On 14 June 2017 I had just landed in Canterbury, New Zealand when I watched the news report on the Grenfell Tower fire in shock. Unlike my two travelling companions I didn't succumb to jet lag, and couldn't sleep.
I had expected that the next day in the centre of Christchurch, I would see how the area had recovered from the devastating earthquake and its aftershocks in 2011. Instead, I was consumed by the horrific events in London, knowing that it wasn't a natural disaster like Christchurch but could have been avoided.
At the time I was working as a local authority building standards surveyor in Scotland, a position I had held since 1995. However, I now lead on the compliance plan approach in the Scottish government's Building Standards Division (BSD). This new approach has been implemented precisely to minimise the risk of such avoidable building failures.
Reviews recommend strengthening building standards
Along with failings in Edinburgh schools, the Grenfell Tower fire prompted the Scottish government to set up a ministerial working group on buildings and fire safety in June 2017.
In June 2018, the then Scottish government set up the Building Standards Futures Board to provide guidance on implementing recommendations made following reviews of compliance and enforcement and fire safety.
My experience echoes the reviews' findings that, although the building standards system is not broken, it does need strengthening. This is why the board has asked the BSD to develop a new approach to compliance, one that can be scaled up or down and is appropriate for all types of work that need a building warrant.
The BSD will focus initially on high-risk buildings, defined as including:
- domestic or residential buildings with any storey at a height of more than 11m above the ground
- educational establishments such as schools, colleges and universities
- community and sport centres
- non-domestic buildings that the local authority controls or has an interest in
- hospitals
- residential care buildings
- low-rise housing sites.
Over time, this new approach will be applied to all building warrants.
Robust system has not eliminated failures
An approach designed to strengthen Scotland's building standards system must have two key components: it needs to build on the existing system, as well as being easy to understand and not overly complicated.
Building standards in Scotland are relatively straightforward: you submit plans that comply with the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 to your local authority – which issues a building warrant ahead of work, along with a compliance plan showing when you should contact it and what information you will need to provide.
Once work is finished you submit your completion certificate, and the authority checks the compliance statement that this contains. The Building (Scotland) Act 2003 identifies the relevant person responsible for compliance and the local authority as responsible for enforcement.
The former is usually the owner, tenant or a developer who is doing the work for themselves, or who may have employed a contractor to do so.
On the face of it this is a robust system; but failures such as the collapse of the Edinburgh school wall occur because people do not carry out their roles correctly. This can be due to a lack of competence, budget, timing, education, understanding and all sorts of other pressures on the construction industry or the local authority.
'This is a robust system – but failures occur due to a lack of competence, budget, timing, education or understanding'
Managers to ensure compliance measures are completed
The compliance plan approach, developed by the futures board in partnership with industry and local authorities, is therefore one of transparency and responsibility. It aims to make explicit the responsibilities placed on the relevant person and local authority verifier, and introduces a new role of compliance plan manager.
This manager will record the planned measures taken to assure compliance during construction, and the information and inspections required before completion that will be included in the publicly accessible building standards register.
They will also record whether these planned measures have actually been carried out, because individuals in some cases may not have fulfilled all their responsibilities.
For example, wall insulation may need inspecting before it is covered by plasterboard, in order to confirm that it is the approved type and thickness and is correctly fitted. But the inspection may not have been carried out because the person asked to do so was not notified by the plasterboarding contractor that the wall insulation was going to be covered up.
The manager's role is to make sure that the compliance plan is completed. It is a live document from approval to the end of construction, and needs to provide sufficient detail to make sure that when the relevant person submits their completion certificate they do so lawfully.
Lawfully in this context means that, when they confirm in the certificate that their building complies with the Building Regulations, they know this is true and are not being reckless.
Given that the relevant person could be someone who doesn't understand construction very well, they are likely to employ the compliance plan manager directly to look after their interests.
The manager will make sure that agreed actions are carried out and, if not, that appropriate action is taken. In effect, that the relevant person is taking appropriate professional advice before submitting a legal document.
This approach seeks to address the poor performance of professionals, such as the architects identified by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, ensuring the compliance declaration on the completion certificate submission isn't made recklessly or is knowingly false.
Foundations in place to support implementation
Implementing this approach will take legislation and guidance. Given that legislation already defines two of the three key roles – that is, the relevant person and local authority verifier, but not the compliance plan manager – the BSD are well placed to implement the process.
However, public consultation on the new approach did support more severe consequences for offences, such as imprisonment, so ministers will consider further reform.
We also need to consider how we will measure success. We have existing monitoring structures in place, though, and the fact that only local authorities are verifiers offers a good foundation to build on.