Witnesses heard by MPs in the recent Building Safety Bill hearings included Martin Taylor, Executive Director at the company known as LABC that represents the majority of Local Authority Building Control authorities. LABC Ltd has subscriptions but is funded in the main through allowing the name of LABC to be used for warranty provision on new housing by a private sector company. We touched on this irony on a previous blog and nobody has yet defended it.
All of this new high rise housing taken away from the private sector will be pushed by LABC along that warranty route too. Less competition will be good business for a few. Kerrrrrrchhhhhhhing! (This LABC alert sound is available for your mobile BTW)
Taylor continues to give evidence:
“We feel that the unintended consequences of the Bill are that it will intensify competition in building control for buildings that sit outside the scope of the new regime. So, although there will be no competition for in-scope buildings, that will then intensify the competition for out-of-scope buildings“.
Read it carefully again. “Regulator” he says. The reality is that Private Approved Inspectors don’t regulate – they audit.
Now consider his statement that as LAs will be checking the high rise buildings, the remainder of work will be competed for more keenly by the private sector and therefore reduce LA work further. Nobody questions this statement. But, how does that align with him also saying that LA Building Control hasn’t got enough staff to cope with it’s work currently? They need more funding. With them having to do the HIgh Rise work they’ll be stretched even more … and yet he also argues that they should in fact be undertaking all work on all buildings.
Mr Taylor says more:
We feel that what is missing in the Bill is that there should no longer be a position or a place for a duty-holder to be able to choose who regulates them. We think that the extension of duty-holder choice should extend across to all buildings and that people should no longer have the option to choose who regulates them through the building control process”.
So – there we go, the LABC want all work.
And… here we go again… lets not forget the allegation that duty holders are choosing the private sector because its corrupt. They’re all on the take – wink, wink. They’re allowing bad construction and taking brown envelopes. He doesn’t consider the opposite. The reality is that the private sector are chosen because they are better. They are training staff more. They have systems and checks in place which assist the development process. If you ring them they pick up the phone. They are helpful. They are competent. They – unlike their LA counterparts – are regulated. By CICAIR, remember them? You should, they’ve been very busy recently and a few more AIs are losing their licence.
And before you start quoting Luton Council and Assent just take some time to look at the facts. A dodgy staircase was passed by some subcontractors wrongly. Nobody was killed. Nobody was injured. We had two rogue inspectors who passed something they shouldn’t have. (And some say they did it to help out the owner get a further loan). They get a huge fine and CICAIR try and shut down a multi-million company. Man trips in hospital – lets shut Essex NHS Trust. Hardly commensurate is it?
Back to the evidence given and what we can surmise: Those developers – clients – who Taylor accuses of being complicit to this poor work, of fuelling the race to the bottom, of marking their own homework and endorsing corrupt practices are organisations such as the NHS. Unless I’m wrong (and I am on many occasions) the NHS Nightingales were all undertaken via an Approved Inspector. Why was that?
Then there’s Tesco.
Sainsbury.
Aldi.
The Police service
.. . are they all wrong for choosing a better service?
BAA? Yes, all work on all their airports in England are through an Approved Inspector.
(Please feel free to add your own in the comments)
All of the high street retail stores. All go private sector. Then we have Mr and Mrs Smith and their new loft conversion,
Mr Singhs garage conversion, etc., etc.
Over 50% of all building work in England and Wales goes to a private approved inspector. The sector directly employs thousands of technical staff but being an audit function there’s many more administrative staff. And consultants… and cleaners.
Maybe we’d have a better postal service if we just had the Royal Mail.
Maybe my TV viewing would be better if it was just the BBC.
Life would be better if all broadband was provided by the public sector.
Let’s get rid of this choice, Mr Taylor says, without considering why developers are choosing the best option – which is an alternative, more responsive, service than that provided by his members.
Lets follow the advice on Channel 2.
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The Secret Building Inspector 
Love this blog, but think the Building Control world is more nuanced and rubbish than you imply.
