The Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) has announced its new structure, its new relationship with the Industry Competence Committee under the Building Safety Regulator, and the new direction of travel.
Hanna Clarke, CPA Digital and Policy Manager, says: “The Industry Competence Steering Group is co-chaired by myself, alongside Association for Project Management’s Head of Technical Content, Gill Hancock.
“In her report, Dame Judith Hackitt challenged the industry to stop working in siloes. This new structure of the Industry Competence Steering Group is all built to support that, with a more holistic overview of all the different disciplines throughout industry, its new governance and reporting. It aims to increase coordination, communication, and collaboration across the built environment industry. Additionally, the ICSG are now a formal working group of the Industry Competence Committee, which means that the regulator and industry can really work to support each other in reaching the culture change that is needed.
“Competence has always been a high priority for the Construction Products Association and its members. The CPA has been engaged in the work of the ICSG’s predecessor, the Competence Steering Group (CSG) from its inception, leading work on competence with construction products, sitting on the BSI committee CPB/1 Competence in the Built Environment, and supporting the Code for Construction Product Information that has clear requirements about demonstration of training in its clauses.
“The advantages are clear for manufacturers to support work on competence and contribute and collaborate across the industry in improving culture. Manufacturers are the leading expertise on construction products, and this understanding needs to spread across every part of the supply chain. Competence also creates a level playing field amongst manufacturers, can allow us to communicate more effectively and can stop manufacturers accidentally taking on liability where they should not be. It will have a significant impact on building safety, but also improvement against other performance outcomes such as net-zero targets. Most crucially, it will lead us to be more efficient, more effective, and more trusted by the public, Government and insurers.
“The backdrop of this work is the Building Safety Act, of which the competence requirements only directly impact manufacturers if they contribute to the designing or constructing of buildings. What competence requirements look like for those involved in the manufacture, testing or supply of construction products is not yet forthcoming, as the industry still awaits the publish of secondary legislation.
“Although we are awaiting new legislation for construction products, the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) has taken a keen interest in all the work we are doing on competence. It is a safe prediction to say that whether implicit or explicit within the new regulations, the OPSS will be demanding that competence is demonstrated to be able to participate in the market.
“I am now also co-chairing one of its Sector Led Groups: SLG 5 – Construction Product Manufacturing, alongside Douglas Masterson (Technical Manager, Guild of Architectural Ironmongers).
“Sector Led Group 5 – Construction Product Manufacturing will be building upon the work carried out by the previous group from the CSG: Working Group 12 – Construction product competence which developed and published a white paper proposing a standards to join up all of the built environment industry with a single view of how to be competent with construction products. This work formed a backbone for the upcoming BS 8670-2 –Competence frameworks for the built environment– Part 2: Core criteria for construction product competence – Code of practice. CPA is leading on the development of this standard which aims to be out for public consultation early 2025.”
Douglas Masterson, Technical Manager, Guild of Architectural Ironmongers, says: “We are happy to continue the work of Working Group 12. We know that there is a huge amount of work already been done by those in the sector, and we recognise that there is a still a long way to go. Sector Led Group 5 – Construction Product Manufacturing will be introducing a new programme so we can work through creating competence frameworks for manufacturers in a coordinated and realistic approach, and we need manufacturers to get ready to contribute to the consensus.”
Hanna Clarke continues: “SLG 5 – Construction Product Manufacturing – along with all the other sector led groups in the ICSG – will be aligning their competence frameworks with the BS 8670 part 1 and 2. These standards aim to bring consistency as to what all competence frameworks are aiming for.
“The aim for SLG 5 will be to join up their approaches with all the other groups under the Industry Competence Steering Group, particularly with that of SLG 4 – Construction Product Testing, Assessment and Certification, SLG 6 – Construction Product Merchants and Distribution, SLG 3 – Consultant Designers and SLG 10 – Installation and Maintenance. It also will input into the key topic groups, contributing to a joined-up approach on how the built environment considers designing and specifying, sales and estimating and quality assurance.”
Find out more about the ICSG: https://www.constructionleadershipcouncil.co.uk/workstream/people-and-skills/competence/
