in law for the safety of higher-risk building, such as the landlord, will be required to appoint a designate building safety manager.
The draft bill also puts the proposed buildings within the scope of the legislation as multi-occupied residential buildings of 18m or above, or six or more storeys in height.
The role of the building safety manager will be to look after the day-to-day management of fire and structural safety in these buildings, and establish a clear point of contact for residents for fire and safety related issues.
The building safety manager is part of a wider system of people influencing the life safety of a building. This includes the accountable person, who will be legally responsible for ensuring that building safety risks to occupants are reduced, so far as is reasonably practicable and who supervises the building safety manager. The full scope of these responsibilities is expected to be determined during the passage of the legislation through Parliament.
Anthony Taylor, chairman of Working Group 8, said: “Developing the completely new role of a building safety manager has been an enormous undertaking, which we have worked closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to achieve. We believe the competences and job functions we have set out will deliver the reassurance and trust to residents that their buildings are being managed safely by landlords.”
Graham Watts, chairman of the CSG and chief executive of the CIC, added: “There is no time to lose in casting aside the substandard practices that have shamed the industry. In this document we have set a new bar and we would urge all those working in life-critical disciplines to attain these higher levels of competence. Only then can we rebuild the trust of those who occupy and live in the buildings we design, construct and manage.”
The full report and accompanying working group annexes can be downloaded at http://cic.org.uk/setting-the-bar-annexes.php
