by Clair Mooney | 30 Sep, 2021 | Sustainability, Transformation
- Do you have what it takes to help save the world?
- Can you bring your creativity to solve the biggest question faced by the construction sector?
- Are you itching to be at the heart of efforts to deliver net zero carbon?
If you can answer ‘yes’ to all of these questions, and you are a young professional working in construction then you are invited to take part in the Construction Leadership Council’s Dragons’ Den competition for proposals to crack down on carbon.
Your ideas are needed for how the industry can make a step change in its carbon performance. All proposals are welcome and encouraged.
If you have a proposal that is developed to the point where it could potentially be rolled out with industry with the right backing, then the CLC can bring that. The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) reaches into every part of our great industry, and it can leverage its power to make your proposal a reality.
To secure this support, you are invited to step into the CLC’s Dragons’ Den where shortlisted applicants will be able to present their proposals to industry leaders.
Alongside support to get your idea off the ground the winning proposal will also bag a £1000 cash award donated by the Builders Merchants Federation, and mentoring with a CLC Business Leader.
Are you ready to that enter the CLC Dragons’ Den? If so, please go here for more details. Closing date midday 8 October.
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.
by Clair Mooney | 25 Sep, 2021 | Labour, Skills
We need an extra 217,000 workers over the next five years to ensure construction can continue to thrive and apprenticeships will help futureproof the industry and provide an excellent route to secure a skilled, diverse future workforce.
There are a number of schemes that are supported by Levy and are free to access, and with your involvement will help bring new talent into the industry.
Here you can find out the support available from CITB and the UK Government to take on an apprentice.
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.
by Clair Mooney | 24 Sep, 2021 | Insurance
FIS has been listening to its members who have felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of real support from the insurance industry, as appetite has become restricted and where cover is available it is universally increased and, in some circumstances, it has become uncommercial and very difficult to place.
In a survey conducted by FIS at the start of the summer it was identified that around 90% of members have experienced rising insurance costs over the past three years. Further that, over half of the respondents had experienced difficulty in securing insurance and 60% of respondents believe that the price of insurance is now a problem to their business. Key concerns raised through our research were a need to switch to aggregate cover in order to get any insurance at all and having to deal with onerous endorsements within Professional Indemnity Insurance that prohibited certain key tasks, curtailing those jobs that our membership could take on.
This cannot continue; in reaction to these findings and further dialogue with our members, FIS has reviewed the options and is planning further intervention including setting up a new facility to broker insurance for members. The aim is to establish FIS Insurance Services (FIiNIS) as ‘cooperative’ insurance brokerage and risk management advisory service. The brokerage will be run in partnership with Construction Shield and will support FIS in advising on and of providing insurance-related services.
Commenting on the announcement FIS CEO Iain McIlwee stated:
“We keep coming back to the realisation that there is a fundamental breakdown in the way that we are engaging with the insurance sector. This needs to start with a clearer understanding of the risks, interrogating claims data and looking to support an ongoing improvement in quality and risk management. This isn’t just about cheaper cover, but about transparency and a new and holistic approach to risk management that will help us support individual members and sectoral change.
Through this open brokerage approach, built around the FIS PPP Quality Framework, our aim is to establish a new relationship with the insurance sector, separating legacy from future works and targeting better provision built around the needs and risks of our sector. By doing this as a co-operative we can share the upside back with those companies that are effectively managing the risks.
In time it is an aspiration to look at the potential to evolve this co-operative approach to the natural progression of becoming an insurance mutual – we are a vast industry and taking a position in our own risk makes a lot of sense.”
Over the next few months, FIS Insurance partner Construction Shield will be reaching out to members, helping to analyse the cover they have and vitally don’t have with a view to offering tailored and targeted packages exclusively to companies signed up to the FIS Ongoing Vetting Process.
