34
INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER: REVISITING FIRE SAFETY & PROJECT ACCOUNTABILITY
Comparison of YoY Potential to Improve the Safety Regime g Excellent g Very Good g Good g Acceptable g Poor
The majority of our respondents were unsure as to whether the Building Safety Act had the credentials to fix most of the issues which were currently preventing a robust safety regime in the construction industry. The total who said they were unsure was 60%, while only 16% believed the Act plus its new project procurement framework and accountability provisions was fit to provide that robustness as it currently stands. And a greater number (24%) were convinced that it was not, a worrying statistic for the Government to take on board.
This was a fairly drastic increase in the naysayers as to the Act’s ability to solve the problems in the safety of designs since 2022, with the numbers saying that it would shrink by two thirds from 36% to 16%. This is concerning, given that it represents views now the Act’s ramifications have begun to be fully realised. In both surveys we asked how respondents rated the individual changes in the Building Safety Act in their potential for improving the safety regime. And, in a similar way to the general question around whether the legislation would be able to fix the problems, as the realities of it working in practice had become clearer two years down the line, so the views on the likelihood of some aspects to improve safety had become less optimistic. Somewhat surprisingly, there was doubt cast upon the rigour which the new project procurement ‘gateways’ for clients’ design teams would be likely to bring. Those saying there was ‘good’ potential for this outcome dropped by 11% and there were no picks of ‘excellent’ potential (compared with a more optimistic 4% in 2022). The potential of the Building Safety Regulator to bring the national scrutiny of design was not endorsed, with half as many people picking it in 2024 as having an ‘excellent’ chance. ‘Mandating good communication across all stakeholders,’ necessary in order to ensure a smooth Golden Thread data sharing if nothing else, also saw mixed responses. And lastly, the crucial area of increasing credibility of materials testing, saw a drop from the 2022 figure of 22% believing that credibility would be improved had dropped by 8% to 14%.
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
There were better figures for the likelihood of the Act bringing greater accountability (‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ potential up 14%), and for the potential ‘protection of original design intent via the Golden Thread’ and its in-built transparency and hoped-for protection of specifications saw a hike in support of 6%.
Comparing views on architects’ roles Given this wide ranging set of new responsibilities inherent to the Principal Designer role, we repeated the question we asked our survey cohort in 2022 on Principal Designer take-up, in order to see if there was a greater chance of architects being likely to grasp the opportunity and take the role in projects. Most respondents believed this was unlikely, given the wide range of risks and resources that would be required, as well as the possible risks to PI insurance which have been mooted. With the Building Safety Act’s ramifications in practice having become clearer since its initial implementation in 2022, a similar proportion (67%) said they believed architects would not be keen to take up the Principal Designer role.
One of the key issues around risk and responsibility is the legal liabilities (and insurance ramifications) of taking on a wider range of safety-critical aspects of a building as an architect, working as Principal Designer. We asked what respondents’ primary concerns were regarding legal liability in higher risk projects. The verbatim comments we received were understandable, such as concerns that “the commensurate compensation will not be granted to architects as duty holders by either clients or PII providers.” According to another respondent, “The Government is removing responsibility of the approved inspector/local authority to assess and confirm that a design is compliant to the current regulations,” which creates a further gap in responsibility, presumably leaving the Principal Designer with more risk and responsibility, leading to concerns around potential negligence legal action.
And put simply, the overriding challenge in such projects is ADF NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
