Welcome to the Constructing Excellence Midlands newsletter. It is an exciting time within your club; there is plenty happening, on many fronts, as the industry gets to grips with the repercussions of international news and the consequences of a change in Government. This change means that there has never been a better time to take advantage of your membership and get involved with the various theme groups and meetings to hear how others are addressing industry challenges.
One of those changes that will affect us all are the consequences of the Grenfell Fire. There is now a statutory duty for all businesses to demonstrate the competence of their staff. This applies throughout the supply chain and includes employees on site and in the office. The Building Safety Regulator is charged with supporting industry to demonstrate competence of these people. Reporting to the Building Safety Regular are competence committees and steering groups, and these oversee the work of a large cohort of over a thousand volunteer experts from across industry who are working to define individual competencies. You may think that you and your organisation know what a competent person is, but the definition of competencies that will matter are those that inform the view of the Building Safety Regulator and these are being worked through by these groups.
This work has crucial importance to our sector. Set the competence level too high and companies will struggle to meet the standard, creating a shortage of workers to deliver projects. Set them too low and quality that the Regulator seeks, to reduce the risk of poor design and delivery, will be missed. Some sectors are looking to use the competency work to drive upskilling within those sectors, which maybe fine, provided that the timescales are achievable and the courses exist to facilitate additional skills. Competency is a measure of four elements: Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours (SKEBs) How do you think that your teams, and your supply chain teams will measure up to these statutory competencies? Information on this work is available on the Construction Leadership Council’s website and those who are interested should search here to find out the standards by which they will be judged.
Under the Building Regulations Amendment Regulations 2023, there is also a requirement for every organisation carrying out any building work or any design to have the organisation capability to deliver this work. The work on organisational competence has not yet started in earnest, but it has to be critical for procurement teams, who are statutorily bound to only contact with competent organisations. It is going to be fascinating to see where the benchmark is set, but you might imagine a number of requirements around collaboration, payment and communication.
My suggestion is that all companies need to look at the implications to your employees and your organisations. Change takes time and there may be commercial opportunities for those who are prepared when procurement catches up with statute. For individuals, I suggest an early check on your SKEBs relative to the standard set by your sector, would be worthwhile. If it is not yet ready, then I’d suggest getting involved and influencing the outcomes of these debates.
Constructing Excellence Midlands wishes all its members every success and urges you to take advantage of the opportunities presented by your club.
We are sad to say that Joanna Poon will be stepping down as Chair of the CE Midlands Future Skills Theme Group as she leaves her post at Derby University this month.
We would like to thank Joanna for her excellent work with the group and wish her the very best in her new role.
This leaves the theme group seeking a new Chair. If. you are already involved with the Future Skills group and are interested in stepping forward as the next Chair, please do get in touch by emailing emma.hannam@cemidlands.org
A Fantastic Start to 2025 for the Constructing Excellence Midlands Social Value Theme Group!! A huge thank you from Chairs Sue Woollett and Natasha Heritage to everyone who joined the Social Value Theme Group Meeting on Monday, January 20th. (Shazad Ahmad, Ellie Hicks, Cheryl Brown, Dan Heffernan, Jo Mann, Jayne Anderson). It was fantastic to meet face-to-face and start the year with such energy, collaboration, and thought-provoking discussions.
Here’s what was covered:
Defining Impactful Social Value
We delved into what social value truly means and explored how to ensure it’s impactful—more than just a tick-box exercise.
Theme Group 2025 Goals
By this time next year, we aim to:
Create and test innovative methods for recording and monitoring social value. Develop a proposal that benefits both the construction sector and the wider world.
Exciting Initiative for SMEs and Social Enterprises
We’ve agreed to focus on an initiative targeting SMEs and Social Enterprises, aimed at empowering them with knowledge and leaving a positive local impact.
Next Steps
We’ll work collaboratively to plan and deliver this initiative.
Upcoming sessions include:
2nd April (Online): Case studies and planning
3rd July (Face-to-Face): Reporting, measuring, and initiative planning
9th October (Online): Engaging with education
Get Involved!
If you’re a CE Midlands member and you’d like to be part of this group and help shape this initiative, please get in touch.
If you’re not yet a member find the link to join here: https://www.cemidlands.org/join-now/
Let’s make 2025 a year of meaningful impact!
