The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has launched a wide-reaching consultation to establish a framework for defining a route to professional competence in ventilation hygiene.
The consultation, which closes on November 16, will form an integral part of a wider built environment exercise to drive up competence standards and embed best practice in line with safety concerns raised by the Grenfell Tower disaster inquiry.
The catastrophic fire led to a comprehensive review of the building regulations and the implementation of the Building Safety Act leading to a renewed focus on how individuals can demonstrate their skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours (SKEB) and companies their organisational capability, in the face of increasing legal and insurance scrutiny.
BESA is working with the Industry Competence Steering Group, which has been tasked by the Building Safety Regulator with helping employers in every built environment specialism define and demonstrate competence.
Ventilation hygiene is one of these key specialisms and the Ventilation Hygiene Competence Group (VHCG) was created to lead the development and implementation of competence frameworks for hygiene standards in both air and grease extract systems. The group comprised employers who spent more than a year developing the draft framework.
Opportunity
The group is now calling on anyone with an interest in the sector to take this “once in a generation opportunity” to help shape the future of the profession’s skills, competence and compliance.
“There is currently no higher profile issue than how specialist sectors evidence the competence of individuals and companies,” said BESA’s director of competence and compliance Jill Nicholls.
“The Grenfell inquiry brought welcome focus on the need for everyone in our industry to have the right SKEB for the specific tasks they are asked to do in buildings – and be able to prove it. That is why BESA is giving so much time and attention to this consultation,” she added.
“We simply must get this right, so we need everyone with skin in the game to help us shape these frameworks for the benefit of both the industry and the building users that rely on our work.”
The consultation is looking for feedback on the group’s draft framework Managing Competence for Ventilation Hygiene Activities, which proposes a route to validate and revalidate individual competence that could eventually be applied throughout the UK.
The VHCG has put forward recommendations building on existing documentation, such as existing National Occupational Standards (NOS). It has also created a functional map and a framework of competencies, which breaks work down into discrete activities and sets out SKEB standards, in line with the requirements of the new building safety regime.
The statements are also mapped back to other relevant standards and frameworks, and there will be a second phase to tackle competence in surveying and auditing, which is currently out of the scope of this exercise.
The consultation is also seeking views on routes to competence, including requirements for initial and ongoing demonstration of SKEB, validation and periodic revalidation of competence evidence. This includes routes for new entrants and experienced workers.
An implementation plan is also being drafted to help turn “theory into reality” including work towards the detailed training and assessment content that will be needed to underpin sector competence.
Anyone wishing to take part in the consultation can access the relevant documents here and completed forms should be emailed to consultation@thebesa.com by 16th November 2025.
BESA is also hosting a World Ventilation Day event on November 6 in London, which will consider the health, well-being and economic value of better building ventilation – sign up for free here.