{"id":294,"date":"2024-09-24T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bim4housing.com\/development\/?page_id=294"},"modified":"2024-09-30T10:24:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T10:24:55","slug":"development-working-group-meeting-24-09-2024","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bim4housing.com\/development\/development-working-group-meeting-24-09-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Development Working Group Meeting 24-09-2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BIM4HOUSING DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP MEETING 24-09-2024<\/strong><\/h2>\n

DAVID POAT There\u2019s some notes circulated beforehand about what the topics of conversation might be this morning. Before we get into that, we kind of stumbled across the topics where myself, George, Richard and Jiss, we had a meeting about 10 days ago and we\u2019re very keen to open the agenda up for anyone that attends this meeting. So, if there are topics or discussion points that you would like to raise in this forum then please let us know because we\u2019re always interested in new ideas and new thoughts. I\u2019m the technical and cost manager at Notting Hill Genesis, so working very much client side in the industry. I\u2019ll be honest, I\u2019m not entirely sure what the profile of the people are that we\u2019ve got on the all today, but when you contribute if you\u2019d like to just introduce yourselves and where your from that would be useful.<\/p>\n

The first topic that we wanted to talk about, and it\u2019s a little bit of a selfish one, and I\u2019m looking for people\u2019s thoughts and their help with the issue of management of risk versus management of regulation. Just to give you a bit of background, obviously we\u2019re all aware of the kind of culture change that Dame Judith Hackitt was heading towards as part of her report and her thinking. And I think part of that culture change was trying to encourage people to think more broadly about risk, rather than being necessarily over reliant on regulation. And regulation has always been heralded as the minimum standard. And there has been a few things that have happened in my working life recently that made me curious as to how far as a sector we\u2019ve come in rethinking how we consider risk and how reliant we continue to be on either regulations that already exist, or regulations that we\u2019re anticipating in the future.<\/p>\n

And I just wanted to give you a couple of examples. So, as and end client, obviously as part of the Building Safety Act we have to produce building safety cases. And building safety cases are, at their core, risk-based studies and so they encourage building safety managers and clients to very much focus on risk. And one of the things that I\u2019ve tried to introduce as part of the development process is to start to get pre-contract design teams, but also contractors, to kind of complete building safety risk registers. And obviously primarily they\u2019re focused on fire safety and structural safety. But I really wanted to try and promote risk-based conversations much earlier in the process, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. And we\u2019ve had a couple of goes at it, but what\u2019s quite interesting is particularly where we\u2019ve asked contractors to do it, their focus still seems to remain about using regulation as a piece of evidence as to how risk is being managed.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m just curious as to whether just meeting regulations will actually give us the answers in terms of how risks are being mitigated in our buildings. I guess some of the topics that are about at the moment, things like the redundancy of lifts. How many lifts do high-rise buildings need? Not only to kind of deal with the day-to-day, but to deal with redundancy issues. And we\u2019re finding those conversations quite challenging and quite difficult to have with contractors, who are very focused on the basic need and the regulatory need. And it\u2019s very much us as the client, through our employer\u2019s requirements and suchlike that are driving those conversations and driving those requirements. So, how contractors are responding to risk conversations, this doesn\u2019t give us the feeling that everyone is thinking about risk in the same way that we are as a client.<\/p>\n

The other example is the QDR process, it\u2019s a building control requirement to run a Quality Design Review meeting, or series of meetings in order to consider fire safety risk in our buildings over 50 metres tall. The QDR process, at its core is about getting all of the relevant stakeholders together, including client, designers, contractors, fire engineers and having a conversation about fire safety objectives and then how those fire safety objectives are going to be met. So, from a client point of view, and I guess from everyone\u2019s point of view, that seems like a very sensible conversation to have from the outset of a meeting. What we\u2019re finding though, and not universally, but on occasions as a client we\u2019re discovering that QDR processes have been run, but the people participating in those QDR processes have very much just been designers and contractors. And on occasions us as a client, we don\u2019t get invited, rightly or wrongly, to participate in those conversations. So, I\u2019m curious as to whether the process is well rounded enough, again in terms of considering risk more broadly.<\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the kind of backdrop to why I was looking for some help, some thoughts, as to what other people\u2019s experiences are, whether you think it is a topic of conversation and how far you think that we\u2019ve come. So, a long introduction, as always with these conversations they\u2019re only as good as people are prepared to participate in them, so I\u2019d be very interested if anyone has got any views.<\/p>\n

