The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has launched the second in its planned series of practical guides to help the building services industry demonstrate its technical competence and ability to comply with increasingly stringent building safety legislation and standards.
These free to download ‘toolkits’ provide practical support to individuals and organisations so they can better understand, evidence, and apply the principles of Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours (SKEB) in practice.
The construction industry’s collective competence failure was identified as a critical contributor to the Grenfell Tower fire and national skills frameworks are now being developed in response to a key recommendation of the Hackitt Review which followed the disaster.
However, BESA’s Demonstrating SKEB guides are being developed to provide immediate support to firms and engineers whose clients need to see evidence of competence and compliance with the Building Safety Act and existing industry standards.
The first free guide was produced for installers of industrial and commercial ductwork, and the second one is designed for the industrial and commercial ventilation hygiene sector. It provides a template of ‘what good looks like’ both on an individual and organisational level and offers practical steps towards developing and proving competence. It also explains how to turn experience and knowledge into useful evidence to help secure work.
Frameworks
The content of the toolkit also aligns with the ongoing work of the Engineering and Building Services Skills Authority and Sector Group 10 (ventilation hygiene) of the Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) who are developing the broader national competence frameworks.
The other guides in the series will also align with the ICSG’s work for every building engineering sector and are an important part of the sector-wide collaboration necessary to ensure better standards of competence and compliance across the industry, according to BESA.
The ventilation hygiene guide was also developed in partnership with fellow trade body ADCAS and business consultancy Milford & Marah. It provides specific guidance for industrial and commercial air and grease hygiene operatives and technicians.
As well as the specific requirements of cleaning industrial and commercial ventilation systems, including in critical healthcare environments, the guide outlines particular safety considerations for higher risk buildings (HRBs) under the Building Safety Act.
Although there is currently no agreed industry-wide process for reviewing and validating evidence, the SKEB guide gives ventilation hygiene professionals a series of valuable guidelines including the importance of good record keeping, third-party validation of work, and regular reviews to ensure compliance with latest best practice.
It also explains the role of training, qualifications, on-site records, and behavioural indicators in building up a body of evidence. It also explains the role of supervision under the Building Regulations and includes practical organisational processes for managing competence.
"The guides in this series are all designed to help individuals and companies simplify the process of measuring and assessing competence in a practical and easy to understand way,” said BESA’s director of specialist knowledge Rachel Davidson.
“They form the first step towards creating a much-needed competence and compliance culture and are designed to support the more in-depth work being carried out by the ICSG to produce a national competence framework for the whole industry.”
Jon Vanstone, chair of the Industry Competence Committee which advises the Building Safety Regulator, also welcomed the SKEB Guides.
"These toolkits are a clear and practical example of what good looks like when sector-led initiatives meet the ambitions of national policy,” he said. “This work provides an essential foundation for ensuring individual competence can be properly demonstrated and supported — both now and in the future.”
This latest BESA toolkit takes ventilation hygiene operatives through the main areas where they will be expected to provide evidence of compliance. It includes examples of the qualifications and assessments needed to be deemed competent for the different tasks involved in ventilation hygiene work, relevant experience, and how to gather and present evidence of positive and professional behaviour.
“There is still a lot of work to be done to help our industry develop a true competence and compliance culture,” added Davidson. “However, these ‘starter guides’ provide an important first step.”
The Ventilation Hygiene SKEB toolkit can be downloaded free of charge here.
www.theBESA.com