APS has increased its sector-wide engagement to better support members in developing and maintaining professional competence. Each week, we’ll share an update from APS HQ so you can see the breadth of work being carried out for your benefit.

What’s been happening?

• APS was invited to attend the regular Building Safety Regulator CEO Town Hall meeting, where Lord Andy Roe (chair BSR) and Charlie Pugsley (CEO BSR) provided an update on current Regulator priorities and key issues. Key take aways from the session were:

• The relationship between the Regulator and the industry is maturing and becoming much more collaborative. The Regulator will step up its work on guidance to support gateway submissions and applications for Building Assessment Certificates (BAC). An ongoing dialogue with the industry is very much welcomed and needed to tackle issues, including designer information, which at times remains incomplete.
• Driving competence is a key agenda point with the BSR leadership noting the critical role of driving up competence to achieve better standards across the board. It was highlighted how key dutholder roles, and in particular the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor contracted entities, will be held accountable for failings. Work is also being done around competent persons schemes and the regulation of professions.
• The Regulator is looking at safety in a more holistic manner than defined in the Regulations, which focus on fire and structural safety. Their threshold check for safety will be on whether all the thresholds in the regulations are met. The team are also cognisant of how much of the sustainability building requirements intersect with safety and work is being done in this area to get clarity.
• While the focus has very much been on the gateways, the occupation phase is getting more attention with plans expected to be published on remediation and BAC.
• The transition from HSE to the new Regulator body is in full swing. Proportionality is a central principle for enforcement.
• The CLC is a key interlocutor for the Regulator, and key areas of work remain the effectiveness of regulations in terms of meeting the needs to achieve outcomes, the suitability of current contracts and the role of the insurance industry. The issue of standard contracts was also raised in relation to holding the key dutyholders accountable- and that the contracts therefore need to be suitable to deliver against the building safety outcomes set.

• Sofie attended the Industry Competence Steering Group - Sector Led Group 7- competence framework for project management in the built environment. This Group continues to focus for now on implementation and awareness of the existing project management framework. Other areas that might be looked at in the future are Programme and Portfolio Management.

• The CIC Liability Panel took place on Wednesday 4th January which included discussion on the role of the Principal Designer and the survey issued by ICSG (see below). The panel is working on a Risk Management Briefing for the Building Safety Act, and also RAAC. IStructE is working on new guidance in that area which is due to be issued shortly.

• On Thursday, APS President-Elect Bryn Wilde and DCEO Sofie Hooper met with the Welsh Local Partnerships team to feed into the market review of the current Building Control approach. The discussion focused on how the current system is working in practice and challenges in place. We discussed the learnings from post-Grenfell implementation across the various nations and what ‘good’ could look like from various stakeholders. APS will continue to feed into the review and the broader implementation process of the Post-Grenfell regime in Wales.

• Also on Thursday, the APS Task and Finish Leaders Group met to continue working on a strategy and implementation plan for a competence standard in health and safety risk management.

Recent updates members should know about

APS is part of a working group looking at the competences of the Principal Designer (BR England) within the Industry Competence Steering Group. The Group is currently considering PAS 8671 and how that relates to demonstrably competent individuals and organisations carrying out the role of Principal Designer in the sector.

The ICSG Principal Designer working group has found that there is not a consistent understanding of the role and duties of the Principal Designer (BR), so they have created a questionnaire to gather feedback. The aim of the questionnaire is to show how the role of the Principal Designer as described in the Building Regulations 2010 (England) / Building Safety Act is being understood and interpreted across industry.

The deadline for the survey is COP 13th February, and all inputs will be anonymised. Please share the survey with anyone that may be interested in providing feedback. The survey can be downloaded here.

Aside from this activity, APS has engaged the BSR on this issue and the survey results will be helpful to inform our ongoing approach.

What’s coming up this week? (9-15 February)

Meetings APS is involved in this week include: Engineering Council - Regulating the professions Setting Expectations Group in ICC - competence management in organisations CIC Economic & Policy Forum CIC professional competence taskforce APS Fellows Forum (quarterly meeting) Welsh consultation workshop on the market review of building control

We’ll continue to keep members updated on key developments and engagement across the industry as plans for 2026 take shape.

If you would like to contribute or share expertise on issues that matter to you, please contact APS HQ at info@aps.org.uk.