Future of construction News

The CIOB Policy Team Newsletter - February 2022

Last updated: 2nd June 2023

February with the CIOB Policy team

Good afternoon,

Welcome to February’s edition of CIOB’s policy team newsletter.

This edition includes an overview of the priorities of CIOB’s new External Affairs Advisory Board, details on the recently released Levelling Up White Paper, a breakdown of the next stage of the Building Safety Fund, an overview of activity in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as a look ahead to the May 2022 elections.

We would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch at [email protected]

 

One thing you need to do...Learn more about the aims of our External Affairs Advisory Board

Following a review of CIOB governance, we have formed the External Affairs Advisory Board (EAAB) to provide strategic direction to the Institute on policy and public affairs issues. Ian Brant FCIOB, Director at Brant Construction Quantum Experts, chairs the Board and has brought together a range of experts from the industry to shape CIOB’s external affairs output.

The Board have identified five priority areas to focus on:

  • Sustainability
  • Quality
  • Innovation
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • Safety

To help shape CIOB’s responses on the major issues affecting the built environment, we would love to hear from you on any positive work and/or challenges that you are encountering on the above areas. Any views can be used to help build our evidence base for our work with Government and potentially shape future campaigns and research.  

For further information, please contact: [email protected]

 

Levelling Up White Paper

On 2 February, the Government released their much-anticipated levelling up white paper which outlined their plans on decentralising policy decisions and minimising disparities across housing, education and living standards.

For many people reading the document, it felt empty with many of the strategies seen as “business as usual” that the Government should already be working on and that the money being used for levelling up the UK will barely scratch the surface. We provided our thoughts which you can read in further detail here.

To summarise, CIOB are supportive of the levelling up agenda and the twelve missions published in the white paper, we can see that there are opportunities to be had here from a construction industry perspective. The majority of the missions requires the input of the construction industry through improvement of infrastructure, town centres, schools and housing. However, funding for this activity must be delivered to all regions in a streamlined and coherent manner that enables a long-term pipeline of activity that encourages new and sustainable skills to the industry while improving the local economy.

Read the full response here.

 

Building Safety Bill Proposed Amendments

The industry waited with bated breath in February as the Government announced proposed amendments to the much talked about Building Safety Bill. The Bill as it stands is progressing through the House of Lords having concluded its committee stage scrutiny in late February.

The proposed amendments included:

  • Extending the scope of the Bill to include reference to all buildings over 11 metres or taller than five storeys.
  • Allocating powers to the Secretary of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Committees to prohibit prescribed persons from carrying out development work. Any companies that do not agree to remediate their buildings will not be allowed membership to the new Building Industry Scheme and will therefore not be able to obtain planning permission or building control permissio
  • Establishing new legal powers to trace assets of liquidated companies for any necessary building safety funds.
  • Protecting leaseholders living in any building that is more than 11 metres tall from the costs of cladding remediation through legal frameworks.
  • Further protecting leaseholders by introducing a clause that ensures that no-one living in a building more than 11 metres tall will have to pay more that £15,000 to remediate non-cladding defects.

CIOB is keen to see a confirmation that leaseholders are being protected from the costs of cladding remediation works as part of the Building Safety Bill, however, the proposed Government amendments may cause some unintended issues for the industry that require further investigation by MPs and Peers.

CIOB is currently scrutinising the amendments in full as well as the proceedings of the House of Lords Building Safety Bill Committee on Monday 21 February, Thursday 24 February, Monday 28 February and Wednesday 2 March. If you would like to keep up to date with the progress of the Bill you can do through our Building Safety Newsletter which you can sign-up for here.

 

Building Safety Fund

In late January, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) released guidance for leaseholders and residents as part of the Building Safety Fund.

The guidance relates to access to a tracking system that has been launched to further hold building owners accountable for remediation works that need to be carried out on buildings over 17 metres.

This online tracker provides residents and leaseholders who are not responsible for funding the remediation of non-ACM cladding systems with a unique code to track the progress of any application relating to their building that has been lodged under the Building Safety Fund.

This move to ensure that residents and leaseholders are able to access up-to-date information about the status of their building’s application will allow for further accountability to be exercised on those responsible for historic failings of the built environment.

It is expected that the Government will review the progress of the tracking system later this year to understand its success.

You can learn more about the Building Safety Fund here.

 

Regional Overview - Republic of Ireland

  • The Regulation of Providers of Building Works Bill 2022

The Regulation of Providers of Building Works Bill 2022 is currently before Dáil Éireann (Irish Government). The Bill provides for the establishment of a register to be known as ‘the Construction Industry Register Ireland’. Once enacted, the statutory register is expected to help develop and promote a culture of competence, good practice and compliance with building regulations.