RICHARD WHITTAKER The thing about the industry, everybody\u2019ll know this, we work to minimum standards because they're driven by legislation and statutory requirements. And because of clients we drive a competitive environment, typically based on cost rather than based on value, it keeps us at that minimum standard. Now, there are clients out there who\u2019ve taken an approach to procurement based on value. So, they\u2019ve procured on value and they\u2019ve gone we appreciate this will cost more, but the whole lifecycle costing things like that, we\u2019ll join that up and look at the overall savings. And then they get onsite and the developer turns around and starts delivering to the minimum standard that they\u2019ve always done and the resource requirement in terms of getting your specification met when its out of the norm is significant. And it falls by the wayside because of the priorities and the workloads that everybody has.<\/p>\n

And there has to be something that incorporates an early warning system that actually promotes these issues and forecasts what\u2019s going to happen earlier in the process, they need to be further up the decision making tree, for want of a better value. And the other side of it, for me working as a client, I was at a meeting that Judith Hackitt was presenting at and I asked her about a measure of risk being on height and whether it were likely to change from the 18 metres. Because we had multi-occupancy of low-rise buildings in residential, they\u2019re complex buildings in my mind. And her answer was really good, because she said well, you have to accept that this is a blunt proxy of risk because we\u2019ve been such a big thing to tackle. If, in principle, you think this applies to other buildings you should apply it and not wait for us to tell you what buildings to apply it to.<\/p>\n

That is a message for all clients and specifiers and procurement teams. In relation to that the people that need persuading are the people who have the purse strings, and control because they\u2019re managing a complex business, but recently when you look at the social housing regulation act and you look at Awaab\u2019s law in relation to domestic construction, there are two massive levers there that say you have to look beyond the minimum statutory requirement in order to leave a legacy when that building is complete, or that refurbishment is complete. So, it really does sit within a client\u2019s remit to steer this, but the support has to come from the purse holders on the client side, but also from the contracting business where they can find efficiency, share some of that efficiency from reinvestment in team. Now, that\u2019s a holy grail in many ways.<\/p>\n

GEORGE I\u2019m going to have to leave shortly because I\u2019m going to a safety case conference that Risk Flag are running today. And the reason I\u2019m mentioning that is that the risk safety case is in itself seen as a compliance process and what I\u2019m discovering is that people are looking at that as another potential silo. In other words, they\u2019re just looking at the information that\u2019s needed for the safety case, which is understandable, but if people aren\u2019t considering where that information is coming from then you end up collecting information just for one purpose which then isn\u2019t going to get kept up-to-date. And if we look at it from a compliance perspective, I can understand people wanting to do that because that\u2019s something that they need to be able to demonstrate, but you need to come at it from a risk perspective.<\/p>\n

I went back to the recent update to the golden thread that we all contributed to, it very much says that you\u2019ve got to look at the building as a whole, the systems as a whole. The Regulation 38 requires you to actually state that you\u2019ve got enough information to keep the people safe. It\u2019s not asking you to make sure that you\u2019ve got fire door inspections, they\u2019re not being prescriptive in that way. So therefore I do think very much that we need to be in a situation where we\u2019re looking at things from a risk perspective, but looking at the evidence that\u2019s needed to support that.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Thanks for that context, and you\u2019re right, the approach to safety cases absolutely is risk-based and needs to be broad in its application, rather than just a tick box exercise.<\/p>\n

VICTORIA FINN I work for Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, I\u2019m the health & safety manager. I was just considering what you were saying earlier about managing the risks and getting together a pre-construction team. It\u2019s always been done and people are taking the risk as part of the meeting\u2026they\u2019ve looked at the risk and they\u2019ve gone on doing the design. But again, taking each of those risks in isolation. And it still happens, it\u2019\\s part and parcel of that agenda now, you\u2019ve got a risk register you have to look at and each individual risk, but we need to get cracking on those risks. So, we need to take each one of those risks and expand it and so if we do this piece of work to look at that risk, as we caused another risk down the line. And often that is the case, if you start taking in isolation and expanding on them. We don\u2019t do that and I think that\u2019s one are that people need to look at with a bit more thought.<\/p>\n

Apart from that as well, a big issue on the client side. I have been here, I\u2019ve come into the building safety role, it seems to be the role that expands out onto all of those other teams\u2026so, this is what we\u2019ve needed. We\u2019ve had teams working in isolation, so a development team will work in isolation to an investment team, perhaps. But it\u2019s the investment team that sees the problems that go wrong from the build. It\u2019s the investment team generally that sees what\u2019s not been done, what\u2019s missing, what\u2019s caused another risk. So, I think it\u2019s making sure as well those teams work together, it\u2019s not just getting a pre-construction team being all of the new build team around, it needs to be people who deal with the maintenance thereafter as well.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT So, do you very much see that kind of risk management process as a collaborative process where kind of internal stakeholders are engaged? Or is that a kind of work in progress?<\/p>\n

