by Oscar Venus | Jan 17, 2025 | Building Safety Act
The publication of BS 9991:2024 ‐ Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings ‐ at the end of last year has created some confusion for those preparing and submitting applications for Building Control Approval because it does not reference the transitional arrangements for amendments to Approved Document B.
Applications for Building Control Approval are assessed against the functional requirements of the Building Regulations, which have not changed, and the previous BS 9991:2015 is still included in the list of relevant standards in Approved Document B. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has confirmed to Build UK that until further notice applications for Higher‐Risk Buildings can refer to BS 9991:2015 and/or 2024 as the guidance or standard used to support designs, and more information can be found in this Build UK statement.
The BSR has published criteria for assessing applications for a Building Assessment Certificate (BAC). The criteria are designed to ensure consistency when reviewing applications and cover all the information that a Principal Accountable Person needs to provide for the building, including the Safety Case Report, Resident Engagement Strategy, and Mandatory Occurrence Reporting system.
by Clair Mooney | Jan 9, 2025 | Building Safety Act, Contractual and Legal, Insurance
Establishing clear contractual arrangements from the outset of any construction project is critical. This is a core conclusion from virtually every review of the construction sector. As far back as 1866, The General Builders Association put out the following statement:
“It is not right to bring under the builder’s consideration legal conditions, the effect and value of which he cannot rightly estimate without consulting it’s solicitor”.
JCT was established nearly 100 years ago to address concerns and help create a standard set of terms. These contracts address the complexity of multi-tier supply chains, mutually dependent relationships and different parties joining the contractual chain at different times. Other standard form contracts, such as NEC, are now commonplace. Yet recent research from Reading University into Procurement and Contracting Practices in the Finishes and Interiors Sector highlight that 64% of businesses in the supply chain regularly start a project without a contract in hand and the norm is to work on amendments that effectively bespoke relationships and seek to pass down unreasonable amounts of risk.
It is this culture that the Duty Holder Regime (now enshrined in the Building Regulations) seeks to address and puts under additional scrutiny attempts to shift risk through contract. This change to law potentially resets legal precedence for passing down risk. Significantly too, recent advice from the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) should not be dismissed as a token effort to restate the problem. The Grenfell Inquiry made clear the risks in the following finding:
“Studio E (Architect), Rydon (Main Contractor) and Harley (Cladding Specialist) all took a casual approach to contractual relations. They did not properly understand the nature and scope of the obligations they had undertaken, or, if they did, paid scant attention to them.
They failed to identify their own responsibilities for important aspects of the design and in each case assumed that someone else was responsible for matters affecting fire safety. Everyone involved in the choice of the materials to be used in the external wall thought that responsibility for their suitability and safety lay with someone else.”
In a rare open Statement, the CLC highlights another serious concern that all in the supply chain (particularly clients) need to be alert to:
“Many Professional Indemnity Insurance policies only cover claims for contractual liabilities to the extent that those liabilities would exist in the absence of the contract. … Clients have no control over whether contracting parties can secure PII cover that will respond when the client suffers a loss and wants to recover that loss.”
In plain terms CLC has made it clear:
“if a client seeks to claim for loss or damage, it cannot be relied upon that it will be settled by the PII insurers, and the consultant/contractor potentially faces financial ruin, and the client left with a claim that cannot be recovered.”
To help members bring these points together, improve understanding of where and how template contracts can and should be amended, highlight areas of particular concern and support negotiations with clients FIS has produced a new Using Standard Form Contracts. This has been made available to FIS Members through the Contractual and Legal Toolkit and has been designed to support the Responsible No Campaign.
Blog post written by Iain McIlwee to launch new FIS Factsheet: Using Standard Form Contracts.
by Clair Mooney | Dec 9, 2024 | Building Safety Act, Employment, Skills
The Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) has announced a comprehensive restructure to enhance competence and safety standards across the built environment. 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), signalling a strategic shift towards more rigorous industry-wide competence frameworks.
“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,” commented Hanna Clarke, Co-Chair of the ICSG and Digital and Policy Manager at the Construction Products Association.
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 competencies, 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 and Gill Hancock, Head of Technical Content at the Association for Project Management.
Under its new chairs, the ICSG has restructured. This will 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 across the built environment. Another key role of these groups is to provide forums for industry feedback relating to the understanding of legislation and barriers to its implementation.
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, both with their contributing to the work on competence and in the aim to join up the competence work with the other industry initiatives that the CLC is leading on.
“The ICSG has end to end coverage from construction products to demolition and disposal, including in occupation. By collaborating with both industry and the Building Safety Regulator we believe we can enable real culture change, in relation to competence, across the built environment,” said Gill.
If you are interested in helping shape competence frameworks and guidance within your sector or want to find out more about the ICSG, please contact the relevant sector group lead (see appendix 1).
Iain McIlwee, Chief Executive at FIS, said: “This is the next stage in what is undoubtedly the biggest collaborative effort I have witnessed in construction, apart from the COVID response. It has been both rewarding and encouraging to be involved and take a lead on behalf of specialist trades through the Super Sector work. We have learned so much from this process, and I applaud the visionaries who have led it. Great work has been done within the various disciplines, and the next stage is very much about bringing it together and ensuring that it is peer-reviewed effectively and with empathy by the wider supply chain. This will ensure that as we implement it, it is coordinated, proportionate, and ultimately supports a better construction process.
