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? 

• Last week was a calm week, marked by some of our regular CIC meetings. On Wednesday, Andrew Leslie attended the CIC Health, Safety and Welfare Committee meeting which discussed the CDM Post Implementation Review and the recently released CLC JCOP on Mental Health. On Thursday, Sofie Hooper attended the CIC Liability Panel, which ran through the ongoing work on Risk Management Briefings under production.  

• On Friday, Sofie Hooper (DCEO) and Mark Snelling (APS President) met with Steven Naylor, who is the Data and Digital Research Portfolio Lead in the HSE’s Science and Research Centre. We discussed the HSE’s Design Risk Treatment tool under development, which seeks to help improve health and safety outcomes by drawing on an ever-growing design risk register that can help deliver treatment prompts for risk scenarios. The key to achieving these outcomes is driving up competence, including in project risk identification and information management, key areas where APS is working to support members. 

Recent updates that members should know about  

Single Construction Regulator response  

APS updated members last week about the Next stage of building safety developments announced. This included the Government response to the Single Construction Regulator (SCR) Prospectus consultation which ran between December and 20th March.  

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), reported they had 184 responses across the various aspects of regulatory reform it sought feedback on:  

• The government's vision and strategy for reforming the regulatory system 

• Digital-first approach, data management and efficient regulatory delivery 

• Residents and building users 

• Roles and responsibilities in an integrated regulatory system.  

The response confirmed that the forthcoming reform will be whole-systems reform, but it will be proportionate as it needs to be effective in delivering the outcomes they seek to achieve.  

One of the key areas of APS’s response, was around the need to strengthen the assessment of competence for safety critical professionals and roles, and the conditions under which this might work best and fair for all. The response confirms once again that Government will take action “to strengthen the regulation and accountability of specific roles, including ….principal designers”.  Additionally, it announced that MHCLG commissioned an expert working group to analyse the links between professional activity and risks to the public in the built environment. This group, led by the Architects Registration Board (ARB), may recommend measures for regulatory reform for consideration. This could include whether more professions should be brought into the scope of statutory regulation and whether further building functions should be reserved. APS is meeting with the ARB on 20th July to discuss our work across this area.  

What’s coming up this week? (20-26 July 2026) 

Meetings that APS is involved in this week include: 

• APS meeting ARB 

• ICSG Sector Led Group 7 – Project management  

• APS meeting the lead on Project IRIIS, an Information Management Initiative (IMI) technical project to help the insurance sector evaluate project risk using structured information 

• BS8770 on the management of individual competence in organisations  

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.