Written evidence submitted by the Chartered Association of Building Engineers [BSB 428]

RE: Submission to Building Safety Bill pre-legislative scrutiny Committee

This letter accompanies the more detailed on-line submission made on behalf of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE). CABE is a licensed Professional Engineering Institute and aims to be a unifying voice within the construction sector.

As a professional body CABE represents a wide range of construction professionals. Building Engineers operate across the lifecycle of the built environment encompassing the design, build, maintenance and repurposing of the spaces and places where we live, work and interact, including more than 3000 members working directly in the Building Control sector and in excess of 2000 members involved in the design and construction process and interacting with building control on a regular basis.

CABE’s chartered objectives are to share knowledge, raise standards and train and develop professionals thereby driving the sector to create better, safer and more sustainable buildings that enhance people's lives. CABE is committed to improving competence and supporting regulatory reform.

We welcome publication of the Building Safety Bill as a critical step in implementing much needed reform flowing from the Government’s Building Safety Programme.

We have responded to the Committee specific questions in our separate on-line submission but wanted to raise the following overarching issues which we believe merit serious consideration by the Committee.

Structure of the Bill

We are very concerned at the extent to which operational detail is included in the Bill. Experience tells us that in the future the availability of Parliamentary time to amend provisions in the Bill will be limited. The inclusion of operational provisions in the current Building Act 1984 has, in our opinion, hindered incremental amendment given the difficulty in accessing primary legislation and which over time has contributed to the weakening of the building control system overall. 

Whilst we recognise the desire of Parliament to retain direct control over legislation on such important matters, we are worried that the extent to which the draft Bill includes detailed operational clauses may prove sub-optimal, and urge the Committee to consider where the use of secondary legislation – potentially through use of affirmative procedures – may be more appropriate.

Clarity

The Bill provides only a partial picture of the revised building safety system and further information is required to understand its full functionality. It is therefore difficult to be clear about the effectiveness in terms of implementing policy intentions.

We would therefore urge MHCLG to share at the earliest opportunity the draft supporting regulations and statutory guidance to enable productive comment as the Bill makes its passage through Parliament.

Procurement

We recognise that work is on-going to look at reform of procurement processes. However, the lowest price culture which has been so rightly criticised as driving risky and dangerous behaviours would appear to continue to be the predominant model adopted by clients. 

Procurement sets the terms, conditions, tone and viability for safety in construction projects. The reforms proposed in the Bill will be far more effective if allied with a shift to better forms of procurement based on realistic costing, programming and improved systems for quality management.

We hope that the above alongside our written on-line submission prove of use to the Committee and are available to provide further evidence or information should this be required.

October 2020