Demonstrating Competence Under the New Building Safety Regime

Build UK has issued a reminder that under the Building Safety Act, anyone appointing an individual or organisation to undertake design and construction work has a duty to ensure that they are competent. For individuals this means having the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours, whilst organisations must demonstrate organisational capability.

For organisations, the Common Assessment Standard is an established third-party certification scheme, recognised by Government in PPN 03/24 and supported by the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), which requires the appropriate management policies, procedures and systems to be in place. The latest version of the Common Assessment Standard, which will be launched at the end of this quarter, includes a new Building Safety section, meaning Build UK members can demonstrate compliance with their dutyholder responsibilities by ensuring that those in their supply chain are certified to the Common Assessment Standard by one of the Recognised Assessment Bodies.

For individuals, cards carrying the CSCS logo provide evidence of their qualifications and training for the job that they do on site, as part of determining competence. Working Group 2, supported by the CLC, is continuing the drive to set out the competence framework (or path to competence) for each specialist installer occupation. It is intended that those elements which can be assessed will be reflected on the relevant CSCS card and that continued development to maintain the required level of competence will also be included once this work has been completed.