The G4C Awards are a celebration of Young Achievers in Construction and the companies who support and train the future leaders of the industry. The SHORTLIST has now been announced! Please see below…
Anyone 35 and under, or any newcomers (within the last 10 years) working within the Midlands in the construction industry can enter the awards. These awards are a great opportunity for companies to proactively support and lead innovation within the built environment.
Interviews for shortlisted nominees will be held week commencing 3rd February.
Shortlisted Nominees
Student of the Year
- Luke Walsh – Stepnell
- Jaspreet Kaur-Lall – Carter Jonas
Mentor of the Year
- Alison White – Cundall
- James Polglass – Severn Trent
- Leroy Abrahams BSc (Hons) MRICS – Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB)
- Ashleigh Wilson – Stepnell
Commitment to Employee Development
- Turner & Townsend
- Acivico Group
- AtkinsRéalis
- Viridis
- Cundall Engage
Apprentice of the Year
- Talha Wadud – Tony Gee and Partners
- Isabelle Ludford – Severn Trent
- Joshua Hastings – Severn Trent
- Emily Ingram – AtkinsRéalis
- Saranne Ghaman – JN Bentley
- Bekim Fejzullai – Cundall
New Professional of the Year
- Bryony Dennis – Maber Architects
- Aqib Zahir MRICS MAPM – Rund Partnership Limited
- Ben Latcham MEng – Link Engineering
- Josie-Mae Richards – Gleeds
Trainee of the Year
- Mohamed Al Sahaf – Stepnell
- Jaspreet Kaur-Lall – Carter Jonas
This year’s nominees represent the next generation of talent, with each finalist demonstrating a commitment to excellence and innovation within the industry. Their contributions are helping to shape a more sustainable and dynamic built environment for the future.
The winners will be announced at the highly anticipated G4C Midlands Awards ceremony, which will be will be held on the 27th March 2025 at The Burlington Hotel, where industry leaders will come together to celebrate the achievements of these outstanding individuals and organizations.
Stay tuned for more updates as we count down to the awards night and CLICK HERE to book a place!
Hydrogen Safe offers the UK’s only Ofqual-regulated qualifications in hydrogen safety and green energy.
They are in the process of agreeing a partnership with Shrewsbury College and other colleges in the Midlands region to deliver qualifications within their apprenticeship and T-level curriculum. They are also working with a number of employers across the West Midlands to support their transition as the region begins to adopt hydrogen, through staff training and CPD days.
Hydrogen Safe is running two online open courses for the accredited Level 1 and Level 2 Hydrogen Safety Qualification on 27th – 29th August and are open anyone who may be interested in gaining the qualification.
There are a limited number of spaces left on the courses below.
Hydrogen Safe are offering a 10% discount on both courses for CE Midlands members using the promo code ‘Lizzie10’.
Level 1 flyer (27th -28th Aug) booking page: Level 1: Award in Introduction to Hydrogen Safety Practices – Hydrogen Safe
Level 2 flyer (27th – 29th Aug) booking page: Level 2: Award in Introduction to Hydrogen Safety Practices – Hydrogen Safe
Here is a file containing Hydrogen Safe’s brochures for our Hydrogen Safety qualifications, CPD days and FAQs.
A brand new theme group for CE Midlands members will start this autumn. Sue Woollett and Natasha Heritage from Stepnell will be co chairing the group and are keen to welcome new members so please get in touch if you want to get involved.
Sue says “We are committed to driving forward the social value agenda, ensuring that the construction industry not only meets but exceeds its responsibilities to society. By bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders, the Social Value Theme Group will champion initiatives that deliver tangible benefits to communities, enhance the environment, and promote economic prosperity.
We aim to facilitate an open forum for industry professionals to share insights, experiences and innovative approaches to social value with a central focus on recognising, reporting, and maximizing social value in all construction activities”
Key Objectives of the Theme Group
· Networking Opportunities through online and face to face meetings
· Support and enable companies to set targets, track progress, and demonstrate their contributions effectively
· Share best practice and opportunities for collaboration
· Recognise excellence
Meetings will be held quarterly online with an annual opportunity to meet face to face enabling us to recognise and celebrate excellence.
If you are a CE Midlands member please contact: tom.carpenter@cemidlands.org to join the social value theme group.
Sue Woollett is a social value manager for Stepnell’s East Midlands region. A relative newcomer to the construction industry, just five years ago, she has a background in volunteering alongside self-employment and employment in education and banking. She is strongly committed to equity and passionate about empowering people to improve their circumstances and experiences.
