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Is cultural safety the missing ingredient in building safety? Meet the CIOB Paul Dockerill Award 2025
Nicky Roger Associate editor
Kabbe Njie the recipient of the Paul Dockerill Award. Image: CIOB
A toolkit designed to help deliver safety behaviour has won its creator a prestigious CIOB Award.
Kabbe Njie has been awarded The Paul Dockerill Award, recognising his groundbreaking work on cultural safety in the built environment.
Njie, from London, who works as a principal fire and building safety engineer at Kier Group, has dedicated his career to protecting life, restoring trust and strengthening the systems that shape homes and communities.
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In the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, Njie was determined to make culture part of the safety system and designed BSM2 ( Building Safety Management and Method) a framework that helps organisations transform values into structure and safety into behaviour.
He has since developed a Resident Culture Code Toolkit, co-designed with residents, building safety managers, housing officers and fire professionals. It will provide visuals, checklists, reflective questions and a simple model to help residents and safety leaders speak the same language about safety.
Njie said: “Growing up in East and North London, I saw first-hand how vulnerabilities increase fire risk and have sadly felt the impact personally, having lost a cousin to fire.
“Cultural safety is about reforming how we think and act, not just what rules we follow. Grenfell showed that without openness, trust and accountability, even technically compliant systems can fail.
“As residents often tell me, they want to feel listened to as much as protected. The lesson is clear: without psychological safety and curiosity, compliance will always fall short.”
The 53-year-old entered his project to the CIOB’s The Paul Dockerill Award, a £10,000 fund to honour the legacy of a built environment sector visionary. Dockerill had an immense passion for building safety, skills development and improving fire safety in the UK up until his death in November 2022.
Speaking about his award, Njie said he is “deeply honoured and humbled”.
“This award is not just about me,” he added. “It reflects the collective effort to build safer, more trusted homes and communities. It is also about strengthening capacity and capability across our interdependent disciplines and building the depth and breadth of competence needed at every level.
“I created 𝗕𝗦𝗠𝟮 (𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱) and the 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗸𝗶𝘁 to help bridge the gap between compliance on paper and safety in reality. Cultural safety is about openness, accountability and creating environments where people can speak up without fear, and where professional curiosity is encouraged to challenge assumptions.
Paul Dockerill. Image: CIOB
“I am grateful to the CIOB for this recognition, to my mentors in the Fire and Rescue Service who shaped my early career, to my colleagues at Kier Design who provide the platform for growth and positive influence, and to my family who keep me grounded and motivated every day.”
Njie plans to invest the £10,000 award fund into pilots, mentoring, CPD and further research. “It will help to build competence and trust across our sectors, and I hope to extend its reach internationally in time. Above all, I hope Paul himself would feel proud that his legacy continues to inspire purposeful change,” said Njie.
“This award represents a small but meaningful contribution I hope to the wider reform effort. It is dedicated to all those affected by fire – the victims, their families, the bereaved, the survivors and the first responders whose courage continues to guide us. It is also a reminder of the weight of responsibility and duty that comes with our professions. We serve the public interest first, and the ultimate test is whether our decisions stand up to that standard over time.”
Njie has also used the win to offer an open invitation to the industry.
“Let’s continue to engage, collaborate and listen. Let’s continue to do the right thing, keep people safe, and embed continuous improvement with respect at every level,” he said. “Most of all, let’s put people first and work to inspire future generations to see building safety management and fire engineering as noble duties, not just technical tasks. Cultural safety is not one person’s work, it is all of ours.”
Njie is the second recipient of The Paul Dockerill Award, after Dr Scott McGibbon was awarded up to £10,000 in 2024 for his project to advance awareness about the dangers of silica dust.
