The fourth cycle of the Technical Panel kicked off with some familiar faces and new panellists, making for a good cross-section of perspectives and expertise from the built environment. This provides strength to the pool of expertise as the Panel continues to be focused on the practicalities of how buildings are put together and what influences and forces could be brought to bear so buildings perform better, are safer and integrate truly sustainable measures without unintended consequences. In this way, this panel’s purpose brings together thinking across education and skills, policy, regulatory and legal frameworks, best practices, materials and products and most importantly, how all this should form positive outcomes for building users. Guiding our discussions is the NLA’s New London Agenda, a manifesto for coordinating all fifteen panels measured against six thematic ‘ways of working’. The technical EP aims to feed into this framework, offering pragmatic solutions and best practice.  

In the previous three cycles, the Technical Competency EP has debated how the Grenfell fire should be the catalyst for a cultural shift in competency and responsibilities across the industry. We are at a watershed moment as the new Building Safety Act (BSA) starts to make itself felt and the litmus test of whether this overhaul of the regulatory framework will result in the shift in competency and safety that was called for after the fire.

It was this topic that was uppermost in the minds of panel members; the most significant overhaul of the regulatory framework governing the built environment will inevitable require a period of getting to understand the role of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) and highly procedure-driven gateway processes, how this affects programmes, what information is required by whom and when, legal responsibilities and the impact on insurances are all questions that many are asking. It is also clear that the BSR is not expected to be ‘competent’ in assessing the technical information provided at the gateway submissions stages – which begs the question of how the gateway process is expected to enforce quality and safety. The onus is on the industry to learn, assess and use professional competency to tailor the processes and information relevant to each project.

Whilst we have a way to go, not least with improving skills, it is telling that following the recent fire in Valencia raised many comments on why the Spanish authorities did not also adopt a robust response in light of Grenfell and the changes resulting in the UK. Could London be doing more to share expertise and skills?

The changes that the BSA brings offers the opportunity for new roles and careers and it is crucial that the building industry takes this chance to represent in schools a positive path to a variety of jobs. The industry should facilitate and embrace new ways of working, attracting new skills and capabilities in order to meet the needs of future construction methods. Tier 1 contractors are risk averse and traditional roles such as commercial managers are changing and the industry should articulate new opportunities and a vision that attracts real talent.

Digital information feeds into one of the key aims of the BSA and the basis of the ‘golden thread’. The Hacket Enquiry’s recommendation for clarity regarding decision making and record information for completed buildings means that information during the design development stages requires accuracy and quality. Digital information should be used to formulate a live and accurate picture of building information at each stage of design and construction.  There is clearly scope for this to become more sophisticated as the use of AI becomes integrated into BIM. The question of variance in the use of BIM across the whole supply chain means that specialist subcontractors that upskill and invest will likely benefit in the long term. Other technological enhancements include passive 360 monitoring of construction in progress, allowing historic data to be retrieved to verify what was happening at any point in time. This has huge benefits for QA processes and learning, but it also opens up opportunities to attract new talent.

The ability of materials to be recycled /reused within the BSA framework also raises some important questions regarding the reliability of information about their safety and lifespan.

From the supply chain perspective, it was discussed how established and responsible manufacturers that have invested in testing, research and reliability, including reducing carbon and the circularity of their products, welcome the BSA and the forthcoming roll out of the product manufacturers CE marking scheme. This does, however, mean that product information integrated into BIM models could hold a far greater amount of data.

 

The meeting raised key themes for the technical competency EP to develop feeding into the NLA’s programme: