Hackitt urges professional bodies to push new building safety competence standard

Dame Judith Hackitt has called on the five professional bodies that have been licensed to award the Engineering Council’s UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment Contextualised for Higher-Risk Buildings (UK-SPEC HRB) to promote the new qualification among their members and to strongly encourage members to register. 

She has also stressed the importance of informing the wider industry about the standard and the benefits of being able to prove that HRBs have been designed and built by demonstrably competent people. 

Presenting the keynote address at the launch of the UK-SPEC HRB at the House of Lords on 1 May, the Building a Safer Future report author supported the delivery of a qualification that enables professionally qualified structural and civil engineers who work on HRBs to demonstrate their competence. 

In her 2018 report, published a year after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Hackitt identified inconsistency in the processes and standards for assuring the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours of those working on HRBs, which constituted a significant flaw in the current regulatory system.

Developed in direct response to her independent review of building regulations and fire safety, the Engineering Council’s new UK standard is the product of a collaboration with professional engineering institutions and expert volunteers.

Its purpose is to assess the competence and commitment of individual engineers and technicians who work on HRBs, one of the recommendations outlined in the CIC’s Setting the Bar building safety competence report. 

The UK’s regulatory body for the engineering profession has licensed five professional bodies for the HRB standard registration: the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE); the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE); the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE); the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE); and the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE). 

In her keynote address, Hackitt said she wanted to hear more about the Engineering Council’s "next steps", which, she added, will need to include "driving" the five institutions to raise awareness among their members, not just of the new qualification’s existence but also to encourage them to register against the standard.

"We also need to be clear in due course how you will differentiate between those who do demonstrate competence and those who not. What happens to those who fail to make the registration?" she asked. 

"This standard must mean something. It must have teeth and it must be transparent."

Based on the UK standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment (UK-SPEC), the new qualification incorporates the criteria from BS 8670 and sets out a sector-specific competence framework that consists of a core document and Discipline Annexes, explains the Engineering Council.

UK-SPEC HRB sets out threshold standards of competence and commitment that people who undertake engineering work on HRBs should meet, the routes onto the HRB Engineering Council Register and the requirements for periodic revalidation of competence. 

Although it is "tailored" for engineers and technicians who work in the built environment, it is particularly important for those involved in the design, construction, maintenance and operation of HRBs.

As the Engineering Council explained, demonstrating competence could involve registration against the core framework only, or a combination of the discipline annexes which are fire engineering; structural engineering; building services engineering; and façade engineering.  

Sandra Ashcroft, the Health and Safety Executive’s building safety programme competence lead at the Building Safety Regulator, also welcomed the standard, describing it as an "invaluable tool" for identifying and engaging truly competent professionals who can meet the stringent safety requirements of HRBs.  

The Engineering Council pointed to the government’s commitment to build 1.5 million high-quality homes that are safe now and, in the future, and said that its HRB Register and UK-SPEC HRB demonstrates "how this ambition can be achieved through a pipeline of suitably qualified professionals for the housing and construction market with the right skills. We welcome the professional engineers who have already achieved registration, and we are committed to building on this momentum".

"This is the first step," cautioned the body’s CEO Paul Bailey, who added: "It is our hope that UK-SPEC HRB is embraced and championed by the sector and the wider engineering profession, and that the standard, and the register of those individuals assessed against it, will support the continuing improvement of public safety across the sector."

CABE’s CEO Richard Harral added: "The launch of this new registration scheme for engineers working on HRBs represents a step change through career competence management. By providing a tailored approach to assessing competence for all major roles within design and project teams, from technician to chartered engineer, the HRB Register will incentivise investment in the lifelong learning necessary to ensure engineers are competent and that buildings remain safe throughout their life."