Written evidence submitted by Structural-Safety [BSB 039]

1. Introduction to Structural-Safety

Structural-Safety is an acknowledged independent source of expertise for gathering and sharing information on structural safety issues to help create a safer built environment. Structural-Safety is funded by the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Since 2005, Structural-Safety has operated CROSS (Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety), the voluntary safety reporting system to capture and share lessons learned from structural safety issues which might not otherwise get public recognition. The audience is those involved in the design, construction and management of buildings and other structures. The aim is to identify pre-cursors which could result in structural failure in similar circumstances if not addressed. It helps those involved to learn from each other and is recognised for making improvements in public safety. To date, almost 1,000 safety reports have been submitted to CROSS.

Structural-Safety also publish safety alerts to raise awareness of safety risks identified and to disseminate lessons learned from structural safety concerns and incidents. These safety alerts can be related to CROSS safety reports, or they can be related to safety issues which are already in the public domain. All of the information which Structural-Safety publish is free.

Recommendation 1.4c in Dame Judith Hackitt’s report Building a Safer Future stated that “For all other buildings the current CROSS scheme should be extended and strengthened to cover all engineering safety concerns”. As a result of this recommendation, Structural-Safety are currently working on a project to expand CROSS to also gather and share reports on fire safety issues, adding to the existing gathering and sharing of reports on structural safety issues. This project is being funded by MHCLG and is expected to be complete in March 2021.

2. Reason for submitting evidence

We have an Expert Panel with over 20 of the UK’s best structural and fire safety professionals who between them have a vast accumulation of skills and knowledge relevant to this Bill. We therefore want to help; firstly, by pointing out several areas of immediate importance, and secondly by offering to give assistance in supporting the writing of secondary legislation.

3. Summary

We fully support the introduction of this Bill to take forward reforms of the building safety system in line with Dame Judith Hackitt’s report. In terms of amendments to the Bill and the secondary legislation to follow, it is our view that:

• Clause 8 should be modified to state that the regulator should appoint an independent body to operate the voluntary safety reporting scheme for buildings. Evidence is provided in Section 4and we would be pleased to discuss with you the lessons that we have learned from the aviation sector in this regard.
• The proposed definition for a ‘higher-risk building’ should be extended in secondary legislation and we would be pleased to help with the task. In particular, it is our view that the definition should be extended to include Consequence Class 3 buildings and to allow buildings which contain specific high-risk components or materials to be included. Evidence is provided in Section 5. Again, we would be pleased to help with establishing the definitions and their application to safety cases.
• By implementing the expanded CROSS to cover fire safety by early 2021 we are helping to comply with Dame Judith Hackitt’s request for industry to proceed with best practice measures in advance of legislation.

4. Clause 8

Clause 8 in the Bill is:

8               Duty to establish system for giving of building safety information

The regulator must—

(a)               establish and operate a system to facilitate the voluntary giving of

information about building safety to the regulator, or

(b)               make arrangements for a person to establish and operate such a system.

Paragraph 168 of the Explanatory Notes on the Bill states that it is the intention for Clause 8 to be met through the expansion of CROSS into fire safety.

While Structural-Safety welcome the inclusion of a clause to establish and operate a voluntary reporting system, we are deeply concerned that part (a) of the clause gives consideration to allowing the regulator to operate this system. To explain the reasoning for our concern, it is helpful to study how voluntary safety reporting is established and operated in the aviation industry.

One of the key requirements for a safety reporting system to become a member of the International Confidential Aviation Safety Systems (ICASS) Group is that it must be operated independently of the regulator. In the USA, the voluntary safety reporting system for the aviation industry is ASRS (Aviation Safety Reporting System). The ASRS website (https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/) says that people are generally willing to share their knowledge if they are assured:

• their identities will remain protected, and
• there are no disciplinary or legal consequences.

The above assurances can only be achieved through a system which is run independently of the regulator. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) are the aviation regulator in the USA. As the FAA are the holder of pilot licences, pilots were not comfortable sharing safety information with the FAA for fear of disciplinary action. Therefore, the FAA asked NASA some 40 years ago, to establish ASRS so that the voluntary reporting system could be operated independently of the regulator.

ASRS has been hugely successful. They have securely processed over 1.6 million reports. These are widely regarded as the world’s largest sources of information on the subject and have contributed massively to improving aviation safety.

