The Building Safety Act: What does competency look like for the building envelope sector?
The introduction of the Building Safety Act (2022) saw the dawn of a new era for the construction industry. The Act applies to all buildings and requires the industry to actively demonstrate competence, defined as skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour.
The introduction of the Building Safety Act (2022) saw the dawn of a new era for the construction industry. The Act applies to all buildings and requires the industry to actively demonstrate competence, defined as skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour.
For the building envelope sector, this is a particularly complex challenge which is anticipated to take years to achieve, with leading trade bodies now responsible for setting out industry-wide competence standards, designing and delivering required training to bridge competency gaps and putting in place measures to record evidence.
The Joint Competence Initiative (JCI), chaired by Neville Grunwald, Director of Facades and Roofs at Wates Construction, was set up by the technical and procurement leads of principal contractors, specialist engineers and consultants, sector bodies, awarding organisations and envelope contractors to address this challenge head on. It has tasked itself with defining a competency framework for individuals working across the glazing, cladding and roofing sectors, starting with a baseline competency test to provide insight on how to comply with the requirements of the Building Safety Act.
In this piece for the CIOB’s Construction Management Magazine, Neville discusses the practical impact of the Building Safety Act on the sector, the culture shift required as well as the practical challenges of demonstrating competency, particularly for a supply chain already feeling the strain following a tough four years.
“Although the requirements for construction haven’t changed much, in terms of a requirement to work to the building regulations – including competence, what has changed is that the government are now holding the industry to account through the regulator.”
Neville Grunwald
Director of Facades and Roofs at Wates Construction