I am MD of Surveyor Link, we manage the surveying requirements of a warranty provider in direct competition with NHBC, LABC etc. As such, I see the work of every single LA and AI in England, Scotland and Wales. It doesn’t matter if they are public or private, they are almost all useless, arguably dangerous, eg Grenfell, with a handful of of excellent exceptions.
Hackett is blatantly deluded. Whether for political reasons or just ignorance, I have no idea.
Public sector is massively under-resourced, almost always managed by planners who don’t have any idea about Building Control and care less and is pretty much totally unregulated. The Ombudsman is a waste of time, I went to them once with undeniable written evidence on their headed paper of fraud and lies by an LA and they didn’t want to know.
Most AIs are motivated by profit and eff all else. They know they have no liability under Murphy, so don’t care a jot about BCPS and CIC Code, because nothing happens to them. Great that CIC is doing something at very long last – vanishingly little by-the-way, I completely disagree with your take on Luton v Assent. CIC haven’t even got round to sanctioning Assent, well over a year after they pleaded guilty to a very serious crime, for god’s sake.
Anyway, keep up the good work. Be happy to talk to you, you’ll find my phone number easily enough and can keep confidences.
Cheers
Jon
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Jon
You are of course entitled to your opinion however I must take exception on some facts. You claim to have seen the work of every LA and AI in the country, that is not the case, there are some AIs (I speak for one) who won’t work for Warranty providers or anyone else for that matter other than as the appointed AI and in any event, the work AIs provide for warranty providers is not Building Control it is surveying work under the terms of that appointment, perhaps the terms of the appointment are more to blame, you seem to be judging their performance as an AI based on their performance as something else? that make no sense.
You state that AIs are in it only for profit, this is unfair, almost everyone in the western world goes to work for a wage and the majority of organisations are owned by shareholders who expect profit, to suggest that the want of a wage or profit in some way diminishes the service is ridiculous, I’m sure the shareholders of for example Rolls Royce and millions of other companies are motivated by profit but they recognise that they achieve those profits through excellence, does this ‘profit only’ philosophy apply to your own business?
In terms of liability, BCPS and CICAIR Code are important to AIs, regardless of Murphy, an AI can be shut down by their regulating body and in recent months we have seen evidence of CICAIRs growing appetite to regulate the industry more firmly, I for one welcome that and hope this it brings everyone in to line, I’m not saying that every AI is perfect or even that every AI is adequate, clearly there are problems but the upcoming changes to registration (whatever they may be) and more rigorous audit process will begin to show benefits in competence and service across the board.
I will counter your broad statement to say that I have been involved with many AI’S and there are some excellent practices out there run by people who really do care about what they do for customers who value them. I will say the same about some LAs also however i’m not sure the under resourced argument stacks up when there are set a regulations (the building(prescribed fees) regulations) which require LAs to set sufficient fees to cover the cost of the service yet they set their fees well below that cost (evidenced by claiming to be under resourced). They also openly suggest AIs are in it for profit while claiming to be ‘not for profit’ and then guess what …….LABC Makes HUGE PROFIT! You couldn’t make up!
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Jon
You are of course entitled to your opinion however I must take exception on some facts. You claim to have seen the work of every LA and AI in the country, that is not the case, there are a number of AIs (I speak for one) who won’t work for Warranty providers or anyone else for that matter other than as the appointed AI.
The service AIs provide for warranty providers is not Building Control it is surveying work under the terms and obligations of that appointment, perhaps the terms of the appointment are more to blame if you aren’t getting what you require however, you appear to be judging performance as an AI based on performance as something else? That makes no sense.
You state that AIs are motivated only by profit…, this is unfair, almost everyone in the western world goes to work for a wage and the majority of organisations are owned by shareholders who expect profit, to suggest that the want of a wage or profit in some way diminishes the service is ridiculous, I’m sure the shareholders of Rolls Royce and millions of other companies are motivated by profit but they recognise that they achieve those profits through excellence, does this ‘profit only’ philosophy apply to your own business?
