The Industry Competence Steering Group has been restructured to become a formal working group of the Industry Competence Committee under the Building Safety Regulator.
The Construction Leadership Council established the ICSG in response to the Hackitt Review to promote culture change and competence in the built environment.
The ICC is a statutory committee of the Building Safety Regulator that monitors industry competence and sets expectations of “what good looks like”.
ICSG co-chair and digital policy manager of the Construction Products Association, Hanna Clarke, said the group’s new structure aims to provide “clear messages and guidance for the industry and the public about competence”.
She added: “The new relationship between the ICC and the ICSG is key to transforming the competence of the industry. ICC aims to set expectations for the industry and challenge it. The ICSG is where industry can collaborate to meet those challenges. The ICSG also provides the ICC with a clear picture of what industry is doing, feeds back on what challenges industry is facing, and which levers can be pulled to improve competence."
End-to-end coverage
The new structure includes sector-led groups, key topic groups, and working groups. These currently bring together contributions from more than 60 professional and trade bodies and 1,500 individuals in the built environment, with membership of the sector-led groups still growing.
ICSG said these groups will produce competence frameworks in accordance with the BS 8670 series, the standard for building safety competence criteria.
They will also create guidance and implementation programmes to enable culture change about competence across the built environment. The groups will also provide forums for industry feedback relating to the understanding of legislation and barriers to its implementation.
ICSG co-chair Gill Hancock said: “The ICSG has end-to-end coverage, from construction products to demolition and disposal, including in occupation. By collaborating with both industry and the Building Safety Regulator we believe we can enable real culture change, in relation to competence, across the built environment.”
Further information about the competence frameworks is expected in spring 2025.
