Main News Feed Archives - Page 79 of 223

Help develop future talent for your business

by Clair Mooney | 14 Oct, 2021 | Main News Feed, Skills

Construction T-Levels are now available for the following areras of our sector:

Design, surveying and planning
Onsite construction with an occupational specialism in plastering which includes drylining

T-Levels are two-year courses with a 45 day industrial placement for 16 to 19 year olds. Designed with employers, each T-Level is an alternative to three A levels, and can lead to an accelerated apprenticeship. They also help young people develop the knowledge, attitude and practical skills to thrive in the workplace.

At the heart of each course, a 45-day industry placement will give you early access to the brightest talent entering your market. Employers that are interested in offering an industry placement, can get help to find a local college, school or training provider to partner with. They will support you at every stage of the industry placement so you can focus on getting the most out of your placement student.

Over the autumn, the Department for Education and SDN are hosting a series of online sessions to help employers explore, plan for, and host T-Level industry placements. They’ve started a new series to give employers a more in-depth understanding of placements for particular T-Levels. They’re also covering specific topics to support employers and their teams. Topics covered include:

The role of the line manager and mentor in industry placements (27 October)
Introduction to industry placements – supporting your workforce development (9 November)
Hosting industry placements in construction roles (18 November)
A longer two-hour industry placement workshop, to start planning for industry placements and talk with other like-minded employers (30 November)

You can find out more and register here

Candidates are available for work placement now, if you would like more information please see: https://www.tlevels.gov.uk/ If you need information, advice and/or guidance please call FIS on 0121 707 0077 or email info@thefis.org

Get your complimentary ticket at the Workspace Design Show

by Clair Mooney | 8 Oct, 2021 | Main News Feed

FIS is proud to partner with the first ever Workspace Design Show which will take place on 4-5 November 2021 at the Business Design Centre in London. This event is a must-attend for anyone in the sector – and it is free to attend!

After all the recent disruption to the workspace industry, there is huge change underway in how we are designing our office interiors to improve the employee experience. The Workspace Design Show will be a great chance to listen to the latest thought leadership, check out the newest and most innovative interiors products, and network with your industry peers again.

The Workspace Design Talks conference will feature top level A&D speakers from Gensler, Grimshaw, Perkins&Will, AECOM, Arup, Areen, MCM, tp bennett, MF Design Studio, BDP Architecture, and end-user clients such as HMRC, PwC, BBC, McCann, Aviva, The Office Group, Co-space, DLA Piper and more. Panel discussions will open up challenging debates to uncover the latest thinking in how design can influence employee wellbeing, engagement, creativity & productivity, as well as the latest workspace design trends in sustainability, flexibility and inclusivity.

The attendee list includes delegates confirmed from Government Property Agency, Oktra, Unispace, Vodafone, Barclays Bank, NHS Property Services, Crown Commercial Service, Faith and Gould, We Work, CBRE, British Land, Morgan Lovell.

Your complimentary guest pass will give you access to the exhibition as well as all the talks featuring the above speakers, the Leisure Area to use as a co-working space or a meeting space or just a place to relax/ work from during the two days as well as free coffee, tea, hot chocolate throughout the 2 days at 3 dedicated coffee stations.

The Show floor will also feature re-creations of commercial interiors such as the Design Talks Lounge designed and curated by The Furniture Practice, The VIP Lounge designed by Rainlight Studio, built by AASK US and curated by Obolife. Spaces Taylored and Seven Hills Workspace collaboratively designed and curated the leisure area and the exhibition area will include leading brands such as Humanscale, Spacestor, Tarkett, Interface, Actiu, Zumtobel, Andreu World, Benchmark Furniture, Buzzispace, and many more.

Construction’s important role in the post-Covid recovery

by Clair Mooney | 7 Oct, 2021 | Main News Feed

Later this month the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out his Autumn Budget and Spending Review to Parliament.

It should not be underestimated how important this is both to the UK economy, and to companies from across the UK construction industry.

This Spending Review will set the money available to public bodies to deliver their priorities over the coming three years. As such it is the moment at which strategic priorities and budgets are set for government departments. As outlined in the recent construction pipeline publication, many capital programmes are already supported by long-term funding settlements. As a result, the Spending Review can be expected to add further detail to government’s approach to investment paid for by the public purse.

The Construction Leadership Council has written to the Chancellor outlining how the Government can get best return on money committed to construction delivery and maintenance.

We need to be clear on the circumstances in which this letter has been prepared. Last year we all welcomed the enormous and unprecedented financial interventions that the Government delivered to support companies and employees through the biggest crisis in generations. We also welcomed the significant investment commitment in last year’s Spending Review. Inevitably however, the pandemic has left the public finances in an extremely challenging state.

It may surprise people in the industry that this has not led to the preparation of a long list of new projects we want the Government to back. We all know that there is a huge amount to be done, not least in accelerating the decarbonisation of the UK’s existing building stock, and it is clear that construction is a huge driver of economic growth.

Put simply, there is little point in presenting the Government with a further list of works that almost inevitably would have to be ignored, and in the process losing the opportunity to emphasise those things that the government could and should continue to invest in. We should remember that the Government has already displayed its confidence in the industry through its support to building back better including major investments including HS2 and the Health Infrastructure Plan.

We hope and expect that the Chancellor will use the Spending Review to commit to maintaining existing levels of investment beyond the current spending review period. This will sustain employment and growth in a way that few other industries can – levelling up communities large and small across the whole of the UK.

