Building Safety

Building Safety Focus Group

Our mission is to share knowledge and foster collaborative working to add value to the construction process and to our buildings and infrastructure through improved Quality and Compliance.
About the group

This Focus Group was assembled in early 2020 to help drive Quality improvements across the Region.

Projects have to be competitively priced and built within an agreed timescale. However, as we can see from recent disasters in the construction industry, it is vitally important not to lose sight of the quality and compliance standards that are specified for the project.

The best way for me to explain the importance of this Group is to quote from Steve Green, Chair of the Quality Focus Group in CE Midlands:

“Over the past few years the national issues around the Edinburgh Schools Enquiry, unacceptable defects on new build homes and the Grenfell Tower tragedy, have all brought the issue of Construction Quality into the public spotlight. At the same time the industry is seeing a significant growth in the adoption of offsite manufacturing and the digitalisation of the construction process generally.”

Our outputs will be to develop a process to capture and implement lessons from the past and to harness new technologies to help drive Quality and Compliance.

Meet the Chair, Liz Bennett

BSc PGCE CEng FICE CMIOSH FRSA of Safety in Design Ltd [SID]

Liz is passionate about empowering others by simplifying the complex and signposting to answers that will help practical delivery of effective health and safety.

In her professional career Liz is most proud of the following:

Being the first Group Safety Manager for Atkins through rapid expansion and flotation where she developed safety management systems and training across the businesses and supported acquisition due diligence and project delivery across the Group;

Leading on the establishment, with AA, RAC, the Police and the then Highways Agency, of survivegroup.co.uk which achieved a change in public behaviour on the fast road network within three years of initiation, making these roads safer and helping to reduce congestion;

Establishing with senior colleagues from industry safetyindesign.org.uk and taking responsibility for maintenance of the free Design Guides, produced by industry leaders from an HSE led initiative to help small design practices;

Being Interim Head of Health and safety for LOCOG, London 2012 organising committee to facilitate building the necessary capability across the Games and Paralympic Games and devising means of training a highly diverse community of staff and volunteers from nations across the globe. Working with Regulators and delivery teams to enable and empower a successful series of high-profile events and associated transport solutions across the country;

Leading the Design for Health Task Group. A current pan industry group working on effective interventions by clients and designers to improve health outcomes for all affected by construction work for the lifetime of any asset;

Development and delivery of a range of training courses in the UK and overseas on CDM 2015 for IStructE, ICE, APS, Synergie Training and for Safety in Design;

Conducting or supporting various pieces of research for HSE, EPSRC, B&CE Trust.

Enlightened Client’s Journey to Project Quality and Compliance
The best construction projects have been designed, constructed and maintained successfully to the delight of the client and all those involved in it. The client is fundamental to this success as they set the culture and behaviour at the outset and during the project’s life.

 

About this guide

The Enlightened Client’s Journey to Project Quality and Compliance, initiated by a sub-group of the CESW Quality and Compliance Focus Group (now Building Safety Group) aims to capture what those enlightened clients do to achieve an exemplary standard of quality and compliance.

We aim to grow this guide online organically, so new content contributions and suggestions for best practice, case studies etc are encouraged and welcomed. Please email us with your thoughts.

Contents

The bank of blue buttons on the right of each page (or at the bottom of smart devices) are links to each page section. The page links below will also appear at the top of every page to ease navigation between pages.

Guide home page (this page)
Introduction

Guide overview and key terms
Enlightened client questionnaire
What are the six Ps?
How we built the six Ps
Knowledge hub
Minor works clients

External resources
Acknowledgements and endorsements

Richard Kochanski
Chair, CESW Building Safety Group
1 August, 2022

Useful links
Subscribe to HSE’s BSR eBulletin

CLICK HERE if you would like to Subscribe to HSE’s BSR eBulletin to get the latest news and alerts on future building safety regulations.

Building Safety Act information centre

CLICK HERE for the RICS Building Safety Act information centre which provides links to helpful documents and the answers to frequently asked questions.LABC Building Safety Act resource page

LABC Building Safety Act resource page

CLICK HERE for the Local Authority Building Control page to read about the Act and to access a host of links to building safety pages and documents.

Building Safety Group events

There are no upcoming events at this time.

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