In the UK, the voluntary safety reporting system for the aviation industry is CHIRP (Confidential Human Factors Incident Report Programme). Similar to ASRS, CHIRP is operated independently from the UK aviation regulator, who are the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority). The CHIRP website (https://www.chirp.co.uk/) states that:

The CHIRP Aviation programme compliments the Civil Aviation Authority Mandatory Occurrence Reporting scheme […] by providing a means by which individuals are able to raise issues of concern without being identified to their peer group, management, or the Regulatory Authority. Anonymous reports are not normally acted upon as they cannot be validated.

This approach is fully supported by the CAA. The CAA website (www.caa.co.uk) says:

Voluntary reporting moves us from a reactive process towards proactive process, helping us identify safety concerns and allowing safety improvement measures to be implemented before they escalate.

Voluntary safety reporting in the aviation industry is well established internationally, is proven and has been very successful. The fundamental principle for this success is that all of the voluntary safety reporting systems across the globe are operated independently of the regulator. Voluntary safety reporting for the UK building industry must follow this same principle if it is to be successful and meet the objectives of the policy.

As stated in the introduction, Structural-Safety has operated CROSS (Confidential Reporting on Structural Safety), a voluntary safety reporting system for buildings, since 2005. As a result of the Hackitt recommendation 1.4c, MHCLG are currently funding a project to expand CROSS to cover fire safety issues. This project will be complete in March 2021, and the expanded CROSS will meet the policy objective of Clause 8 in the Bill.

CROSS has been modelled on voluntary safety reporting in the aviation industry, and Structural-Safety communicate regularly with both ASRS and CHIRP. Importantly, CROSS is operated independently of the regulators in the building industry. Reporters’ personal information, along with any identifiable details in reports, such as the names of a project, asset, product, individual or organisation, are confidential to CROSS and are not shared with anyone.

The regulators in the buildings industry, the HSE and Local Authority Building Control (LABC), fully support the role of CROSS in improving safety in the buildings industry. Representatives from both organisations are Members of CROSS, which allows them to contribute our work and to provide expert comments on anonymised CROSS reports. Appendix A presents a recent reference for Structural-Safety from Ray Cooke, HM Principal Inspector at the HSE. This reference demonstrates both the importance of the independence of CROSS and the excellent relationship which CROSS has with the HSE.

Based on the above evidence, it is our view that Clause 8 should be modified to state that the regulator should appoint an independent body to operate the voluntary safety reporting scheme for buildings.

We support the introduction of mandatory occurrence reporting and believe that the combination of this with voluntary reporting through CROSS will provide a wealth of safety information to support industry and cultural changes in the years ahead.

5. Clause 19

Clause 19 in the Bill includes:

19               Meaning of “higher-risk building”

(1)               In this Part and Part 4 “higher-risk building” means a building of a prescribed description.

Paragraph 228 of the Explanatory Notes on the Bill provides a proposed definition for a ‘higher-risk building’. Noting that Clause 16 includes ‘structural failure’ as a building safety risk covered by the Bill, Structural-Safety have studied the proposed definition for a higher-risk building to assess if it adequately covers buildings which are viewed as higher-risk from a structural safety perspective.

Appendix B presents a list of some of the structural failures of buildings which resulted in fatalities across the globe in recent years. If the measures outlined in the Bill had been applied to all of these buildings, then many of the fatalities might have been prevented. However, it is understood that not all buildings will fall within the scope of the Bill, and instead the initial focus will be on higher-risk buildings.

Table 11 in Approved Document A (Structure) for the Building Regulations 2010 presents requirements to be met to ensure that in the event of an accident, buildings are sufficiently robust to sustain a limited extent of damage or failure without collapse. The requirements vary depending on the Consequence Class for the building, for which there are four levels; 1, 2a (Lower Risk Group), 2b (Higher Risk Group) and 3. Consequence Class 3 buildings are the highest risk group, and includes buildings over 15 stories as well as stadiums.

Given than Consequence Class 3 buildings are recognised as being the highest risk group of buildings from a structural safety perspective, it is our view that the proposed definition for a ‘higher-risk building’ should be extended to include Consequence Class 3 buildings.

There will also be cases where the known level of risk in a building will increase if the presence of specific high-risk components or materials is identified. A recent example of this is buildings which contain Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) planks. Therefore, it is our view that the proposed definition for a ‘higher-risk building’ should be also extended to allow buildings which contain specific high-risk components or materials to be included.

Appendix B only presents some of the structural failures of buildings which resulted in fatalities. There are many more examples of structural failures which did not result in fatalities only due to luck and timing, including:

• Hartford Civic Center roof collapse, 1978, USA:

No one was in the building at the time of the collapse, but just 6 hours earlier there were almost 5,000 basketball fans in the building.

• City Gates Church collapse, 2012, UK:

This catastrophic collapse happened shortly after construction workers had left the site for the day.