VICTORIA FINN I do see that. I think it needs to be, so many stakeholders are involved and I know it\u2019s very difficult to look at that straight off and get everybody around the table from word go. So I think people work needs doing first, looking at those major issues and risks in construction, expanding further out to see where they go and then checking the ones that are still a risk off, they\u2019ve still got a problem with that that\u2019s not been solved. And they\u2019re taking that out for the further team, the wider team. INCOMPREHENSIBLE AUDIO\u2026see where the sticky bits are and if they\u2019ve not got over at design stage it\u2019s going to come back on us down the line, like the cladding did.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Agreed, and it\u2019s always very interesting when we get our asset management colleagues together with the constructors, developers. It makes for quite interesting conversations because quite often they\u2019ll come at things from a very different perspective.<\/p>\n

MANDEEP SINGH GILL I\u2019m based at Hydrock\u2026mainly consulting on the Building Safety Act for the last year and a half. What George said earlier about the legislation being outcome based. I think this is highlighted in one of the BSR webinars where there was a question asked more like a complaint about the legislation being ambiguous or open. But the person who answered the question answered it in a really nice way, they said just because the words are light it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re ambiguous, they are specific, but they\u2019re just light. And the fact that it\u2019s outcome based is what basically they\u2019re really looking for. They just want the solution and as kind of competent individuals, the job of engineers and the like to provide the answers and the solutions.<\/p>\n

In terms of the other the point about the minimum compliance, obviously we\u2019ve got the duty holder regime now as well, but I think also there is a bit of misunderstanding in the market. We\u2019ve been approached by a client, an NHS trust, and they\u2019ve asked us to check their design to see if it complies with the Building Safety Act. It made us chuckle a little bit because there is no, although you\u2019ve got the duty holder regime and all of that compliance, in fact all that the Building Safety act is doing is just asking you to make sure that your design complies with the building regulations. So it\u2019s still a bit of a misunderstanding there in the market.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT It\u2019s a bit of a cliche, but it is representative of the journey that we\u2019re on. People will inevitably be moving at different paces and we\u2019ll have different understandings of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

MANDEEP SINGH GILL Similarly as well, we had a client ask for a fire emergency file to be produced just for the design and construction phase. But I immediately went back and said what you need to understand is the requirements of the fire emergency file, they overlap into the occupation and inevitably that information has to evolve from design and construction to be available in occupation. You can\u2019t just reduce the scope and say make it for design and construction, the scope is going to go on and there is going to be that. So, we\u2019ve kind of got a few clients being a bit cheeky trying to get a few things done.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Yeah, clients can be a bit cheeky, Mandeep. I just wanted to come back to something that Richard said, because what I took from what Richard said is essentially if clients don\u2019t lead this then it\u2019s probably not going to happen. So it\u2019s very much clients that will set the standard. Now, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a fair thing to say or not, and if there are contractors or designers in the room I\u2019m very happy to hear what you\u2019ve got to say about that. Certainly from our point of view, we introduced non-combustible materials in walls a long time before the regulations here. We introduced sprinklers into low-rise buildings long before it was a regulatory requirement because as the client we wanted to het ahead of this stuff and we wanted to set that higher standard.<\/p>\n

Now, as Richard said, that comes at a price, there is a cost to pay for that, but we very much wanted to be at the forefront of that stuff. So, do people agree? Is this clients having to lead this process through their employer\u2019s requirements, if we\u2019re going to set standards beyond building regs? or is there a sense that contractors are equally coming to the table and pushing a higher quality agenda?<\/p>\n

MANDEEP SINGH GILL I think if a client, if you want to go above and beyond the bar, ultimately that would be down to the client. But in terms of reaching a minimum standard\u2026the principal designer role applies to all construction projects (and all building works) now, so as part of the duty holder regime I think if there is not suitable arrangements in place, there is not enough time and resource allocated by the client, the principal designer and principal contractor have a duty to question that and challenge that. I think it goes to as far as saying reject the work if there is no suitable arrangements in place. In terms of minimum standard, although the client has to initiate\u2026everybody has a duty to make sure, in terms of principal designer principal contractor, to decline the work if they feel that that\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT That\u2019s still about meeting building regs, though, isn\u2019t it? At the core of it it\u2019s just about achieving that minimum standard of building regs.<\/p>\n

MANDEEP SINGH GILL Yeah, exactly, and that\u2019s why I said for the minimum standard the client would have to initiate. So if they want to go above and beyond the client, we have to initiate it, but in terms of the minimum baseline standard, that is down to everybody.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Yeah, it\u2019s interesting. We, as a client, not only do we develop, but we operate as well. So, we operate both sides of the divide. There are many developers out there that don\u2019t do that, they simply build for onward sale. Again, I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ve got any people in the call in that situation. If we want to set a higher standard, if we want to get the sector to think more in a risk way rather than a regulatory way, what needs to happen? Is it as simple as clients need to behave in a different way? Or do we feel that there\u2019s other stuff that needs to happen in order to facilitate that change of thinking?<\/p>\n

