The Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE) and Building a Safer Future (BSF) have entered a new strategic partnership that they say focuses on supporting organisations in assessing their competency in relation to building safety – especially as regards higher-risk buildings (HRBs) as defined in the Building Safety Act.
The collaboration was announced by Richard Smith, CABE President, at the Built Environment Live event, held at ExCeL, London, on 5 and 6 December. CABE and BSF say that with the Building Safety Act’s attention on the competence of duty-holders – especially in the secondary legislation published in late summer – many built environment sector organisations have ‘recognised the lack of clarity’ around the process of evaluating (and demonstrating their process of evaluating) ‘competence’, as there is no definitive single standard set by the regulator. The new collaboration will offer extra support to CABE members in assessing, recognising, and identifying development opportunities in their organisational competence.
CABE and BSF says the ‘BSF Champion’ assessment – a ‘robust’ self-assessment, benchmarking and independent verification scheme – ‘provides valuable tools that assist organisations in identifying potential development areas, and enables them to showcase their industry-leading commitment to advancing their leadership and culture in relation to building safety’. Several organisations have already successfully completed the assessment process and the BSF Champion process is ‘supported by, and embedded in’, a growing number of major procurement frameworks.
In July, CABE launched its route for duty-holders with general engineering responsibilities to prove their competence through the Engineering Council’s Higher-Risk Building Registration, and – following discussions between the two organisations – BSF is now formally recognising ‘the rigorous standards’ this registration demonstrates, and accepting it as evidence of a duty-holder’s competence in the Corroborating Elements module of the BSF Champion assessment. The two organisations will continue to work together to ensure competence standards are maintained throughout the industry.
Dr Gavin Dunn, CEO of CABE (pictured), said: “I believe there is a mutual opportunity between our two organisations, with BSF driving the cultural and behavioural change at an organisational level, and CABE focusing on the technical competency of individuals.”