About the Event

In anticipation of the release of the secondary legislation associated with the Building Safety Act, which would define the new dutyholders within amended building regulations (England), APS created a Competency Framework Working Group whose objective was to create a register of individual designers who have been assessed as competent to act as the Principal Designer Building Regulations. 

The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023 were introduced came into force on 1st October 2023. The APS competency framework is founded on BSI FLEX8670 and PAS 8671. The scheme is aimed at all designers who intend to act as Principal Designer during the building approvals process on HRBs and non-HRBs.

The proposed launch of the Competency scheme is March 2024, shortly before the next milestone in the full implementation in England of the new regulations in April 2024.

In this webinar, Prof Sam Allwinkle and Andrew Leslie will explain the scheme and how to get involved.

About the speaker

Sam Allwinkle, APS Director, Independent Chair

Sam is a Chartered Architectural Technologist, Chartered Construction Manager and is a Professor Emeritus at Edinburgh Napier University. He has a background in professional practice as a partner/director specialising in design and building performance, investigation, appraisal and evaluation.

His wealth of experience includes Chairing Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement for the Architectural Technology Review Group which embedded Health and Safety within its new standards, undertaking duties as external examiner for universities undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorates and acting as accreditation assessor for professional bodies (RICS, CIOB and CIAT).

He is a Past President of CIAT, and is currently Chair of the Institute’s Education Board, Industry Chair of the Sustainable Traditional Building Alliance (STBA) focusing on retrofit design. He is also chair of the higher education group for the Construction and Built Environment Education Committee and member of the board of Qualifications for industry.

He has been actively involved with BSI work on building safety competences and member of advisory panels for development of competency frameworks and professional functions.

During his career in academia, Sam has served on government, professional and national built environment education committees. He has held various positions as Professor, Director of Research in Built Environment, Chair of the Research Committee for the Council of Professors of Building Engineering Management, a member of the Scottish Building Regulations Advisory Committee. He has recently been a member of Scotland Government Review Panel on Building Standards (Fire Safety) and Thermal standards.

Over the last 25 years Sam has led twenty major externally funded projects with a value in excess of 30 million Euros. He is also an external assessor for UK research bodies and also the Italian Government for the assessment of Research projects in Architecture, Architectural Technology and Sustainability.

His main areas of research expertise are in building performance, process mapping, sustainability, Smart Cities and Design Futures and has published and presented nationally and internationally.

Sam still lectures at Edinburgh Napier University at undergraduate and postgraduate level in design, building regulations and fire engineering.

Andrew Leslie, Head of Membership, Association for Project Safety

Andrew Leslie qualified as an architect but began specialising in design and construction health and safety in 1995 and became a member of APS the same year. Between spells working as a CDM Consultant, during which he developed and delivered CDM training courses, he has built up experience working with several Membership organisations. Andrew joined APS in 2014 as Technical and Standards Manager and was principal co-author of the APS’ Principal Designers Handbook. Shortly after the book was published, he was lured back into consultancy to develop CDM support services and training, working extensively on regeneration projects in London. During this period, he became heavily involved in the post-Grenfell developments leading up to the Building Safety Bill. He re-joined APS as Head of Membership in 2021.

He was Director of Practice at the Royal Incorporation of Architects between 2006 and 2009 and was part of the team that developed a scheme for Approved Design Certifiers and is a co-opted member of the RIAS Energy Certification Scheme Committee. He has an Asbestos Surveying qualification.