With less than two months to go, the new system for registering the competence of building-control inspectors appears to be in chaos. Construction News investigates
How easy is it to make the move from an unregulated profession to a regulated one? When it comes to building inspectors, we’re about to find out.
Yesterday (15 February), Construction News revealed that chief executive of Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Lorna Stimpson had warned the government and regulators that many building-control professionals would not be certified to practise before April’s deadline.
She delivered a stark message: “Our legal advice indicates that, without appropriate registered professionals, local authorities will cease to be able to undertake a building-control function post 6 April. Current data indicates that there are a significant number of authorities in England and Wales that will be in this position.”
The impact on a local authority of being without registered building inspections would “have a wide-ranging effect on the construction industry, consumers, regulatory enforcement and compliance”, she added.
Earlier this week, head of the Devon Building Control Partnership Nigel Hunt reportedly told councillors that only 20 per cent of local authority or private sector building inspectors would be licensed in time for April and that morale was at an “all-time low”.
In an attempt to avoid the building-control system grinding to a halt in large parts of the country, Stimpson appealed for a six-month delay to the deadline for registration in order to give the building-control profession more time to get ready.
Less than two months before the deadline, CN asks: how did we get here?
“Lots of people have left the profession because they’ve just not liked the idea of having to prove their competence”
Lorna Stimpson, BSCF
Among the myriad new requirements set out in the Building Safety Act 2022 is the demand that all building control professionals become registered building inspectors.
As a result, more than 4,500 practising professionals in England and Wales need to be assessed and certified by next month – quite a short timeframe, since the register only opened in October 2023.
The new requirements – another product of the shock to the sector caused by the Grenfell Tower tragedy – are aimed at ensuring building control is fit for purpose.
But one of its unintended consequences could be a radical demographic shift in the workforce.
From April, all building control professionals working across the private sector and local authorities must have passed an independent competence assessment. They will also need to join the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR’s) register of building inspectors.
As part of the new regime, candidates will be evaluated against the Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF) every four years, with assessments including interviews and examinations, as well as continuous professional development.
The BICoF focuses on “the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours expected of registered building inspectors”, according to the BSR. It is split into nine interrelated subject areas broadly covering “technical competence, competent application of knowledge and understanding in core building inspection functions and activities, and management competence”.
In July, the Building Safety Competence Foundation (BSCF) and the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE) were named as the first organisations to become independent competence assessors for all building control surveyors in England. Another organisation, Total Training & Development, subsequently joined them.
This is not a tick-box exercise – a fact that is acknowledged by the BSCF and CABE.
However, they also point out that the disruption must be thought about in the context of the Grenfell Tower blaze of 2017, in which 72 people lost their lives.
Dr Gavin Dunn, former chief executive of CABE and now managing director of the Fire Protection Association, stresses that “building control professionals have a vital role in helping to deliver buildings that are safe, sustainable and accessible”.
He adds that the regime is crucial to “developing a culture of continuous improvement” that will “help protect the public interest in the long term”.
Stimpson, who is also chief executive of not-for-profit BCSF, notes that Dame Judith Hackitt, who chaired the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety commissioned by the government following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, told CN that building control needed an overhaul – and quickly.
“She asked for a change of mindset to reprioritise safety, a change of culture and the introduction of measurable competence,” Stimpson says. “Dame Judith challenged industry, and in particular building control, to ‘get on with it; don’t wait to be told what to do’.”
Testing times
Few would argue with that sentiment, but there are still substantial issues to be overcome. Most obviously, the sector was already facing recruitment and retention issues well before the events of 2017.
In April 2021, research by Inside Housing revealed that the number of building control surveyors employed by local authorities had fallen by more than 27 per cent between 2010 and 2020.
The publication received Freedom of Information responses from 85 councils showing that they collectively employed 707 building control surveyors in December 2010, but by December 2020 the figure had dropped to 513 and one authority had seen its headcount fall from 10 to two. If the figures were extrapolated across the country, the magazine said, councils would have lost 1,400 professionals in a decade.
Those figures are important because building control surveyors are being asked to prove themselves competent, no matter how long they have been in the profession and regardless of their track records.
It seems likely that many experienced surveyors will embrace early retirement or do something else rather than put themselves through the perceived ignominy of undergoing a BICoF evaluation.
“The closest thing they’ve done to an exam is their driving test. It’s like you’re asking them to run up Everest barefoot”
Mike Terry, Calderdale Council
If that sounds churlish, it shouldn’t. After all, building control is not a profession like accountancy, for instance. Generally speaking, older surveyors do not have a traditional academic background and probably haven’t sat a formal exam since leaving school.
Mike Terry, building control manager at Calderdale Council, says he has already seen people stepping down, especially those whose financial circumstances allow it.
“It’s happening,” he says. “Most of the old boys, and they generally are boys, have got to the point in life where they’re thinking ‘I don’t really fancy doing that’ or ‘Oh, that’s frightening’, because some of these guys have never really taken an exam.”
