Almost eight years on from the tragic events of 14th June 2017, achieving uncompromising fire safety in residential buildings remains a thorny issue for the UK construction sector. One particularly sore topic is around the collation, management and provision of correct, up-to-date, whole life building information, so crucial towards protecting residents in case of emergency.
Unfortunately, data gaps and information chasms persist across the built environment, particularly on legacy assets. Putting it bluntly, whilst these persist, so does risk not just to building occupants, but to everyone involved in the design, construction and management of an affected building.
Whilst I want to acknowledge significant strides have been made over the last eight-years to improve building data hygiene, I fear there’s still a long way to go before we realise Dame Judith Hackitt’s ‘Golden Thread’.
The term, ‘must try harder’ springs to mind at this stage, as I don’t think that the safety-first mindset is universally shared. And the industry needs to get a move on, as the Government want to generate much needed economic growth based on ambitious housebuilding targets and retrofit programmes.
Any data omissions on new builds or retrofits will be seen as setbacks, with homes unable to be occupied until everything is all in one place. As you see it makes the case for adopting agreed, standard, industry-wide information protocols.
This is where the much-needed Regulation 38 comes into play.
Introduced under the Building Safety Act, Regulation 38 has become a vital process that can help resolve gaps within fire safety information at any stage of a project, from planning and design through construction, handover, operation and maintenance. It covers the critical details: fire protection systems, escape routes, and construction materials, ensuring essential fire safety information is made available to those responsible for the building’s safety throughout its lifecycle.
This isn’t just an admin exercise, but a useful mechanism which securely plugs the holes, ensuring fire safety information is precisely recorded, collated and delivered for inspection on completion. In essence, it’s a fundamental safeguard that determines whether a building is truly fit for occupation.
However, it’s not as prolific as it should be and, despite its importance, many contractors and subcontractors still struggle to understand its significance or integrate it into their operations.
Problematic implementation
The reason it’s been so hard to get developers, contractors and builders to comply with fire safety standard documentation is predominantly caused by poor, patchy and obsolete data management.
Despite the wealth of best practice guidance available, project teams are still struggling with disorganised and Incomplete records stored in multiple, nebulous (and often siloed) locations. A reliance on physical paper records and offline documents persists too.
That’s all before you come to appreciate the sheer volume of data 21st century teams have to contend with. Just think of the amount of data generated from Building Information Modelling (BIM) alone. It can all become overwhelming and this leads to increased human error, reduced accuracy consistency and completeness.
Legacy tech stacks add yet another layer of complexity, especially for SMEs which lack the necessary resources to upgrade entire digital infrastructures and data management processes overnight. Incompatibility between old and new software reduces efficiencies and leaves the door open for mistakes to be made.
Inevitably, this tangled web of problems results in compliance related issues which will cause costly delays and financial, legal and potentially reputational damage to the business. Yet there is an accessible mainstream solution, which will ensure successful compliance with Regulation 38, and more.
Getting digital with your data
Digital information management tools have evolved considerably over the past decade, and advanced platforms now exist to transform how vital information around fire safety is identified, collected, stored, retrieved and shared. Even better, these digital tools standardise, through templated and automated processes, offering in-the-moment communication capabilities and seamless integration with existing systems.
If they’re note game-changer, then they’re certainly a game enhancer. Now fire safety compliance has become relatively effortless and even better, digital solutions can be flowed through the entire building lifecycle. For example, during the construction journey contractors can now collect and organise information in real time, photographic evidencing work done on a mobile device and storing it in one cloud-based bank.
The entire, once-onerous process is streamlined and what’s more they’re easy to use, suitable for any level of IT literacy. It’s only the start as AI and AR become more advanced, with the potential to integrate into these platforms and empower project teams even more to achieve Regulation 38 at (almost) only the click of a few buttons.
Shifting the needle
Plug-and-play software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, like PlanRadar, are really pushing the envelope when it comes to the regulatory-based solutions, and have made them affordable. This means that even SMEsbu can have a holistic option without breaking the bank.
The impact goes beyond innovation, hopefully encouraging that true cultural shift which, like Dame Judith Hackitt’s ‘Golden Thread’, remains painfully out of our reach. Hopefully it will help operators in the sector not see Regulation 38 as a box ticking inconvenience but as a relatively easy to comply with safeguard that protects building occupants.
We all want to live in a safe built environment, but achieving it means committing to meeting regulatory requirements. Whilst there are no shortcuts, there are the tools on hand to help us get there quicker, so let’s use them!
Rob Norton, UK Director, PlanRadar