Dame Judith Hackitt backed the Association for Project Safety (APS) to be a catalyst for change in the construction industry at its annual conference.
Hackitt, who led the independent review of building regulations and fire safety after the Grenfell tragedy, said in her keynote address the body was “uniquely placed” to support the drive to establish “more vibrant, productive and safer built environment sector”, given APS members work outside of the construction industry.
She said: “I think you’re (the APS) pretty well placed to reflect on what can be learned from some of those journeys that have already taken place in other sectors and which can be transferred into the built environment.”
Hackitt said there was a drive to create “consistent and coherent” change in the sector under a proposed new construction regulator which oversees the design and construction of buildings, the regulation of building products and the regulation of professions and their competencies.
She added: “The need for them all to be under one umbrella and to work coherently as a system cannot be in doubt. We cannot have them operating in isolation. That is why they all come together in that single coherent regulatory system.”
Design and build criticism
Hackitt also criticised the industry’s continued use of outdated design and build contracts. “Trying to hold on to a flawed process in design and build as it currently is crafted was never going to meet the requirements,” she said
Hackitt, who in her 2018 report slammed a “race to the bottom” culture across the built environment, also called for a “massive improvement” in CPD to lift safety and quality standards. The current CPD provision offered by construction bodies was not effective in proving professional competence standards, she said.
Reluctance to do things differently
She said the slow pace of change to the industry nearly a decade after the Grenfell fire, which resulted in 72 deaths, was a function of the fragmented nature of the industry “but also because of a real reluctance to change some of the practices which lie at the heart of things, a real reluctance to do things differently”.
Hackitt praised better collaborative working between the industry and government, in particular joint guidance produced in partnership with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).
She said: “It is clear now that by working together on joint guidance we’re getting further and faster, rather than industry waiting for the regulator (to act) and the regulator maintaining that it’s industry’s job to help themselves.”
The APS annual conference, titled Beyond Compliance: When Regulation is Only the Starting Point, featured a range of speakers, including fire safety, CDM, building control and information management experts Aman Sharma, Emma Hooper, Helena Knight and Liz Bennett. Attendees also heard from leading civil servants from BSR and central and devolved nations.