In terms of liability, BCPS and CICAIR Code are important to AIs, regardless of Murphy, an AI can be shut down by their regulating body and in recent months we have seen evidence of CICAIRs growing appetite to regulate the industry more firmly, I for one welcome that and hope this it drives standards up across the board, I’m not saying that every AI is perfect or even that every AI is adequate, clearly there are problems but the upcoming changes to registration (whatever they may be) and more rigorous audit process will begin to show benefits in competence and service across the board.
I will counter your broad statement to say that I have been involved with many AI’S and there are some excellent practices out there run by people who really do care about what they do for customers who value them. I will say the same about some LAs also however im not sure the under resourced argument stacks up when there are set a regulations (the building(prescribed fees) regulations) which require LAs to set sufficient fees to cover the cost of the service yet they set their fees well below that cost (evidenced by claiming to be under resourced). They also openly suggest AIs are in it for profit while claiming to be ‘not for profit’ and then guess what …….MAKING HUGE PROFIT!
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Hi Michael
Sorry, mate, you are misunderstanding.
I see the work of every BCB because we work everywhere in England, Scotland and Wales. Just because an AI ‘won’t work for warranty providers’, does not mean we don’t go on their sites. I expect we go on most AI’s sites every week, yours included, whichever it is (which I don’t know), whether you know it or not. Same with LAs.
I have no terms and conditions with any BCB when it is acting as BC, there is no contract between us, so your allegations of blame are misplaced and you have jumped to false assumptions about the relationship.
Please read my comments again. I did not and never have said all ‘AIs are motivated by profit’ only. I know some excellent ones who aren’t. Unfortunately, too many are. If you worked with me for 1 day, in fact for half an hour, you would see.
And for your info, no, my business is very definitely not solely motivated by profit. We do the job we do right and if we take a hit as a result, so be it.
It is a fact that BCBs are protected by Murphy. Some know they can act with impunity so long as there is no death or injury. I see it every day. CIC is waking up – after almost 30 years!!!! – good. About time.
By the way, I was Hon Sec or Vice Chair of ACAI for 4 years. I am all for AIs, but I am much more all for good Building Control.
Cheers
Jon
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I think you’re partially right. The AIs motivated by profit don’t last long – look at Aedis, Celtech and Campagna. The remainder on the whole (that I come across) are doing a good job under scrutiny and face a lot of commercial pressure (between themselves ironically not from the LA). If you know an AI that’s cutting corners then report them.
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Thanks for reply. Like I said, I see the work of every single BCB in the country. Few do.
It is a waste of time me reporting AIs to CIC, first, I am not the AIs client so CIC will not even accept my complaint and second, CIC does nothing anyway as Assent proves.
Regards
Jon
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FYI you don’t have to be a client of an AI to report them to CICAIR. Their complaints procedure enables anyone to complain about anything. Slightly ridiculous but it means a member of the public with no connection to a site by contract or association can lodge a complaint.
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Ok, thanks, that’s changed since I was in Building Control then
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I have read several of your blogs now and whilst they are amusing (Oops! I hope this is the intention), I cannot agree that you are “not taking sides” as you claim. All your musings appear to favour the private sector AI rather than the LA. Suggesting that AI’ s provide a better service is laughable, but then I suppose that depends on what you expect from the service. Personally I see the role of a “Building Inspector” be that AI or LA, primarily to enforce the Building Regulations. Providing a good building control service should never involve “dumbing down” or routinely relaxing the requirements of the Building Regulations; I once asked an architect friend of mine why he used an AI rather than LA for building control..his reply? Because the LA’s don’t push the envelope far enough. Well if that’s the kind of service you are talking about then, well you may have a point!
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Hi Ash, you’re right, it is skewed towards the private sector because that’s who is being bashed the most currently. They have been too damn quiet and are on the back foot. I do have great sympathies across the board with all of the BC staff in the front line – LA staff have been decimated by elected members who don’t give them the respect and attention the service needs. The government could have created a two tiered system with LABC enforcing and AIs auditing but that evaporated with Hackitt, the ensuing 100% Hackitt campaign and the LABC power grab – all with no push back from ACAI. HSE have remained oblivious to it all but now seem to realise that there’s one profession which is a start – just need everyone else to see that which is currently difficult. There are not enough BC professionals across the board so there is room for everyone.
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