James Reid, Chief Executive at Construction Shield said:
We are delighted to be in partnership with the FIS on this project to help re-address the balance between genuine risk management and risk transfer. It is clear that the FIS leadership have heard and reacted to the voice of its membership and it is for the membership to now join together strategically to put the buyers of insurance in a stronger and more stable bargaining position in a hardening ‘traditional’ insurance market. With genuine risk management, the championing of best practise and greater understanding of activities there is no reason why insurers and insureds alike cannot come to a commercial sensible compromise between the availability of cover and the cost of proper risk transfer. We, like FIS, are excited to be able to build this meaningful project together for the benefit of its membership.
by Clair Mooney | 24 Sep, 2021 | Skills
FIS has established a network of FIS Construction STEM Ambassadors to help expose young people the wide range of opportunities available in our sector. We have linked up with STEM Construction and the Built Environment Ambassadors programme to ensure our network is supported by their resources and training and taps in to a wide range of activities which includes school presentations, careers talks and mentoring.
There are around 700,000 annual school leavers, so we need an army of ambassadors to get to all of them!! The CLC’s Industry Skills Plan includes a commitment to recruit 7,000 Construction STEM Ambassadors, as FIS represents around 10% of the sector, to do our share of the lifting we need 700.
The STEM Ambassador programme provides vital training, tools and support – giving you confidence that the message is right and we are working (and learning) consistently as a sector. Becoming an ambassador will also plug you in to the STEM network and will open up opportunities to visit schools and careers fairs (you need to commit to doing at least two of these a year as part of your pledge).
At FIS we are here to help and have members of our team who have completed the training and are actively working as ambassadors, we are maintaining a network of ambassadors and are using this network to better understand how to target our approach and to develop the resources they need to get the message across.
Anyone working in the sector can be a STEM ambassador, from people who have just completed an apprenticeship through to the CEO/Owner. We need to represent all roles and opportunities available and really this can be anyone working in your business with a passion for our industry who can get this message across and wants to help spread the word (and build your links with local schools and colleges).
FIS who members who want to understand get cracking simply need to sign up online to become STEM Ambassador and advise marieflinter@thefis.org that you have started your journey.
Further information on how to get involved can be found in this short film. If you like to have a chat about what is involved before committing please call Marie Flinter at FIS on 0121 707 0077 or email marieflinter@thefis.org and we will be happy to help.
by Clair Mooney | 24 Sep, 2021 | Building Safety Act, Technical
The Construction Products Association (CPA) has published the
Code for Construction Product Information to ensure that reliable and consistent product information is provided by manufacturers.
Developed in response to the recommendations made in Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building a Safer Future report, the code sets the industry benchmark for how product information is presented and marketed so that it is clear, accurate, up‐to‐date, accessible and unambiguous. It contains 11 clauses including transparency of information on performance and proof of stated claims, and manufacturers can now register their interest in being verified against the code later this year. Guidance has been published to assist with the verification process.
by Clair Mooney | 24 Sep, 2021 | Building Safety Act
The Building Safety Bill is being debated in Parliament after MPs tabled dozens of amendments, including one which would ensure that all owners of residential units in higher‐risk buildings are classed as ‘relevant persons’ and therefore required to be supported by the regulator. The original definition of ‘relevant persons’ proposed in Part 4 of the Bill included only residents, building safety managers and duty holders. Other amendments would allow the recovery of VAT on building safety remedial works paid since 14 June 2017 and extend the period for claims under both the Defective Premises Act and the Building Act from 15 to 25 years.
FIS has prepared a summary of the Building Safety Bill here.
The Government has published a series of factsheets to help stakeholders understand the new requirements set out in the Bill. Of particular interest to members will be those covering Dutyholders and Industry Competence which outline the responsibilities of dutyholders under the new regime.
by Clair Mooney | 21 Sep, 2021 | Market data
NBS & Glenigan are working on some brand new research to create the Construction Manufacturers’ Marketing Index – to find out how manufacturers are marketing their construction products.
These unique findings will provide an essential tool for the construction industry to see holistically how marketing is applied, how digitised the approach is and how manufacturers marketing strategy and activity compares. For those manufacturers that take part they will get early access to the survey results so they can use it for their 2022 marketing planning.
The survey covers the following key topics the survey covers:
- Manufacturers approach to marketing
- Manufacturers current activity
- Marketing within construction
- Manufacturers future marketing activity
To take part in the survey, and gain early access to the results, submit your response at www.thenbs.com/marketing-index-2021 Closing date: 24 octobber 2021
