CIOB Quality Management Code

In September 2019, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) published a Code of Quality Management. This was the result of nearly two year's work by CIOB’s Construction Quality Commission.

The Code provides a single point of information about construction quality management for construction professionals. It aims to improve quality by establishing best practice for quality management and quality planning processes.

It is a response to a report about defects that led to the closure of a number of Edinburgh schools, and it was given new urgency following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017. The Commission, led by a group of CIOB past presidents, worked with CIOB members and other industry organisations to identify the main issues either promoting or preventing the delivery of quality in construction.

Paul Nash FCIOB, Chairman of the Commission, said: “Quality, or rather the failure of quality, is arguably the most important issue facing the construction industry today. Our research identified an underlying cultural issue in the industry. Quality was being sacrificed to achieve targets. We are now in a position to deliver the Code – and the Commission’s other outputs – to raise the issue of quality in the built environment and help drive-up standards. I hope this document provides practitioners with the tools and processes needed to deliver quality on construction projects.”

The Commission’s work also resulted in the launch of a course on Construction Quality Management in 2018. This is aimed at construction managers and looks at setting and meeting quality objectives and the related processes, legislation and compliance. In addition, there will be a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on quality which will be free to construction industry professionals later in 2019.

CIOB also collaborated with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) on the ‘Building in Quality’ initiative in 2018, which includes a free-to-download digital tool, the Quality Tracker, designed to improve the quality of outcomes in the construction industry.

Caroline Gumble, CEO at CIOB, said: “I’m delighted that the work of the Commission has achieved so much and been such an important part of the necessary conversation around quality in our industry. In talking to members and partner organisations, I’m also pleased that there is a real collective appetite to continue driving forwards to raise standards, promote best practice and now implement the findings of the Commission with this new Code, with a real sense of urgency.”

The new Code of Quality Management is available to download as a pdf from the CIOB’s website: https://www.ciob.org/ciob-code-quality-management.

--CIOB