Registration will be mandatory, and the requirement to register will apply to builders of both residential and non-residential buildings that are subject to the Building Regulations. Employees of such building firms will not be required to apply but sole traders will. Eligibility for registration can be achieved through qualifications, experience, or a combination of both. The criteria required for registration will be set out in regulations, and a builder will only be permitted to carry out building works for which they are registered.

Quality is critical. It is about the greater public good we expect from our buildings to promote human health, safety and wellbeing as well as addressing today’s many social, cultural, environmental and economic concerns. We therefore welcome the Bill, which will provide quality assurance to the consumer.

Given that that there are over 3,000 CIOB members in Ireland, including micro, SME and large enterprises, and that CIOB is named in the Building Control Act 2007 wherein members of the CIOB recognised as competent and registered professionals who can inspect and certify works or a building for compliance with the requirements of the Building Regulations. With this in mind, CIOB is well positioned to provide the calibre of builder to meet the standards of the Register. We are intending to engage with Minister Darragh O’Brien in the coming months to ensure a smooth transition to the new culture of quality that the Bill will instill.

 

Regional Overview - Northern Ireland

  • CIOB partners with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI)

CIOB Northern Ireland is working with Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) to make the case for Equality Diversity and Inclusion in Northern Ireland’s construction sector, with a particular focus on disseminating CIOB’s recently published special report and charter for Diversity and Inclusion in Construction. A joint event in the autumn is currently in the planning stages, and we will update as this project progresses.

Changes to public procurement to bolster local supply chains, protect human rights and reward social value. A series of new Procurement Policy Notes have been approved by the Northern Ireland Executive with a view to reforming public procurement procedures. Under the changes, Departments must map supply chains for their critical supplies' contracts with a renewed focus on local manufacturing; incorporate human rights considerations into procurement processes; and consider social value in their award criteria for contracts.

The purpose of the Supply Chain Resilience Procurement Policy Note is to ensure public procurement expenditure contributes to the economic, environmental, and social outcomes through better management of supply chains.

The Procuring Social Value Procurement Policy Note mandates that from 1 June 2022 tenders must include a minimum of 10 per cent of the total award criteria to social value. The policy provides a framework of indicators which Departments can draw on, as is relevant to the contract at hand. These indicators are linked to the Programme for Government outcomes.

Read more about our work on procurement, human rights, and the Northern Ireland programme for Government below.

 

CIOB and Hong Kong Alliance of Built Asset & Environment Information MOU

The Hong Kong Hub of CIOB has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hong Kong Alliance of Built Asset & Environment Information Management Associations.

The Alliance is the Hong Kong Chapter of buildingSMART International, the global authority for a set of standards known as the Industry Foundation Class (IFC) which deal with process, data, terms and change management for the specification, management and effective use of assets in the built asset industry.

 

Coming Up in March

As winter turns to spring CIOB looks ahead to see what is on the Parliamentary agenda for March 2022. Unlike previous months where we have seen a focus on a singular issue such as levelling up or building safety, March sees the political agenda cross through all aspects of the built environment.

Throughout March, Government will be continuing to make progress on the Building Safety Bill as the House of Lords Building Safety Bill Committee will finish their meetings to interrogate the Bill in detail on 2 March. We will continue to cover the results of these meetings through our dedicated Building Safety Newsletter which you can sign up to here.

In other building safety news Daisy Cooper MP (Lib Dem) will be bringing forward two Private Members Bills in March, the first covering Fire and Building Safety and the second covering Fire Safety Remediation Charges including recovery and enforcement. Both Private Members Bills will be going through their second reading in the House of Commons although it is unlikely that the Government will not object to a Bill on building safety being progressed through Parliament by a Liberal Democrat member.

On net zero and the need for the UK to meet its legally binding carbon neutrality targets, there will be several activities throughout March that will focus on the need to decarbonise the built environment. These include various Private Members Bills on decarbonisation and minimum energy performance of buildings. Alongside this Baroness Hayman GBE (crossbench) will be tabling a question in the House of Lords on the need to develop a series of national green skills strategies in order for future building, construction and development practices to be truly sustainable. 

In other matters the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill will be progressing to its second reading in the House of Lords, whilst the Built Environment Select Committee will be hearing from expert witnesses its review of public transport infrastructure.

 

If you made it this far....A look ahead to May 2022

Although it feels like we are still early into 2022, it is worth looking ahead to understand what elections are coming up this year in the UK and devolved administrations.

In the UK there will be local elections held on 5 May for all London borough councils, all local authorities in Wales and Scotland as well as for those local authorities across England that elect in thirds. These elections in England, Scotland and Wales will coincide with the election of ninety members to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

CIOB’s policy and public affairs team will be providing coverage of the elections as well as more in-depth pieces analysing what the results could mean for you.

 

Staying in Contact

Thank you for reading this month’s update from the CIOB policy team. We will be back in your inbox next month with more information about what the team is up to, what is going on in Parliament and built environment news to look out for.

All the best,

The CIOB policy team

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