GEORGE One suggestion that I\u2019d make is to bring it to life a little bit, because a lot of this sounds very technical to decision makers. But if we can take some scenarios, some examples, of things going wrong, because people have looked in isolation to what their requirements are. The common one I come across is compartmentation, the fact that there\u2019s half a dozen or so asset types, each of which would have its own compliance check, perhaps, maybe by a different organisation. But then the following day somebody carries out some small works and goes through a wall. If that\u2019s not been fire-stopped properly afterwards then there is no point in you having excellent fire doors there because the overall risk has been basically undermined, or the measure has been undermined.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just one example. If we could get people to start contributing examples of things that go wrong because we\u2019re not looking at things from a holistic point of view which is really what should be being done. I think that might help with doing the business case properly,<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN The point you\u2019re rightly making, George, is about selection of the project team and ensuring their behaviours. Those are the sort of questions the client, or the project team for the client, should be asking those individuals. Those scenarios where have you made a difference? How would you deal with this situation if this came on your project? And that would be walking the walk rather than talking the talk, demonstrating they are there as a team player rather than, oh, it\u2019s someone else\u2019s problem and ignoring these situation. It\u2019s about honesty and integrity in practice and it\u2019s a big ask to say, hang on. We need to stop this project because we haven\u2019t done it right.<\/p>\n

GEORGE David, is that something we could ask the group? I imagine everybody on this call will have at least one or two experiences of things that have gone wrong, or would have gone wrong, because they didn\u2019t know something. Is that something we could ask everybody to just put something in the chat, an example that we can maybe flesh out into a scenario. Because that\u2019s the sort of thing, looking at the safety case feedback that we\u2019ve seen, I think people are starting to see this now, actually having ways of demonstrating that your building is safe needs scenarios. It needs something to lift it to this is how we\u2019re managing those risks.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN Do you want to add, George\u2026about the information on CROSS, on the collaborating for safer structures. The amount of information that\u2019s fortunately now being provided by anonymous regarding situations and alerts from that regarding fire and structural at this moment in time, which is a good port of call. But not everyone knows about it.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Stephen, is there something you can put in the chat, a link to CROSS?<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN Yes, I can, I use it on my courses.<\/p>\n

CLIFF KNEALE I might have something small to contribute to the conversation. As an architectural technician, I was working on a project down in Ireland and it was the 6th Office that they were building for Intel. And obviously it had to be the same as the previous office, so there was office IR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and we were working on 6. So I was trying to work out what cladding we\u2019d be using and it said on the drawing to look at IR5. So I looked on that and it said look at IR4, and I looked on that and it said look at IR3, 2, 1. Go all of the way back and it was like, OK, this cladding isn\u2019t actually suitable for its purpose. I got it changed, but I was just surprised at the lack of rigour around something that\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n

I think that what hasn\u2019t helped is the fact that nowadays you can cut and paste using CAD. So, nobody reads anything anymore, they just cut and paste library information across. Whereas in the good old days you actually had to have an ink pen in your hand and if you got it wrong you had to scratch it out, you really had to think about things more. And I think that that\u2019s a massive contributor to the mess that we\u2019re in is computers, they helped us get it wrong faster instead of helping us to get it right. I think that\u2019s actually one of the root cause problems that architects used to walk down the office and see drawings on their boards. And they could see the building emerging and have conversations with people about what they were drawing and designing. And people were more collaborative, even in the design stage.<\/p>\n

But moving on from there, I also noticed that there was more emphasis on the acoustics of the meeting rooms than on the fire shaft, the shaft walls. So, that was my first experience and when I was working at Hampshire County Council we had a health & safety consultant come in to explain to us about risks on site. Because I was working as a clerk of works at that stage, going out onsite everyday, so obviously if I injured myself Hampshire County Council would be asking why wasn\u2019t he trained. This consultant came in and he explained to use the legal framework that we were in and if something went wrong the finger would be pointed at everybody. And if we saw some bricks onsite on palettes that were about to fall over and we didn\u2019t say anything, and the next day somebody got injured, it was like you\u2019re partly culpable because you didn\u2019t say anything. So, there\u2019s a register onsite and you have to register near misses.<\/p>\n

