Hackitt slams safety costs fears

Dame Judith Hackitt, the author of the post-Grenfell report on fire safety regulation, has criticised those in the construction industry who are more worried about the cost of a new competency system than the building safety regime it could create.

Speaking to Housing Today’s sister title Building magazine at an Industry Response Group conference in London yesterday, convened to discuss recommendations of the Competency Steering Group’s (CSG) 149-page Raising the Bar report, Hackitt said she had heard a delegate ask whether “the size of the regulatory burden was worth the benefit?”.

“I wondered ‘how can you ask such a thing?’ This is about this industry getting to where it should have been, not about whether the cost is worth the candle. This is about a big culture change that absolutely must happen,” she said.

Hackitt also said the introduction of any new competency system ought to be phased, with high risk residential buildings (HRRB) taking priority. “The biggest risk is the scope question, because the bigger the scope the more challenging it will be to implement this. That is not to say that over time I would not want to see good practice filter down to every single aspect of all buildings, [but] this is a culture change that should start with the highest hazards and risks – HRRB.

While she said the system would eventually need to cover buildings like those recently affected by fires in Barking in east London and Worcester Park in the south west of the capital, she added: “I think we have to recognise that this is a project to be managed and that you have to do it in a number of stages. Let’s get it right, and let’s get it working on the most important and highest risks first, and then extend it,” she added.

Later in her conference speech Hackitt said progress across the sector had been “encouraging”, but the industry was still “not moving fast enough”. There had been a “widespread culture of indifference and ignorance” in some parts of the construction industry and “no real sense about what matters”, while some contractors had wanted to “just finish the job and not care about the quality aspect”.

She said she agreed with BSI standards director Scott Steedman who had earlier argued for a “top down as well as bottom up” approach to competency. Steedman told the conference that senior leaders within the industry needed to be “visible and on board with the competence environment, driving improvements and challenging reports”.

Hackitt expressed disappointment that the CITB had not engaged more with the CSG’s 13 working groups. “Surely it makes sense for this to be an industry-wide process. The CITB should be a part of that.” And she poured cold water on what she called moves to “dilute” the role of building safety manager and turn it more into a safety co-ordinator role.

Responding to Hackitt’s comments Steve Radley, the CITB’s strategy and policy director, said his organisation was already working closely with the installers’ and site supervisors’ working groups while also starting development of a training standard for core fire safety for those working in high-rise residential buildings.

“We are happy to engage with a fuller range of working groups if this will help to ensure a consistent response to the Industry Safety Steering Group’s (ISSG) recommendations.

“However, we need to agree with the ISSG the best way to do this as these working groups cover occupations beyond our remit and have different approaches to establishing competence.”

Hackitt also told the industry that delivering the new competency environment would be “harder than what you’ve done so far” and urged the sector to “hold onto why you are doing this. The industry has to change and it has to deliver. Many people out there need to know that we are doing all we can to make their homes safer.”

Comments on the CSG’s interim report are due in by 31 October and the final report is expected to be published by the end of the year.

More on the IRG conference to follow…