The Industry Safety Steering Group's (ISSG) third annual report, dated 10 January 2022, endorsed by Dame Judith Hackitt provides it's clear expectations of the construction industry in delivering the post-Grenfell safety agenda.
The legislative response has been the proposed introduction of more assessment / checking via the building safety regulator, however in contrast it is of interest to now read some of the extracts from this update:
“We still cannot report a critical mass or groundswell of action across industry to suggest there is significant momentum on culture change.”
“We still see an industry that, at best, is in compliance mode rather than a leadership mode,”
“It would be an unacceptable failure of industry if the culture, which only it can change from within, remained the same and it continued to be solely reliant on regulations or assessors to ‘catch them out’ or highlight grave errors, rather than embedding building safety as an essential and intrinsic part of the entire process.
“The key message must be that we need to go further and we need to go faster, ahead of legislation."
Not only does the ISSG now appear to be realising a 'stick and stick' approach is not an appropriate strategy, it is critical of the construction industry for not filling in the ISSG's gaps.
The ISSG appears to have an expectation of the industry, prior to both the outcome of the Grenfell enquiry and the agreement final building safety bill legislation, to deliver all the answers.
It is a well-known fact that culture beats strategy / regulations hands down.
Better late than never?
Easy to criticise with hindsight?
Nearly a year ago I wrote an article "Building Safety Bill – Poacher / Gamekeeper or Collaborative H&S Culture?"
The positive is that a realisation by the ISSG that engagement is required with the industry to look at how the culture of providing a safe built environment is incentivised and achieved.
However it may be too late to change the un-collaborative / punitive proposed legislation.
If you require any further information, please contact Ian Cooper and find out more about Adjusting.