“We look forward to the next stage of collaborative working and supporting the next iteration of this essential work.”
by Clair Mooney | Dec 3, 2024 | Building Safety Act
The Ministry of Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has today published the Remediation Acceleration Plan.
The aim of this plan is that by the end of 2029, all 18m+ (high-rise) buildings with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme will have been remediated. Furthermore, by the end of 2029, every 11m+ building with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated, have a date for completion, or those responsible will be liable for severe penalties.
Key measures in the plan include:
- action to identify buildings needing remediation through a review of 175,000 building records by the end of March 2025;
- the intention to introduce new legal duties on those responsible to take action and make their buildings safe;
- metro mayors convening regulators and preparing joined-up local plans to drive remediation in their areas;
- additional funding and guidance for regulators to intensify enforcement activity;
- new enforcement measures to hold those responsible to account;
- a joint plan with developers, published today, to fix buildings faster covering over 95% of buildings to be remediated by developers;
- action to begin accelerating remediation of social housing while working with the sector to announce a long-term strategy in Spring 2025;
- supply chain support to facilitate delivery as remediation pace increases;
- information on how those responsible for the building safety crisis will be held to account;
- the extension of the Waking Watch Replacement Fund until the end of March 2026; and
- further measures to ensure that residents are supported and protected throughout the remediation process.
The plan also confirms the introduction of a Building Safety Levy on new residential developments which will raise around £3.4 billion for remediation. The intention is for the levy to come into force in Autumn 2025.
In addition, a further consultation starts today to consider how to ensure that leaseholders are only charged a fair and transparent insurance fee for work done to arrange insurance. The consultation closes on 24 February 2025.
Finally, in relation to product manufacturers, action will be taken to ensure that those involved in the Grenfell tragedy will be excluded from government contracts. It also commits to system-wide construction products reform, including proposals on liabilities, robust sanctions and penalties against manufacturers.
Below are a number of additional documents from the gov.uk website on the same topic which were released on 2 December 2024.
by Iain McIlwee | Nov 14, 2024 | Building Safety Act, Skills, Technical
Two new training courses have been added this week to the FIS e-Learning Hub. The courses aim to support members in managing individual competence associated with key package areas.
The first course is the Firestopping of service penetrations: Best Practice. The aim of this course is to assist in the design, specification and installation of building services penetrations to ensure fire compartmentation is maintained, five leading not-for-profit organisations have been involved in the development of the Guide on which this course is based. The aim of the course is to encourage early consideration of firestopping design in order to avoid problems at a later stage in construction. It is not an installation course but guidance to a good practice approach. The training is broken down to provide information on actions that should be carried out during each of the stages, one to seven, as defined in the RIBA Plan of Work.
The second course is a new interactive Pre-Construction Guide to Drylining. The course has been pulled together from decades of experience and focuses on the lead-up to commencing installation works. It highlights how to check bids and tenders for compliance, understand time requirements and site conditions, and ensure the design information is sufficient and fit for purpose.
Both courses are available freely to FIS members and CPD certificates will be issued on completion.
Speaking on the launch of these courses at the AGM on 7 November, FIS President Ian Strangward said:
“The bank of knowledge which FIS has built is impressive – we now need to make sure that we are not just a font of knowledge, but a modern information provider. It is not good enough to just have information available, we must work smarter to ensure it is used – getting to the right people in the right way. Our e-Learning Hub is going to be key. The first course we put up “an Introduction to the Building Safety Act” has been a great start, several hundred people have already completed the course and feedback has been very positive. In these next courses, “Firestopping of service penetrations: Best Practice” and particularly, our “Pre-construction guide to drylining” you will see progress in the quality of delivery. Now we have a process, you will be seeing a regular flow of new courses targeting vital interventions, job titles and knowledge gaps”
Click here for more information on how to register on these courses
by Iain McIlwee | Nov 13, 2024 | Building Safety Act, Technical
The Fire Wall Labelling campaign launched in 2023 has had a refresh this month with a new web area established to help promote the campaign. The fire wall labelling initiative aims to help identify fire walls and provide instant guidance on what to do when passing cables and pipes through the compartment.
Last year Finishes and Interior Sector (FIS), Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP), and Gypsum Products Development Association (GPDA) joined forces to create this free to use labelling scheme that warns of the dangers of passing cables and pipes through compartment walls (Fire Walls).
The Fire Wall label is a simple and visual way of ensuring that those that could undermine the fire integrity of a wall to realise that it isn’t just a wall, but it is a Fire Wall. The label provides instant guidance via a QR code on what to do when considering whether and how to pass cables and pipes through compartment walls. It runs through a simple STOP, THINK, PLAN, CHECK and RECORD process and provides links to best practice guidance that will help ensure that safety is not undermined.
The initiative was endorsed by the Construction Leadership Council in their report Creating Safe Buildings Delivering safety, competence and quality as an example of best practice in the sector.
The new web area that includes supporting resources and FREELY downloadable label templates can be accessed here.
