Success of new construction regulator relies on eradicating error

The Get It Right Initiative (GIRI) is calling for an industry-wide culture shift around error to enable the new single construction regulator to succeed at driving better outcomes for building users. It has set out its recommendations to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) in response to a consultation on the new regulator prospectus.

GIRI’s response highlights the prospectus’ emphasis on changing both attitudes and practice in order to shift a ‘race to the bottom’ culture towards safety and quality instead. It offers GIRI’s support and points to the organisation’s success in driving cultural change over the past decade.

In its feedback, GIRI explains that the sector is still missing the right combination of competency, skills, and behaviours to get things right first time. Without addressing that gap, the regulator risks being held back in its ambition to achieve better performance and confidence in construction.

GIRI highlights several areas where error avoidance is needed to support the regulator’s aims, including:  

• Safety – Research published in the International Journal of Project Management suggests that 39% of construction injuries occur during rework to address previous errors 
• Productivity – GIRI’s research shows that error costs the UK construction sector up to £25 billion per year.  This cost is not only borne by construction, but by school and hospital programmes, transport operators and wider British industry 
• Sustainability – as well as a financial cost, waste in construction has a significant environmental cost due to wasted materials and the requirement for rework.  It is estimated by the UK Green Building Council and WRAP that for every 400 million tonnes of construction material used each year 100 million tonnes of waste is produced. 

Catalysing culture change  

The prospectus notes that safe, high-quality buildings are not created by regulators alone. GIRI advises that most construction errors have an origin in behaviour rather than regulatory issues. The culture of cutting costs due to tight margins is singled out by GIRI as the biggest obstacle to the goals of the new regulator. It suggests that the regulator should mandate robust competence and quality assurance requirements that push back against firms opting for lowest cost procurement.  

Tracking the sector’s progress 

To track the impact of the regulator, GIRI also recommends implementing a standardised, cross-industry quality metric so the sector can assess and track its progress on reducing errors. GIRI has been working with the Chartered Quality Institute Construction Network (CQI ConSIG) to create a practical, scalable set of standardised quality metrics that can be adopted for this purpose. 

Ensuring AI and tech help, not hinder better outcomes 

Reporting this progress throughout the building lifecycle will be important, and in response to the consultation’s questions on automating regulatory compliance checking, GIRI has shared guidance from its AI and technology reports and Technology Working Group, especially on the need for humans in the loop and for systems to show their working to avoid introducing new errors.  

Concentrating on competence 

Human competence – not just that of machines – is another focus of the response. This is too often considered an optional investment rather than an essential foundation for compliance. GIRI reiterates its role in helping the regulator achieve its outcomes, recommending that accredited behavioural training should be mandated by the regulator as part of firms’ demonstration of competence.   

GIRI has offered its support to the regulator to help shape a successful training regime, building on its work. The organisation has now trained over 10,000 individuals in how to spot and address error, at an exponential rate following the rollout of the Train-the-Trainer scheme, which allows companies to become approved training providers themselves. 

A focus on training, culture change, and standardised ways of measuring error will be essential to creating a regulator capable of reducing mistakes and improving building performance. GIRI is well placed to support the sector’s productivity challenge – it is already working with the Department for Business and Trade on a productivity PAS to accelerate error reduction through public procurement – and a regulator that enables industry-wide error reduction will, in turn, boost productivity across the economy.