Challenge 7.12: How can technology transform Building Standards Compliance to empower our citizens & contractors to produce safer and more energy efficient buildings?

Key information for applicants

Please note: you must apply for this Challenge via Public Contracts Scotland

Launch date
Tuesday 31 May 2022

Questions may be submitted until
16:00, Tuesday 21 June 2022

Closing date
Midday, Tuesday 28 June 2022

Exploration Stage interviews
Friday 29 July 2022

Exploration Stage
15 August to 2 September 2022

Accelerator interviews
Friday 9 September 2022

Accelerator Stage
3 October 2021 to 27 January 2023

Maximum contract value
£650,000

What does this mean?

Q&A session

A live Q&A session was held with the Challenge Sponsor team on Tuesday 14 June 2022 at 15:00. A recording of the session can be viewed here:

Why does this Challenge need to be solved?

The Why for our Citizens & Building Contractors:

In any small building project there is a legal requirement to have the work carried out inspected by the local authority building standards team. These visits ensure that the work carried is out compliant and meets statutory standards.

The building standards team are required to make regular visits to the site throughout the project, and the results of these visits can provide guidance for the rest of the build, as well as allowing any changes to be made quickly and efficiently.

The process of getting the building standards team involved in your build is called a notification and in many cases works well, however in many cases it does not resulting in potential negative impacts on the build. It is this disconnect between the Citizen/Building Contractor that we are looking to improve.

As a Citizen/Building Contractor you are legally required to have the local authority sign off your work so that you can occupy your building. More often than not this does not happen simply because the local authority team have not been notified that they need to inspect.

A failure to inspect can result in:

• The citizen/contractor not being allowed to enter their building

• Delays in the project to allow time for the necessary inspections to be carried out

• Delays and additional costs in required changes to carried out building work before sign off

• Increased levels of stress and anxiety for the citizen/contractor

The why for the local authority:

In order to be effective, local authority building standards teams need to make compliance checks on building works at critical stages throughout the construction builds. To do this, every building warrant approval issued is accompanied by a Construction Compliance and Notification Plan (CCNP). In general terms, but particularly where there is no supervising professional, inspection notifications (When the local authority is asked to attend site) from the citizen, contractor or architect are not consistently received by the local authorities.

Building standards inspections at critical points of construction improve the compliance of completed building work which is subject to building warrant approval.

There are currently other plans in the work-stream to focus on higher value projects such as schools etc, this leaves a gap in the lower value projects such as homes and small businesses that require a cost effective solution to improve the notification process.

In addition, collected data from the inspections are not currently cross-referenced meaning that common non-compliant items of work which are frequently discovered during inspections are not catalogued. This data will be of equal value to local authorities and building owners, as it will focus attention on how to avoid costly remediation work and delays in occupation.

How will we know the Challenge has been solved?

• At a basic level they will receive a better service from the local authority.

• There are a number of inspections that are required during the building project – A typical example of this is 5 visits during the period of build. Right now, many of these visits do not happen, which can often result in only one inspection happening at the end of the build meaning that any important notes/changes to the build that are required are coming too late and will require additional time and budget to fix, as well as requiring further inspection by the council for sign off.  

•  We are looking to see that building projects will alert the local authority of their builds in a timely manner, with the council being notified as early in the process as possible, and allowing for completion of the compliance plan at the end of the build.

•  Improved awareness of the requirement to have these inspections – as this can often be realised too late in the process resulting in a negative situation for the build. 

Local Authority:

• While current performance measurements are under review, the success of full inspection under the notification plan has historically been low, e.g. under 50% in Q1 of 2016-17. Once agreed, revised statistical returns on notifications and inspections will show an improvement, and local authorities will report on increased inspection activity as a proportion of their workloads.

• Previous attempts to gather trend information on common non-compliances have failed, largely due to a lack of functionality to record and extract this information within local authority systems in an efficient way. Success in this aspect will be achieved when this information can be easily recorded and used to focus efforts to achieve compliance for building owners, contractors, architects and local authorities.

Who are the end users of the solution likely to be?

Different users will have different requirements and uses, but we see the end users currently being:

• building owners, (including homeowners)

• construction SME’s

• developers

• local authorities

• and Scottish Government

Has the Challenge Sponsor attempted to solve this problem before?

No, it has not, however it is important to understand that the problem has been ongoing for many years which resulted in the introduction of the notification system to begin with.

Are there any interdependencies or blockers?

Integration with the local authority back office system for building standards (IDOX Uniform) would require a bespoke API connection that would require further discussions to understand any potential barriers that exist.

Will a solution need to integrate with any existing systems or equipment?

All 32 local authorities use the IDOX Uniform case management system and we know that many are on different versions and that there are data inconsistencies between all 32. Integration with these systems will be difficult for a variety of reasons, not least as there are no API’s available.

Currently notifications are received through the eBuilding Standards portal as a formal request, by email, by telephone or in person.

However, integration wouldn’t be necessary if the focus of the solution was on the building owner side, with the integration with the local authority only required in so far as communication of requests is improved.