• Oxgangs Primary School wall collapse, 2016, UK:

9 tonnes of masonry collapsed from an external school wall on to a path just hours prior to the normal school opening time.

There are also many buildings where issues have been discovered prior to construction or completion and remedial action has been taken to avoid failure or collapse. See for example CROSS reports (www.structural-safety.org).

Appendix B does not include the very many buildings that have collapsed in parts of the developing world (and continue to do so) and about which there is no reliable forensic evidence as to the cause.

In our view, therefore, the definitions for a ‘higher-risk building’ should be extended in secondary legislation for inclusion in the new regime and we would be pleased to help with the task.

6. Safety cases

There is much work to be done to develop the practicalities of what should be included, and by whom, when writing, reviewing, and approving safety case concepts. Principles and techniques from the nuclear, energy, and chemical industries will have to be applied and modified. The experiences of bridge engineers who are well used to such systems will provide a close parallel.

At Structural-Safety we have Members with considerable experience of writing and using safety cases and would be pleased to help with further work in this direction. In particular with the definitions and scope for designers and contractors and the design of templates and the preparation of guidance.

Appendix A – Reference from Ray Cooke, HM Principal Inspector at the HSE, to Alastair Saone, Director at Structural-Safety, in June 2020

Alastair

In response to your request I can confirm that HSE has been working with Structural-Safety (SCOSS and CROSS) for some years now.

HSE is a co-sponsor (with IStructE and ICE) of Structural-Safety and are so because of the synergies and advantages that brings us. Structural-Safety works with the professions (ICE and IStructE), industry and government on safety matters concerned with the design, construction and use of building and civil engineering structures. SCOSS identifies trends and developments which might contribute to or indicate an increasing risk to structural safety.

Though HSE has specialist inspectors we do not have the breadth or depth of civil or structural engineering expertise available in-house that exists at Structural-Safety. In fact, HSE benefits significantly by being able to tap into the wide pool of expertise available through Structural-Safety. HSE sponsorship allows us to help guide the priorities of Structural-Safety, and to magnify the influence they have by virtue of the authority and expertise that we bring to the table, at a fraction of the cost were we to attempt this on our own.  An illustration is the temporary works forum that HSE, via SCOSS, encouraged ICE to set up, addressing a pervasive area of weakness in the industry.

There is an excellent fit between the work of Structural-Safety and HSE’s strategy. It is a good example of how HSE, with modest expenditure, can promulgate our priorities to stimulate others to play a key role in driving improvements. We simply do not have the resource to do everything ourselves so must work with others to help improve health and safety. Additionally, Structural-Safety contributes to improved competence in the civil engineering professions and many of the matters it deals with fall under the HSE “avoiding catastrophe” strategic theme. Contributions from the Director of Structural-safety in both the ICE and IStructE house journals reach over 55,000 civil and structural engineers. HSE is currently working with Structural-Safety to see how that reach can be magnified.

The raison d’être of Structural-Safety is to work independently of any particular regulatory or professional body. This combined, with its robust peer review processes, means it can produce authoritative opinion and guidance which is widely respected, nationally and internationally. The Director as access to the core data from incidents through CROSS which he, and the CROSS team, can use to alert members to potential structural issues. Reviews are provided by an expert panel of volunteers from all parts of the construction industry which includes a senior specialist inspector representative from HSE.

Direct examples of Structural-Safety’s contribution to HSE priorities (recent and current) include work on temporary demountable structures, which continue to cause concern even with the conclusion of the London Olympics and work on structural stability of buildings and other structures. This includes issues arising from the construction phase – temporary works management e.g. propping and shoring – as well as during the operational phase of buildings (where clearly there is overlap with Building Regulations). Half of the CROSS reports concern events on site, a quarter are about design issues, and a quarter are about in-service matters. In recommendations made to prevent recurrences appropriate references are made to CDM Regulations. When judgement has been reached in some court cases these are used as warnings in the Newsletters.

Following the Grenfell Tower fire, a clear recommendation from the Hackitt report is that CROSS should expand to include confidential reporting of fire matters. UK Government accepted that recommendation and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are working with Structural-safety to implement it. The new Building Safety Regulator is being set up by HSE and we are working with Structural-Safety on how this voluntary and confidential reporting system will tie in with the new mandatory system.

The working relationship we have with Structural-Safety is very positive and both parties clearly benefit.

Please let me know if this is sufficient or if you need anything else.

Ray Cooke

HM Principal Inspector

SS/20/14.1

Appendix B – List of some structural failures of buildings which resulted in fatalities

September 2020