Once it\u2019s registered and you go into the site office and say to the site manager I need to register a near risk you think, oh, OK, I\u2019m going to have go and do something about that now. But if that same principle could be adopted for the safety of the building once it\u2019s built and you could say going back now as an architect or technician I would have said that I think that this needs to be changed. We can\u2019t go for this kind anymore because of the likelihood if there\u2019s a fire it\u2019s full of phenolic foam that\u2019s going to go up quite quickly. So, if there was some way of\u2026that\u2019s not about filling in forms and documents really, although you have to fill one in, but I found it very useful the way that this health & safety consultant came in and made us all feel that wearing a high vis vest and boots and goggles was a good idea. And you weren\u2019t seen as a wimp.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT But that\u2019s just part of a learning process.<\/p>\n

CLIFF KNEALE Culture change.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Yeah, culture change doesn\u2019t happen overnight, it takes a series of steps. In the chat Victoria asked the question about mandatory occurrence reporting and whether anyone has got any experience of submitting any details around mandatory occurrence reporting. It\u2019s made me curious as to what extent mandatory occurrence reporting might be part of the, solution is the wrong word, but one of the bits of the puzzle that may drive different behaviour. I guess the problem is that it is still very much focused on building regs compliance, it doesn\u2019t really go beyond. But again, if anyone has got experience of submitting anything as part of that process, or has got any views on that, that would be interesting.<\/p>\n

MANDEEP SINGH GILL Just on the two things that Cliff was saying. In terms of\u2026I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re alluding to the MOORS? MORES? 33mins 55secs system. So, once you report the MORES, I think the BSR by legislation, one of their responsibilities is to compile those MORES and do a report on an annual basis, just to discuss the lessons learnt. And then in terms of the first point that Cliff mentioned about the non-compliance\u2026and the design going through all of those stages and not being picked up. Obviously that\u2019s where we need to have our BIM processes in place, you know when we do the approval for the BIM design. So how we used to do it on HS2 was when the design used to come up we used to have a mid-up? 34mins 40secs to map against and those properties\u2026<\/p>\n

So, if we know we have to release X amount of information, say 5 parameters, we would check those 5 parameters in the mid-up, make sure they\u2019re right in the model and then that would be a crosscheck and only those bits of information would come through into the model to issue. And all of the other bits of information, even though\u2026if there\u2019s not time for it according to the program the information will not be issued out to see. So that\u2019s one way, and the other way is putting suitability codes, the ISO has the BIM suitability codes products. So if it\u2019s for design or tendering or as-built basically, each product would have a suitability code. And I think if we went to adopting that more, you\u2019re responsible\u2026I understand it\u2019s a copy and paste thing, but you\u2019ll still have some repsonsibilty if you put suitability codes against an object saying, OK, that\u2019s ready for planning? 35mins 48secs now.<\/p>\n

And I think that helps manage those kind of processes and ensure that the wrong information doesn\u2019t get out and the information is checked. It gives some kind of accountability to the person who has approved that information.<\/p>\n

RICHARD FREER Anybody who's coming up with scenarios or examples, obviously you share them verbally in the meeting, but could you please put them in the chat as well so that we don't miss them.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN I\u2019ve just done that. I\u2019ve sent you a link to what the Building Safety Regulator put on their guidance, their latest guidance, because they keep changing it. That\u2019s in the chat, regarding examples of what we just talked about.<\/p>\n

RICHARD FREER And Jiss will also put in the chat the link to the BIMinAM page where we\u2019ve already started collecting scenarios for that, so have a look at that.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT I\u2019ve got something going in the back of my head based on what Cliff said. According to Cliff, computers are the problem, which might be a challenge for us all. I\u2019m wondering, and this probably is a philosophical debate as much as anything else, I\u2019m wondering to what extent Artificial Intelligence software is going to start to play a part in reviewing CAD-based designs. So will we ever get to a point, and this is philosophical, where through a CAD process you can overlay some Artificial Intelligence software and that software will be able to determine whether there is enough information in that design to be able to demonstrate that a building is compliant with regs or not. I don\u2019t know why I brought that up in the conversation, to be honest, but it was just a thought.<\/p>\n

CLIFF KNEALE I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s already the case in Singapore. And when you submit your drawings to the building control office it is actually checked, not necessarily by AI, but they have programs that check the compliance. And that was at least 5 years ago and with the introduction of AI that might become an even better process.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT So, cladding as per the previous building wouldn\u2019t pass? To use your example.<\/p>\n

