New requirements in the Building Regulations identify the need for businesses to demonstrate organisational capability. On a basic level, this means businesses will need to evidence how they check people are competent and ensure they are supported by effective process controls that support consistent delivery. This is not really a significant change as businesses have always had a legal requirement to ensure all reasonably foreseeable risks are effectively managed, but it does mean clients and Building Control officers will be showing more interest in your processes and management systems and will have more tools at their disposal to enforce where a business or individual fails to hit the required standards.
To support our community, the FIS Integrated Management Standard (IMS) has been relaunched as part of a newly developed Organisational Capability Toolkit. This toolkit will help members implement tried and proven methods of streamlining their company for the benefit of their business and its stakeholders. The toolkit will help to link and contextualise the wealth of information that FIS members have available to support compliant business management and how they can use their membership to support claims of organisational capability.
This IMS sits as a central resource to help align and control resources. It provides a framework for implementing risk management systems (supported by the FIS Product, Process, People Quality Framework) that will help organisations to meet statutory and legislative requirements.
On relaunching the standard at the FIS Conference and AGM in November, FIS CEO Iain McIlwee stated:
“This standard was developed originally to support the FIS vetting process, but really comes into its own in this new environment. It is clear in our work with members that many construction firms have great processes in place, but there can be a real disjoin between these processes. Across the sector we see design, procurement, contracts and legal, and construction processes that should complement and support each other, however they often clash, cause confusion and conflict and ultimately undermine delivery. This toolkit is a great opportunity to start to look collectively at how we can not just hit the baseline of compliance, but help to raise standards, promote professional businesses and support the Responsible No”.
The new FIS Organisational Capability Toolkit is available here.