Natasha Heritage is a Social value manager for the Midlands region at Stepnell. She is passionate about social value, committed to creating meaningful change through her work and strives to make a positive impact in the local community. Previously she was a national team manager for a training provider, working with hard-to-reach NEETs and is currently completing a L4 qualification in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability.
Following the election of East Midlands Mayor, Arup have published 7 ideas to transform the East Midlands. They aim to promote discussion and debate over opportunities presented by the devolution deal and establishment of a Mayor and EMCC.
A devolution deal for the East Midlands, and the election of an inaugural mayor, provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to energise the region’s ambitions, and enduringly transform its relationship with national government.
The East Midlands has historically experienced persistent under-investment with local authorities and institutions lacking capacity and resource to advocate and maximise opportunities.
New local powers will help the region tackle challenges and harness its true economic potential. The East Midlands offers unique social, economic, and natural diversity – this devolution opportunity will allow the region’s individuality to be celebrated and harnessed.
We have used our global expertise, local knowledge and lived experience from working in the East Midlands for over 50 years to set out seven transformative ideas which can be used to inform conversations and key decision making. These ideas are designed around creating a sustainable and inclusive environment for people to live, work, learn and visit, with change being achievable in the first mayoral term.
You can download the document HERE:
The Installer Show caught up with Andrew Carpenter, Chief Executive of CE Midlands to find out about the role of CEM and how it is looking to overcome the housing crisis in the Midlands.
What is the goal of Constructing Excellence Midlands?
CE is a membership organisation that aims to drive excellence within the sector through innovation and collaboration. Membership is open to the entire supply chain and provides companies and individuals with the opportunity to influence the industry, network and exchange knowledge with like-minded organisations. We also provide a platform to engage with strategic research partners to help inform solution development and gain insight that you wouldn’t gain elsewhere.
At CE Midlands, our membership increased by 50% in 2023, highlighting the value that companies are placing on involvement with CE Midlands and the knowledge and insight that can be gained through membership.
What is the biggest issue that CEM is looking to address in the Midlands?
One of our key areas of focus in the Midlands is the creation of affordable housing. Development in this area is crucial as not only are we already in the midst of a housing crisis, but the population continues to grow rapidly with a diverse set of needs. So, there is a pressing requirement for not just affordable housing, but sustainable, inclusive and community-centric housing solutions. In turn, this growing demand is highlighting the urgent need that we have in this country for more effective housing policies.
In 2022 we set up a CE Midlands forum to deal with the specific issue of Social Housing sector, concentrating on the Future Homes Standard, which is open to all our members to join. Since then, the forum has welcomed a series of industry speakers who have each instigated lively debate and discussion with many valuable take aways available for those present, as well as providing an occasion for valuable networking opportunities for those working in this field.
What are the challenges when it comes to creating more affordable housing in the Midlands and elsewhere?
There are many challenges that need to be overcome. For example, the industry-wide skills shortage – both in terms of quantity and quality – especially in the wake of the Building Safety Act where competency levels are being brought into question. With an aging population and rising housing costs, we are seeing growing demand for multigenerational housing, meaning bigger homes need to be built. Add to that the need to consider accessibility and other varying social and cultural needs within the housing design. Finally, even if we could build more housing, there’s the issue of whether our outdated infrastructure could support it: would the electrical grid be able to supply a sudden influx in new housing stock in the area? There’s more to it than just building homes, they need to be well-designed, well-built and the surrounding infrastructure needs to be able to keep up with rising demand.
How can these challenges be overcome?
A forward-thinking and collaborative approach to housing is paramount. We need to inspire conversations and foster a shared commitment to creating a housing landscape that truly serves the diverse and evolving needs of the region’s residents.
There is huge potential for collaboration between the Government, private entities and local communities in order to drive community engagement and investment. We need to bring in initiatives that empower residents, encourage affordable cohesion and prioritise the creation of vibrant, sustainable neighbourhoods. After all, housing is much more than just bricks and mortar!
Of course, we must also embrace digital transformation, as innovations like smart infrastructure, sustainable design, and data-driven solutions can contribute to the development of more efficient and responsive housing that will continue to meet the evolving needs of its residents over time.
At CE Midlands, we are also advocating for the streamlining of regulatory processes in areas like planning, and the incentivising of sustainable development, to create an environment where affordable housing can grow and thrive.
