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Brunton’s Blog

26/09/2018

September 26 2018 Sheryle Primett Brunton's Blog | General

Brunton’s Blog

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Recent Industry Consultations on Fire Safety and Industry Response

 

The Grenfell tragedy has really focussed the construction industry over the last year and rightly made all construction professionals strive to ensure that everything that can be done will be done to prevent a similar situation occurring again. The whole process of how we design and build in the UK has come into scrutiny and the Hackitt review (May 2018) asks questions of the industry at large and importantly demands a response.

 

In my short time as part of the SPRA team, officially since 1st August, there has been a plethora of government driven consultations with industry concerning safety, specifically fire related, in buildings. The more the Hackitt review is dissected and digested it appears that the fabric of the construction process in the UK has been weakened over the years. Despite increasing means, levels and ways to communicate, it appears that the one key issue that’s lacking in the build process is communication between all parties involved. Equally, despite the range of ways for all to record site installed finished work even down to simply using an operative’s mobile phone, ‘as built’ records are poor across the industry, in some cases non-existent.

 

Through the Industry Response Group (IRG), formed across the construction industry post Grenfell, answers are being formulated. This is a real chance for the construction industry to restructure and reform. It is vital that lessons concerning build processes are identified, best practice established and most importantly implemented. With this in mind the IRG has established a number of ‘Working Groups’ under an industry steering committee to allow detailed consideration of solutions including the competence of individuals.

 

It is important for SPRA members to know that this work is ongoing and SPRA are very much involved. In the coming weeks and months, we will participate in Working Group 12-Products. It is important to keep members updated regarding the scope, development and outcomes associated with this work by following a consultative approach. We encourage feedback from our members embedding this concept.

 

Principal of WG12-Products

The principal of WG12 is to support the work of the other competence workstreams and to develop the recommendations of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Final Report by Dame Judith Hackitt. This reasoning is outlined below –

 

“Manufactures are best placed to identify the skills and levels of competencies needed by others to ensure proper deployment of their products in buildings. This becomes essential when the products have a life-safety purpose. This group will look at the required level of understanding and experience needed to ensure that in particular products falling in to this category can be identified and explained”

 

There is no doubt that the pillars of SPRA related to quality products, competence of individuals in training and installation as well as design associated with experience and best practice will hopefully be influential in assisting the construction industry at large to develop along these lines. The UK construction industry, by moving in this direction can improve quality, and importantly build safer buildings in the future.

 

As always we welcome your feedback!