Welcome: APS will continue to lead from the front on safety

It is my honour in the run-up to my last APS conference to draft the welcome to Project Safety Journal, which will land on your desk just before our face-to-face conference titled Beyond Compliance: When regulation is only the starting point.

When I set out on my presidential journey with APS, my ambition and vision was short, but perhaps not simple: to drive up competence across the sector. Where to start?

APS, as my professional body, had long supported my own journey of professionalising. Becoming president-elect seemed like the ideal opportunity to do something towards my goal, while giving back to the community that had supported me over my long career. 

My mission was twofold: drive thought leadership and help design practical routes and tools for our members to upskill. The two had to go hand-in-hand because you need to engage and influence the external environment to make sure that what we do within the APS confines would actually work. 

And what a journey it has been so far: we’ve engaged with and driven external initiatives such as the Building Safety Alliance, set up the Industry Task and Finish Group to drive up organisational management of competent individuals, resulting in practical guidance, engaged with regulators across both the principal designer CDM and building regulations agenda, engaged with government and key stakeholders across the competence agenda and much more. 

But is all this enough to make sure that the sector becomes more competent? Is it making an impact? And are we making such a difference that we are not just meeting minimum compliance, but are achieving health and safety and building safety outcomes that are really making a difference in people’s lives, now and in the future? The conference in Birmingham will explore where we can continue to step it up to keep on improving what we do, both as professionals and a professional body. 

These important questions are not just being asked by us, they are being asked by government too. It’s becoming very clear that the post-Grenfell drive for a more effective regime and better competence outcomes didn’t finish with the government’s response to the Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 report. Since then, we’ve had the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus consultation and government’s response to it, which makes it clear that “they”, and therefore “we”, are not nearly finished. 

Yes, it’s important to recognise that the competence agenda is moving from aspiration into expectation, but this is not yet consistent across the board. Organisations are stepping up their capability, and the conversation is broadening from individual competence to organisational management of competence and the important role of behaviours and culture in organisations. 

Government has repeatedly recognised the existing fragmentation and is currently designing a sector wide approach to regulate both professionals and organisations. 
We made sure to share APS’s thoughts of what isn’t working, and how it can work, through our response to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s call for evidence on the professions strategy. Our response to the 79-question consultation was only possible because of the expertise of our expert Fellows who shared their time and insight. We hope their voice will help shape what comes next for us all. 

What government is planning, we will not know in full until early 2027, but if we listen carefully, we may begin to understand the shape of the whole system change to come. Then it is up to us, members and professional body, to make it happen. One thing is for certain, APS intends to lead from the front.

Mark Snelling is the president of the Association for Project Safety.