Is this part of an existing service?

This challenge is related to both the Compliance Plan and Digital Transformation work streams of the Building Standards Futures Board. We are investing in a project of discovery around digital compliance specifically for Scotland’s construction SME’s with CSIC, and in terms of compliance, legislative and guidance changes are proposed to improve compliance for defined high risk buildings (high rise and public buildings in general).

Any technologies or features the Challenge Sponsor wishes to explore or avoid?

We do not have any specific technologies that we wish to avoid, however It is essential that any solution created is accessible to all citizens and SME organisations in the construction industry. For instance, if a mobile app or other user interface is designed, it must be designed at no cost for a home owner. As such it should not require expensive hardware/software, but be suitable to be deployed simply and inexpensively.

Outside of use by the homeowners, it should be marketed in terms of cost and function in order to develop into a commonly used tool for construction SME’s and small to medium building owners.

What is the commercial opportunity beyond a CivTech contract?

In our experience it would be difficult to get a homeowner to purchase a solution to support in the notification process, this is why we believe the solution should be available at no cost to them, however it is noted that there could be additional services/products that may benefit the buildings industry that could be incorporated. What these look like will sit outside of the current scope of the challenge.

As long as the core requirements of the challenge are delivered, and as long as the use of personal details are not expected without consent, or as a condition of delivering the core functionality, commercial opportunity in terms of sales data, defects data, or any other construction based services, legal services (dispute resolution), insurance services, advertising etc. could be possible.

Who are the stakeholders?

• Scottish Government Building Standards Division (The Sponsor):

• Local Authority Building Standards (LABSS) – the representative body of local authority building standards teams

• CSIC – Construction Scotland Innovation Centre - (BE-ST)

Potential interested stakeholders we can make introductions to:

• Federation of Master Builders (Scotland)

• Local authorities – We are looking to work with a pilot Local Authority during this accelerator and will work with you to deem the best appropriate one that we are able to get.

Who’s in the Challenge Sponsor team?

Scottish Government Building Standards Division (The Sponsor):

• Frank Doherty, Digital Strategy Team Leader;

• Thomson Dyer, Compliance Plan and Technical Strategy Policy Lead;

• Ken Craig, Digital Strategy Policy Lead and Delivery Model Policy Support.

Additional non-official supporting parties (Not sponsors, but will be involved in some way):

• CSIC – Construction Scotland Innovation Centre - (BE-ST)

Subject Matter experts:

• We can provide access to relevant subject matter experts:

• Example - There are policy documents and guidance documents around the compliance process which can be shared and advised upon. There will be data around the performance indicators which ran for a few years on notifications

What is the policy background to the Challenge?

The target for this challenge applies to lower in risk building types, but these types of buildings equate to approximately 80% of building standards applications made annually. This work to alter or create new building stock annually can, by being compliant with the safety and energy efficiency requirements of building standards make a substantial contribution to society.

Solving this problem will allow for more effective compliance checking, with local authority building standards teams looking at the right things at the right time, as well as providing live data on common non-compliances, so that improvements in effort and focus can be delivered by owners, contractors and local authorities.

In context there were approximately 45,000 building warrants and amendments issued annually pre-Covid, with a value of work estimated at £7 billion. The opportunity exists to make a game changing contribution to Scotland’s ambition to deliver a first class Building Standards System for the people of Scotland and carbon reduction.

In 2012 Scottish Government in partnership with Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS) launched a new way of working in order to improve the level of compliance through inspection with the mandatory building standards, which apply to virtually all new construction in Scotland. This required local authority teams to provide a Construction Compliance Notification Plan (CCNP) with every building warrant approval. This plan details what stages of construction the building owner should notify the local authority about so that they can inspect works on site. It also allowed for acceptable alternatives such as photographic evidence, to be detailed up front by the local authority. Performance returns noted that this process was not fully successful in that notifications were low.

Following well publicised failures of public buildings in Scotland a Compliance and Enforcement Review was undertaken by Professor John Cole which reported in 2018 noted both that an increased focus on checking compliance on actual buildings as opposed to focusing on the approval of plans was desirable, as well as placing the compliance onus on owners and developers. The substantial opportunity for the greater use of digital tools was also highlighted.

Dame Judith Hakitt’s report on the tragedy at Grenfell, and the subsequent Ministerial working group on Building and Fire Safety in Scotland highlighted a lack of knowledge and indifference to the requirements of building regulatory systems, and a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities. While the Scottish Ministerial Group noted the existence of similar issues to those in the rest of the UK, it noted that the Scottish System was not broken, but required strengthening. It also noted that while the focus is rightly on high risk buildings, the principles for improvement should be equally applied to all regulated construction work in Scotland.

Policy actions are being taken around High Risk Buildings, with the introduction of a compliance plan manager role, to coordinate and provide greater assurance that compliance with building standards and legislative procedure has been achieved. Investment in digital compliance for SME’s is underway to compliment Construction Scotland’s plan for digital transformation for construction SME’s, but focusing on better compliance with building standards.