Our second ask is linked to the Government’s commitment to deliver net zero carbon by 2050. We know as an industry that one of the single largest interventions to achieve this would be a programme to retrofit the UK’s existing housing stock, driving carbon out of the heating and running of homes.

We are not asking for money at this stage but instead something that is in the long term more important. In advance of the completion of the Heat and Buildings Strategy, we are calling for the national retrofit programme to become a strategic priority for government in the coming three years. This will mean that it is an area of significant concern for senior ministers to work with industry, developing a fully funded programme paid for both by public and private sector, to secure a step change in the carbon performance of the built environment.

We have welcomed the work that has already been done by the Construction Innovation Hub to improve the productivity of industry. Building on this work will act as an enabler of the retrofit programme, driving the innovation to push down cost. For this reason, our only specific new funding ask is that the Government continues to match industry support for the Hub to develop new and better approaches to retrofit. This support will also underpin ongoing work to develop digital twins of UK built assets, allowing them to be much more effectively managed, securing lower long-term costs and much better carbon performance.

We know that to deliver all this we will need to upgrade our skills. We are not calling for a specific funding intervention for construction but instead have asked that the government sustains its efforts to promote future skills by maintaining existing support for employers to take on apprenticeships and continues to refine the operation of the Apprenticeship Levy.

The CLC’s mission is to support the sector to provide leadership and to collaborate to deliver industry change. The Government plays a huge rule in delivering this change – we hope that the Spending Review will help us take the next big step towards a better industry for everyone.

How to manage design liability and understand your responsibility

by Clair Mooney | 30 Sep, 2021 | Main News Feed

To help contractors understand their level of responsibility when it comes to design, the Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS) has published a new guidance note, How to manage design liability and understand your responsibility

Prepared by construction law specialist Anderson Strathern for the FIS and aimed at contractors who may be assuming design, the new guidance note brings clarity to the risks and liabilities associated with their role in the contract.

The new FIS guidance note will help contractors understand the role of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 Designer, the terms of a contract, how to protect themselves and the importance of adequate and appropriate insurance to cover risk.

Commenting on the launch of the new guidance, Iain McIlwee, Chief Executive of the FIS said:

“We are seeing design liabilities pushed through the supply chain more and more with roles and responsibilities increasingly blurred. The new FIS guidance note will help contractors understand their legal responsibilities, particularly when it comes to design issues apparent during construction.”

This brief guidance also provides information on health and safety issues and why it is important to have a net contribution clause and a cap on liability clause within a contract.

FIS members can access a range of services to support them in managing the complexities of contracting and supplying products into the construction market, this includes template contracts, guidance on standard terms, support in dealing with disputes and a raft of best practice advice.

The guidance note is available from the FIS website at https://www.thefis.org/knowledge-hub/contractual-and-legal/

Parallel trade between the UK and the EEA

by Clair Mooney | 29 Sep, 2021 | Main News Feed

On 29 September 2021, the UK government updated its information on Parallel Trade Between the UK and the EEA with regards to Intellectual Property. This can be viewed here.

The IP rights in goods placed on the UK market by, or with the consent of the right holder after the transition period may no longer be considered exhausted in the EEA. This means that businesses parallel exporting these IP-protected goods from the UK to the EEA might need the right holder’s consent.

The IP rights in goods placed on the EEA market by, or with the consent of the right holder after the transition period will continue to be considered exhausted in the UK. This means that parallel imports into the UK from the EEA will be unaffected.

The UK government is currently considering what the UK’s future IP exhaustion regime should be. The government ran a consultation for 12 weeks from June to August 2021 and is now carefully considering consultation responses. Once the analysis of consultation responses is complete, the government will make a decision and choose the option which best serves the UK economy, the UK public and the UK as a whole. We are aware that many businesses and consumers are interested on this matter so when that decision is made, we will work as quickly as possible to make an announcement.

Fire Door Safety in the Finishes and Interiors Sector (listen again)

by Iain McIlwee | 24 Sep, 2021 | Main News Feed

This workshop and clinic targeted at managing doors responsibly in the finishes and interiors sector, run as part of Fire Door Safety Week, FIS in collaboration with the Guild of Architectural Ironmongery (GAI) and FIS is now available online.

The session (run as part of the Fire Door Safety Week initiative) highlighted the key priorities for delivering fire door safety in specialist interior and fit-out contracts. It drew on the key pillars of quality defined in the FIS Product Process People Quality Framework to support safe specification and installations and looked at the key ways to ensure that information is managed through to inspection to ensure these essential fire safety products continue to provide protection throughout their service life.

Selecting ironmongery, common concerns and how to avoid them
Douglas Masterson, Technical Manager, GAI

Mind the Gap, the role of intumescents in Fire Door Safety
Tim Foster, Sales & Marketing Manager, Mann McGowan

The Golden Thread, essential information and how to manage it
Jim White, Associate Technical Director, Forza Doors

Fire Door Safety Clinic
Our speakers were joined on the panel by a Fire Door Inspector, Elliott Brown of The Fire Door Inspectors Limited.

The initiative was part of Fire Door Safety Week, the theme take time to save lives. Fire Door Safety Week ran from the 20th-26th September. The website features a range of resources to support those specifying, installing, inspecting and maintaining fire doors.

Fire Door Safety in the finishes and interiors sector

Listen again