The point, Terry continues, is that many of these professionals started out in construction trades and then moved across to building control, either because they fancied a change or because it was less physically demanding.
“Traditionally, in the 70s and 80s, people would work in the trades and then a bricklayer or whatever migrated into public sector building control,” he explains.
“There was a whole tranche of people who had a craft or a skill, and then got fed up with doing it and they joined the local authority.
No doubt the pension was part of it but for those who were [working] outside it was also about [not] getting cold and rheumatic in the winter, and thinking they needed something more comfortable.
“The closest thing they’ve done to an exam is their driving test. I’m not belittling anyone here, but some of these people probably type with two fingers. With some, it’s like you’re asking them to run up Everest barefoot [to expect them to undergo BICoF evaluation].”
Speaking to CN before her letter to government and regulators was sent, Stimpson said: “Lots of people have left the profession because they’ve just not liked the idea of having to prove their competence.”
In her letter, she describes an “exodus from the profession of the vital expertise that we need in the coming months as part of the new regime”.
And, she says, the impact on the workloads of those remaining in the profession is serious, with “reports of individuals in crisis, suffering extreme stress, anxiety, and depression”.
While some in the industry may be reluctant to put themselves through the ignominy of proving they are fit to do a job that they have been performing for decades, this is not the only factor in the failure to get enough building-control professionals registered.
The amount of work involved in proving competence under the new regime should not be underestimated.
While the final assessment is made via a written assessment or interview, to get to this stage applicants must collate a portfolio of proof that they are competent to work at the level they are applying for.
“It can take months to put the portfolio together,” one source tells CN. “In many cases, it isn’t that they haven’t put the effort in – this isn’t just a form with a few lines.”
The pressures on this group – racing against time to register while coping with the departure of colleagues – is compounded by the severe consequences of missing the deadline.
“Legal advice is clear,” Stimpson’s letter says.
“Those who have not achieved registration by the legislative deadline are not able to meet the contractual obligations of their role, and as such could have their employment terminated by their employer – this is the same for both the public and private sector and yet another pressure added to already struggling surveyors.”
The toll also extends to those operating the independent certification schemes and is “reaching crisis point despite their best efforts, with stress, mental health and wellbeing severely impacted,” Stimpson says.
Stimpson’s proposed solution to the crisis is a managed postponement of the deadline, with an expectation that:
- All building-control inspectors are registered with the BSR / Welsh Government at Class 1 or above from 6 April 2024.
- All building-control inspectors are to abide by the BSR / Welsh Government codes of conduct from this date.
- All those on the register to be registered with an independent assessment scheme and actively working towards certification before the agreed deadline.
“LABC believes that by doing so, we will lose fewer surveyors to retirement or alternative employment, and stress, mental health and wellbeing of surveyors will be better managed, and construction, compliance and enforcement will not be impacted,” her letter says.
Recruitment drive
Thankfully, efforts are also underway to bring forward the next generation of building inspectors.
Last March, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced a £42m fund that is now being used to support the recruitment and training of building control and fire inspectors.
The fund includes a £16.5m grant to LABC over three years, as well as £26m to support fire and rescue services across England and the National Fire Chiefs Council.
“[LABC is] actively bringing in new recruits on behalf of local authorities,” says Stimpson.
“So by December 2023 there were 125 new building control surveyors that we’ve brought into the profession and they’re all employed directly by LABC.
We educate them but we’ve also seconded them to local authorities for their experiential learning. There are 79 authorities across England and Wales that by December had a trainee building control surveyor. We are growing our own.”
Stimpson says that LABC received sufficient funding to take on another 30 to 35 recruits in March 2024. “And then it would be very nice if the government was able to provide more funding,” she says.
“But what LABC has committed to do, although it is all obviously dependent on finance, is to bring in 12 new recruits every year. It’s not going to change the world, but 12 is better than none.”
Not all building control surveyors operate in the public sector.
Since 1984, the private sector has also supplied professional surveyors, although this has proved controversial.
In 2022, for instance, University of Edinburgh professor of fire and structures Luke Bisby produced a report arguing that for over three decades, “the independence and rigour of building control activities was continuously eroded due to changes resulting from the introduction of privatised building control via approved inspectors”.
Although worries about a shortage of qualified inspectors are still very real, the hope is that a fully regulated profession should improve the situation, meaning that contractors can draw on both public and private sector professionals with confidence.
Despite the current crisis, Stimpson believes all will be well in the end. “I think we’re getting there, albeit really, really slowly,” she tells CN.
“It’s been quite a culture shock for building control and while the profession has known that this has been coming for quite some time, we didn’t really have a great deal of clarity on the implementation until mid-summer [last year].”
“And I’m not saying that nobody else is going to leave, but LABC is very, very focused at the moment on doing what we possibly can to support people through this really quite difficult time.”