CLIFF KNEALE I don\u2019t think so, but what you should put what it actually is. I said it very quickly, but it took me about a week to find those drawings, and each time I got to the previous building it took me a week to find the previous building to that, it was in the archives. In the end, just had to redesign it.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT IN the interests of sharing, I can maybe off up an example of where we\u2019ve got a particular problem where risk is coming int\u03bf to conflict with regulation. We\u2019ve got a situation where we had a building that\u2019s now in occupation, it\u2019s been occupied for a couple of years, and we\u2019ve had a fire risk assessment organisation go in and do a post-occupation fire risk assessment. And they have observed that none of the riser doors that we have got smoke seals. And they\u2019ve queried it as to why the riser doors haven\u2019t got smoke seals. And we went back the the fire strategy document and we went back to the consultants who wrote the fire strategy document and it was clear in the fire strategy that smoke seals were a requirement for riser doors.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re in a situation where we\u2019ve got a fire risk assessor who\u2019s done a fire risk assessment and says they\u2019re necessary from a regulatory point of view. So, we\u2019ve got a whole bunch of actions that are now sat on our risk register that need to be completed and we\u2019ve got an original fire consultant who\u2019s saying they\u2019re not a regulatory requirement. I then spoke to a third fire consultant who said it\u2019s not clear in the regulations whether they\u2019re necessary or whether they\u2019re not, it kind of depends on where the location is. If we were writing a fife strategy today we would probably recommend that you put them in, but if we were doing a risk assessment of a legacy building we wouldn\u2019t recommend putting in smoke seals because the amount of fire safety benefits is significantly outweighed by the cost and the disruption of having to retrospectively fit smoke seals to hundreds of riser covered doors.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m not expecting you to respond to that at all, but as a client we\u2019re now sat with three fire consultants at the table all saying something slightly different about one, a regulatory position, but also a risk position. So for me, that\u2019s just an area where if we\u2019d have thought about risk from the front end, maybe the original fire strategy would have said something different, I don\u2019t know. But that was just in the interests of sharing something, I don\u2019t know if anyone else has verbally got anything that they can share.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN It comes down to everyone\u2019s interpretation, as you rightly shared there. And risk assessment has always been subjective based on experience on experience and knowledge or whatever. And the point your rightly raising here is the terms in the legislation are as reasonably practical as so far as reasonably practical, and as we all know it\u2019s written everywhere on all of the duty holder is all reasonable steps need to be\u2026so, it\u2019s all about that collaboration in practice of demonstrating have they gone through that risk analysis\u2026and determined what that is. And as you pointed out, it\u2019s from the start, and it\u2019s about encouraging, as we\u2019ve all been shouting about for years, is early appointment of the right people and getting around the table to actually go through those items collectively and agree the way forward with the client. And it\u2019s easier said than done, it\u2019s having that leadership, really.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Yeah, you\u2019re absolutely right. This has been a decent conversation, I sense we\u2019re mostly on the same page here in terms of the issues that we\u2019re trying to address. I\u2019m not sure we really know, other than probably clients have got to take the lead in some of this stuff, whether it\u2019s through their competency assessments, whether it\u2019s through their process and procedure, whether it\u2019s through them setting higher standards (if they deem those to be appropriate). That\u2019s my take which I\u2019m not entirely surprised by. Is there anything else on this topic that people think is worthy of sharing?<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN What I\u2019ve experienced, and no doubt you all have by other means, I\u2019ve had various workshops with clients over the last 2 years about requirements and the majority of the clients that I\u2019ve been dealing with until 6 months ago deal with non high-risk buildings. So they don\u2019t have to go through all and demonstrate documentation at the gateways as such. But what\u2019s been coming out is that they believe it should be mandatory on all projects what\u2019s happening on HRBs, all respectively on theirs because of the legacy that they\u2019re finding of lack of information that we all know in all the real estate and their properties together for their refurbs and alteration work.<\/p>\n

Which is a constant legacy problem with CDM health & safety files, I call them, because they\u2019re riddled with lack of information due to one contractor going in there, no requirements for a PD under CDM, therefore now requirement for health & safety file information except the design work, not what they actually have built it to. So unless a client is savvy and puts it in the contract for all those retrospectively one contractor work. So what I\u2019m finding, and what contractors that I\u2019m dealing with as well, they want to basically follow in practice what\u2019s required on HRBs, not just generally, oh, it\u2019sHRBs, we don\u2019t have to do it for non-HRBs. No, we do it, because we want to demonstrate we\u2019re actually compliant, how else can you do it. That is starting to happen which is great to see, there is some ownership happening. I know it\u2019s very slowly, but it is starting to creep in.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT We\u2019re taking a similar approach to the QDR thing that I spoke about earlier. From a building regs point of view yo only need QDR for buildings over 50 metres. We\u2019re very much saying look, this is a good process, it\u2019s a robust process, it\u2019s a collaborative process, this is something that we should be deploying on all of our projects, not just the over 50 meters stuff. And it\u2019s just a way of getting all of the right stakeholders together and having the right conversations.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN Yes, exactly, it\u2019s back to audit trails we\u2019ve all been talking about, it should be the norm on everything.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT I\u2019m going to move this along. In the background there is a young man called Jiss who\u2019s recording all of this and he\u2019s going to put some notes together and that will get circulated to you guys. If when you go away and you reflect on this, then please just respond to that email if you\u2019ve got any thoughts, any examples that don\u2019t come to mind here and now, but maybe are worthy of sharing in the future. There were tow other things on the agenda, the people that were going to lead those conversations are no longer here. George was going to lead a conversation and Paul White, who wanted to talk about people\u2019s experiences of amending their contract documents in line with the requirements of the Building Safety Act. And what people were experiencing in terms of what was going well, what wasn\u2019t going so well etc. I\u2019m going to park that conversation for next time and allow Paul to share his experiences.<\/p>\n