You have also been working to engage young people on this issue through CEM’s Generation4Change (G4C) network. Can you tell us about that?
CE originally came into being on the back of a government report from 26 years ago, which said the industry was too fragmented and adversarial – a sentiment we have seen alluded to again recently in Dame Judith Hackett’s report. So, to continue to inspire collaboration, we introduced G4C with the idea that if we could create an arena for young construction industry professionals to collaborate with their peers, then collaboration would become their raison d’être, ready for when they became the leaders of tomorrow.
So, G4C is a national network that young professionals can use to connect, challenge and shape the future of the industry. Our G4C group in the West Midlands get together once a month with a guest speaker and once a quarter for a CPD session. They have also been arranging their own regular socials which is great to see! We currently have 300 young professionals attending G4C West Midlands events and activities, with such success that a G4C network is now being launched in the East Midlands based on the West Midlands model. I highly encourage young people from the sector who are interested in these issues to get involved in their local G4C group and start making a difference in their area.
For more information about the Installer Show here: InstallerSHOW 2024 – Constructing Excellence Midlands
This month Martyn Jones focuses on just one of the key drivers of change we will see this year – the Building Safety Act (BSA) – and muses on its impact and whether we’ve been here before.
Let’s face it, we’ve had a stream of initiatives over many years aimed at transforming our industry and, either explicitly or implicitly, exhorting us to change our culture and behaviours. There are far too many such initiatives and reports to list all of them here, but most notably they include the Simon Report way back in the 1940s, and more recently the Latham, Egan, and Farmer reports in the 1990s and 2000s.
We are once again being exhorted to embrace fundamental reform but this time in atonement for past mistakes, brought into stark light by the Grenfell tragedy, and in response to the passing of ensuing legislation, the BSA. Its key provisions came into force on 1 October 2023 and this year we will see the new rules for duty holders fully take effect, making it what many people are saying is the biggest change in building safety for a generation.
Under the BSA we now have a Building Safety Regulator (BSR), part of the Health & Safety Executive, as the new building control authority for all higher-risk buildings (HRBs) in England. Building work cannot start until they approve a building control approval application. They must be satisfied that the design meets the functional requirements of the building regulations.
The Regulator’s three-year strategic plan spans 2023 to 2026 and details a focus on: delivering consistent standards within the building control profession; overseeing improvements across the built environment; regulating planning, design, and construction of new HRBs; and ensuring those responsible for HRBs manage risk.
But beyond regulating HRBs and raising the safety standards of all buildings, they also intend (as attempted with some success by previous reports into the state of our industry and their prescriptions for improvement) to inspire and lead a much-needed change in our culture and behaviours right across the industry and the whole built environment.
The Regulator’s vision is of an industry where everyone is competent and takes responsibility to ensure buildings are of high quality and safe. They will introduce a new approach to building control in England by creating a regulated building control profession that is more accountable to all citizens and will see buildings consistently meeting building standards.
And there’s more. They intend to increase our knowledge of the built environment and will use this to drive improvements and support those working in the built environment to take responsibility for
driving a sustained and meaningful culture change, incentivising continuous improvement and, when necessary, addressing non-compliance.
The case for reform has been well rehearsed in previous improvement initiatives and reports into the state of the industry and repeated in part by the BSR in the foreword to their strategic plan. They identify a sector in need of fundamental reform having “a regulatory system that allowed egregious behaviour to go unchecked; homes clad in combustible materials that should never have been used; building owners failing to take responsibility; and regulators without the power or the capacity to enforce vital standards. These failures put at risk the lives of far too many.”
And this is just the initial phase of the legislation’s implementation. Further changes, including the reform of the building control system, are set to be implemented later this year. For example, on 6 April 2024, approved inspectors will need to apply to register with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) to continue working as a Registered Building Control Approver (RBCA).
This date is also a critical month for in-scope buildings whose construction began before 1 October 2023. In cases like these, transitional agreements apply to individual construction projects to be completed under the current procedural rules and the existing approved inspector, provided they meet certain conditions, such as that work must be “sufficiently progressed” before 6 April 2024.
The BSR’s recipe for change is to create an environment where everyone – industry, residents, freeholders, leaseholders and more – is active in their responsibility for ensuring not only the safety, but also the quality of our buildings. Will we miss this opportunity to reform? Déjà vu all over again? Not really as we now have a Regulator whose task is to provide the clarion call for transformation and insist that we change our culture and behaviour.
