MPs are set to explore how systemic and cultural changes recommended as part of the Hackitt Review can be applied to the the construction industry as a whole.
The exercise comes as part of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s decision to follow up its work on the recent independent review of Building regulations and fire safety by holding further evidence sessions.
The sessions will examine the immediate changes needed to improve the safety of high-rise residential tower blocks, as well as some of the longer-term implications for the construction industry as a whole.
The Committee will call representatives including figures from the construction industry and fire safety experts, as well as the government, before Parliament breaks up for the summer recess.
It said it wanted to explore immediate, specific changes to regulations needed to make tower blocks safe, as well as how the longer-term systemic and cultural changes the Hackitt Review proposes can be implemented and how they apply to the construction industry more widely.
Clive Betts, chair of the Committee, said: "While we agree with the Review that there needs to be a shift in culture in the building industry, it is vital that the Government moves quickly to implement immediate changes to improve the safety of tower blocks.
"We want to find out what needs to be done now, such as the banning of combustible cladding, as well as ways of changing the long-term approach of the industry.
"By taking evidence before the summer we hope the government will consider our findings as part of the commitments made by the secretary of state last week to consult on banning cladding and the implementation of wider reform of the regulatory system."
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Make people, named individuals, responsible for aspects of construction safety would be a start, and focus minds.
Given the bullying culture of construction, it possibly wouldn’t work though, even then.
is CDM regs not about making individual named, perhaps CDM could go further into the full life cycle of a build with the Principle continuing there roll after completion
The MPs should start with design competencies and ask why there is no validation of them when life safety issues such as active and passive fire resistance performance of buildings are central to building design and specification. Have architects abandoned this competency along with their role as designers and coordinators of final responsibility?
It is instructive that RIBA President Ben Derbyshire is complaining of low fees being an indicator of the low strategic importance of architecture as a profession. Buildings that burn down and kill people because there may have been insufficient competence within the teams that design and specify buildings, could be part of the reason?
Within the CDM projects the Regulations state that the client or clients representative is fully responsible. Project managers or what ever they are called now have the responsibility of making sure clients are fully aware of their role. How often are the regulations adhered? It should all be in the paper work.