George wanted to have a conversation with us about our experiences of the new building control process. Not with a view of getting into the technicalities of what it is and what we need to be doing, but just whether there was enough evidence out there now from various sources as to what our experience of that process has been. What has gone well, what are the pitfalls, what do we need to be doing differently. So, even though George isn\u2019t here, I think it\u2019s a conversation that we can have and we can record and feedback to George. First and foremost, are we experiencing the new building control and what are we finding?<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN I think it\u2019s a mixed bag, from my experiences out there. It depends on where they are on their learning curve, what they\u2019re asking for, what they\u2019re looking at and understanding what everyone is supposed to be doing other than themselves. I\u2019ve actually delivered various 2-day principal designer course the building regs, and the amount of Class 4 individuals, I\u2019ve said to them you should be standing up here and presenting this. And they were no, we don\u2019t know, we haven\u2019t been told who should be doing what, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here. And it\u2019s great to have those people in the room to go through scenarios, but they don\u2019t know how to navigate through this legislation and what forms they should be using. It\u2019s all over the shop, there is no consistency as well.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT What else needs to happen? Does there need to be more guidance? Or is there guidance there that people aren\u2019t quite yet understanding it?<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN What guidance there is comes out in dribs and drabs and we\u2019re not notified of it. By default we find it, but it\u2019s not what you know it\u2019s who you know. So we\u2019ve already seen this and I\u2019ve had to send word to and direct other institutions because they haven\u2019t seen it and to send it out to their members. But what we\u2019re clear is about the Building Safety Regulator and the local\u2026are not issuing, and this is what we want. Certain other ones around the country, they\u2019re saying it\u2019s got to be in this format, while projects are coming out with their own because they\u2019ve got no choice, whether it\u2019s right or not. And the wording in there regarding declaration that they\u2019re complying with the building regs or relevant requirements is another term, whether their role is principal designer or principal contractor, and the wording of that as such is all over the shop.<\/p>\n

So there is no consistency as there should be and despite the number of times I\u2019ve had to go with the building safety reg they will not give advice, they\u2019re just sitting on the fence. They\u2019ll not give what should be a template for whether constructor control plan, a control log and plan until they actually come across it. It\u2019s the blind leading the blind in most cases which is not right.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT They all seem to have taken the view that they want us to think about it rather than them telling us the answers, that seems to be the kind of culture they\u2019re trying to drive.<\/p>\n

STEPHEN COPPIN Exactly, so everyone is going through a learning and developing their own interpretation of what\u2019s right and hoping it gets through. Some are getting through, and then the same documentations for the same type of project, would you believe, specification, is not getting through to another\u2026for example, Leeds and Bristol, that\u2019s a classic one that I\u2019ve come across. Both HRBs, the same dimensions, specifications, everything like for like, and Bristol rejected it while Leeds accepted it. It\u2019\u03c3 a joke, it really is.<\/p>\n

JOHN WAINES I just thought I\u2019d share our experience on going through the building control process. We\u2019ve done two buildings to date, a very minor job and a major investment scheme to one of our high-rises. Both took in excess of 6 months for approval, it was quite embarrassing a little bit. We put the first lot in and they said we won\u2019t charge you, you need to put this that and the other in. We\u2019ve got it all together, but their portal couldn\u2019t take the volume of information that we wanted to put in for the major investment, so then we had to cut and paste and move things around and it just went on and on.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT And is this with the local authority? Or is this with the Regulator?<\/p>\n

JOHN WAINES This was with the Building Safety Regulator, which is Newcastle for us. And I got the feeling they were learning just as much as what we were learning from the experience. It was interesting, I like to put my hand up when we make a cockup. On the smaller one, we\u2019ve now established, we sent a little specification, we were putting a wall up with a fire door on, that was it, nothing much more that that in a high-rise. They sent us back Sent the specification, sent the program on and he said, right, don\u2019t deviate from the specification, don\u2019t deviate from your program and if you do follow the control plan.<\/p>\n

