Construction Products Association call for evidence survey
Peter Caplehorn, Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director of the Construction Products Association (CPA) says product manufacturers must regain confidence, but industry already has an appetite for change. |
The publication of Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety issued an important and resounding call for change across the entire construction industry. A number of challenges were identified about how we ensure our buildings keep people safe.
Construction products were not exempt from these challenges. One of the painful lessons we learnt as a sector from the Grenfell disaster was that construction product standards must be made more robust and product information standardised and presented in a less ambiguous format. Regulatory frameworks need to be in place with an accompanying feedback loop and necessary sanctions to make sure products perform in a building as they are supposed to.
In response to Hackitt’s review, government has committed to creating new governance arrangements for building regulations guidance and expressed a desire to work closely with the Construction Products Association (CPA) and our industry more widely to ‘improve transparency of the performance of products.’
It’s easy to frame the spirit of this review as government fixing failures within the construction products industry. To characterise it as such would be too simplistic, however. Industry has not only been reactive but both proactive and collaborative in addressing the issues highlighted in the report, particularly in relation to fire performance and the marketing of product information.
The construction products sector has already begun driving through change for higher ethical standards in product marketing information. This has been evident most recently with the setting up of the CPA’s Marketing Integrity Group (MIG), chaired by Adam Turk from Baxi, one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of water heating systems.
The MIG has been working on how to ensure the presentation of consistent and unambiguous product information to the entire construction supply chain. Achieving this level of clarity for product information is vital for safety, particularly when a product is used as part of a more complex system on a building or structure.
A key aspect of the MIG’s work is a recent ‘Call for Evidence’ survey which invites responses from anyone who makes use of construction product information – architects, contractors, merchants and maintainers alike. It’s designed to build an evidence base for changes to how product information is presented, in line with government objectives outlined in response to the Hackitt review.
The importance of this survey will be obvious to all those working in the built environment post-Grenfell, but I can’t stress enough how important it is for the survey to receive as many responses from as wide a variety of stakeholders across the entire construction supply chain as possible. This will ensure that our recommendations have the best possible impact and are in the spirit of non-siloed thinking that the entire construction industry must now start to adopt.
Of course there are many factors that will help us achieve safer buildings, including investment in technical training and digitalisation most notably. With regards to clearer product information, though, I’m encouraged to see such momentum and enthusiasm growing from construction products manufacturers themselves. There’s a real ambition to meet the challenges set by Hackitt and to make sure there’s no room for misinterpretation of product information and, as such, less room for risk in our built environment.
This survey closed on Friday 5 April.
Note: The consultation for the follow up Code for Construction Product Information CCPI was conducted from 1 February 2021 to 31 March 2021.
This article was written by Peter Caplehorn, Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director of the Construction Products Association. It was originally published on 26 March on the CPA blog.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- Analysis: Is Hackitt a turning point for the profession?
- Building a safer future: an implementation plan.
- Grenfell Tower articles.
- Grenfell Tower Fire.
- Grenfell Tower independent expert advisory panel
- Grenfell Tower industry response group.
- Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
- Grenfell Tower working group.
- Hackitt review of the building regulations and fire safety, final report.
- ICE Grenfell Tower review.
- Post-Grenfell product code combats misleading marketing.
Featured articles and news
The end of the games but continued calls for action.
From the Commonwealth Association of Architects.
CIOB respond to the government call for evidence
For the Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Committee.
How are buildings and their occupants responding to extreme heat?
BSRIA's Technical Director reflects on recent weather patterns.
Landownership in England in 1909
A national valuation to fund old-age pensions.
The world’s largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing.
Long after the end of the defects liability period.
BSRIA Occupant Wellbeing survey BOW
Occupant satisfaction and wellbeing in buildings.
Geometric form and buildings in brief
From the simple to the complex.
Understanding the changing nature of insulation
And the UK Government guidelines.
Three year action plan to improve equity, diversity and inclusion
Commitment agreed to by major built environment bodies.
The Construction Route – what needs to change?
Electrical skills, low carbon, high-tech and the building services revolution.
Deep geothermal power possibilities
Ultra-deep drilling with millimeter-wave beam technology.
BSRIA Briefing 2022- From the outside looking in
Looking at the built environment from space.
Competence requirements for principal contractors and designers
BSI standards 8671, 8672 and 8673.
Bringing life to burial grounds.
From failed modernism to twenty-minute neighbourhoods.
Design chill and design freeze
The gates process and change control.
Neuroscience for project success
Why people behave as they do. APM book.