2022 PREVIEW | NET ZERO A safe new year In her Independent review of Building Regulations and fire safety, Dame Judith Hackitt identified four major areas that she believes contributed to the Grenfell Tower disaster: ignorance, indifference, lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities, and inadequate regulatory oversight and enforcement. In response to the report, the government introduced the Fire Safety Act in April 2021 and the Building Safety Bill, which is expected to receive Royal Assent in mid-2022. Among the requirements of the Fire Safety Act, owners and managers of multi-occupied residential buildings have to examine external walls and doors as part of a fire risk assessments. The Building Safety Bill is more relevant for engineers. It requires owners of high-rise residential buildings to manage the safety risk and ensure that those planning, designing, constructing and maintaining a building take responsibility for fire safety. The bill also establishes the role of building safety regulator (BSR), which will operate within the Health and Safety Executive and oversee design, and construction of all buildings, and also occupation of for high-risk buildings. Importantly for engineering professionals, the BSR will set new competence requirements for work on all buildings, which engineers will have to be aware of in 2022. New competence regulations The Draft Building (Appointment of Persons, Industry Competence and Dutyholders) Regulations, contained in the bill, require everyone working on buildings, and employers, to assess competence and demonstrate it to clients and regulators. There are three dutyholder roles principal designer, principal contractor, and building safety manager. Clients have statutory responsibilities under the dutyholder regs for the appointment of all the designers, contractors including the principals. The dutyholders will need to work together to plan, manage and monitor the design and building work, and have systems in place to ensure they comply with relevant building regulations. These new roles mean responsibility is being placed on clients and designers and contractors, said Hywel Davies at CIBSEs online Build2Perform conference. Its for clients to take all reasonable steps to satisfy themselves about the competence of those they propose to appoint, he added. There will also be a duty on designers and contractors to be satisfied they are accepting an appointment that they are competent to undertake, with penalties for those who take on work they are not competent to do. This is a significant shift of responsibility, and its very much falling to industry and clients, said Davies. The bill also states that occupied higher-risk buildings must have at least one clearly identifiable accountable person, known as the principal accountable person. They will be responsible for appointing a building safety manager, who will coordinate the management and oversight of building safety risks. To support the bill, the Competency Steering Group (CSG) was formed to work with the what is now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and industry to define competency standards. The government is working with the CSG to develop a Engineers wanting to work on high-rise buildings will have to change their CPD competency framework and specification for building safety managers, which it plans to publish in 2022 as part of a suite of competency standards. Dame Judith made it clear that the industry needed to change, and that our standards of compliance had fallen and we needed to address those, said George Adams, chair of Working Group 1 Engineers (one of 12 sections of the CSG). The groups core activity was to examine competency in the industry and how it could be improved. As part of this, it looked at Annex 1G UK-SPEC, which focuses on how competency is measured for professional engineers working on any building. In its report, the group proposed the need for a lead engineer, who would support the principal designer, principal contractor and building safety manager. A dutyholder can also be a lead engineer. An additional compliance requirement will be necessary for professional engineers who want to practise in the area of higher-risk buildings. CIBSE is working with the Engineering Council to enhance the current UK-SPEC for contextualised registration, says Vince Arnold, CIBSE board member and trustee: CIBSE members are involved in writing the enhanced competence requirements for building services, fire and structural [including faade] within working groups. If you become a contextualised registered engineer, you will face revalidation, expected to be every five years, by interview or submission of portfolio that gives evidence of your skills, knowledge, behaviours and experience in the field of higher-risk buildings. Working Group 1 will now develop an initial training workshop for end users on how they can roll out their own methodology of safety case process and report, says Adams, who adds that it is important for members to plan their CPD for 2022. If you want to practise within the world of higher-risk buildings, your CPD will have to change to support the requirements, to show you are up to speed with safety in that area of our industry. CJ References: CIBSE guides are at www.cibse.org/Knowledge/Guides. Covid-19 guidance is free to non-Members 1 The Future Buildings Standard, accessed Dec 21 bit.ly/CJJan22Pre1 2 Building Safety Bill, accessed Dec 21, bit.ly/CJJan22Pre2 3 CIBSE Knowledge and Research Priorities bit.ly/CJJan22Pre3 4 Conservation of fuel and power: Approved Document, Dec 21 L bit.ly/CJJan22Pre4 5 Design for Performance initiative, Better Building Partnership. bit.ly/CJJan22Pre5 6 LETI net zero carbon definitions, bit.ly/CJJan22PRE6 7 Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide, LETI, bit.ly/CJJan22Pre7 20 January 2022 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Jan 22 pp18-20 2022 preview.indd 20 23/12/2021 15:44