Cathie Clarke, SPRA CEO was pleased to attend a well organised Build UK event last week, entitled ‘Any Questions?’. Chaired by the current host of the Radio 4 show of the same name, Chris Mason was joined by panellists Nick Smallwood (Infrastructure and Projects Authority), Mark Farmer (Cast Consultancy), Ann Bentley (Rider Levett Bucknall) and Peter Lauener (CITB). The audience of senior industry leaders were party to a good debate, although I found the fact that so little seems to have changed since the Farmer Report and the Grenfell tragedy. Great strides have been made by Build UK and it’s members recently particularly in the area of pre-qualification, but in many other areas, especially skills and training, we are still saying ‘we should’ rather than ‘we have’.
Build UK’s own summary of the event can be found here. One of the key points of agreement was that collective culture change was required (nothing new there), with Nick Smallwood pointing out that it starts at the top, giving the industry leaders in the room a clear role to play. I challenged Nick on this point as it seemed to me he was asking the rest of the industry to take the lead. As government is responsible for about one third of all construction; surely they play a key and unique role? If they don’t follow and enforce existing rules – how can you expect others to? Legislation would be a clear step in the right direction. Most of the Working Groups who contributed to the ‘Raising the Bar’ report have strenuously requested that existing and new standards are given the teeth they need to change culture and stop the race to the bottom that can be seen all over this industry. Nick replied to me that we didn’t need ‘lots of new bits of legislation’. I replied however, that I was only asking for one. We already have Standards and Qualifications and Certification schemes. Use them, police them and make sure that no-one is allowed on site without the correct skills, knowledge and understanding of the occupation they are there to do. .
Of course, I am not letting us off the hook and we all have the opportunity to do the right thing and drive positive change. Being part of Build UK is a valuable way of supporting this and demonstrating that we are all working together for the benefit of the industry.
But – this is a clear health and safety issue which needs to be taken seriously. If government can legislate to change shopping culture of the UK overnight by charging 5p per carrier bag, they can be the catalyst required to change culture in construction for the better to ensure we have safe buildings for the future.
Source: SPRA CEO and Build UK