We forgot to go on the portal and inform them, you have to go on the portal to give them within 5 days. We didn\u2019t do that because we just assumed the program and the spec told them everything. So you know when you make a big cockup on a little building, I\u2019d rather make a big cockup on a little building rather that it was on the Glastonbury. So please, if anyone is going to put them in go on the portal and report it, there\u2019s a time scale within 5 days.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT Listen, you avoided prison time, so that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

JOHN WAINES Well, at this moment in time. I\u2019ve emailed them, this was 2 months ago, answer me please, we\u2019ve made a cockup. Please advise, tell us what we can do, it was a genuine mistake. That was 2 months ago and I still haven\u2019t got an answer back yet.<\/p>\n

ADEY BADMOS I\u2019m from Hexagon Housing. In response to your question we have two over 18 metres cladding replacement projects very close to completion. And the experience on both of them from two different local authorities\u2026kind of identical, one is better than the other. Building control is rally slow and I think they\u2019re just being cautious. In one case we had to volunteer to pay for CAD 3? 55mins 54secs before we can get that\u2026it\u2019s still not been signed-off, we\u2019re waiting\u2026we have leaseholders who want to sell and they\u2019re struggling to sell because they need sign off and they need EWS1 to follow. OS I think the atmosphere right now is they\u2019re very cautious, they\u2019re not sure what they\u2019re doing. At one point they were saying that they were short staffed, they didn\u2019t have the right person there to carry out the necessary inspections and the sign-off. So, that\u2019s our experience.<\/p>\n

DAVID POAT There are some themes emerging from the conversation. One, and I guess the most important one, is everyone is still learning as they\u2019re going forward. Whatever side of the fence you are on it\u2019s still a learning process for everyone, that\u2019s the first thing. The second interesting one is something John said that there are still some inconsistencies in terms of what people consider to be regulatory compliant and not. It sounds like you start with two different authorities on the same building and had two different answers. It\u2019s inevitably slow and people remain cautious, I think people are in a bit of a risk averse place. The stakes are quite high, in fact the stakes are extremely high, and so I guess people do generally err on the side of caution in those situations.<\/p>\n

We had an interesting experience, again I guess that we could put our hands up and say we made the mistake, but we had a cladding remediation project on a series of high-rise blocks. There were probably about six blocks and they were all connected, but they\u2019d been operational so they\u2019d been occupied for a number of years. And we had to make a building control application for the remediation work to the cladding and we only made one submission. Because we regarded it as one building because it was all connected. But because the building was already operational then the rules of the operational phase applied. So that because the blocks, even though they were connected physically the cores weren\u2019t connected, so you couldn\u2019t get from one core block to another.<\/p>\n

The submission got rejected because they said no, you need to make an application for every core because every core needs to stand or fail on its own rights, rather than just being one application. Obviously if it had been a new build then it would have been different because the requirements of a new build is different. In hindsight we probably should have worked that out for ourselves, to be honest, but it was a nuance that we missed. So yeah, if you\u2019ve got remediation projects on multiple blocks that are occupied you need to do an application for each core, something to bear in mind.<\/p>\n

Thank you for everyone\u2019s contributions. As I said in the background Jiss will be producing a bunch of notes that we can circulate. Also we need to lift the stuff that you guys have put into the chat and we can put those into the notes as well. If you do have thoughts about topics of conversation that you would like to have in these forums then please let us know. I don\u2019t get the sense out of today we\u2019ve got any actions per se, things that we can physically go and do, sometimes we do, sometimes we don\u2019t. But for me it\u2019s useful to get together and just get likeminded people having these sorts of conversations because it raises everyone\u2019s awareness of what\u2019s going on and what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

CHAT<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Neville Tomblin (External)11:14 am<\/p>\n

I think that as a client there are 2 considerations, High Rise and High Risk and there should be more concentration on High Risk and not just duck this by saying that the block sits outside of the 18m rule.<\/p>\n

Adey Badmos (External)11:25 am<\/p>\n

Clients will definitely always need to lead. It will be a bit challenging to rely on the contractors, due to cost issues.<\/p>\n

Victoria Finn (External)11:27 am<\/p>\n

yes agree with George, lessons learnt are important to show progression, many of these maybe reduced though if those risks were properly considered from the outset and more holistically<\/p>\n

if anyone has reported an MOR, this would be good to review<\/p>\n

Simon Collery (External)11:31 am<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cross-safety.org\/uk<\/a><\/p>\n

John Waines (External)11:36 am<\/p>\n

just submitted a MOR to a High Rise due to the Smoke Control System been defective<\/p>\n

Stephen Coppin (External)11:37 am<\/p>\n

What to report to BSR<\/strong><\/p>\n

You must submit a mandatory occurrence notice and report when a safety occurrence has caused, or is likely to cause:<\/p>\n