Building Standards Futures Board: Building Standards Hub Pilot
By Cassandra Dove, SFHA Research and Policy Lead.
The Building Standards Futures Board was established in May 2019 by the then Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning Kevin Stewart MSP to provide guidance and direction on making transformative changes to the building standards system. One of the key initiatives being taken forward under the Futures Board Remit is a national Building Standards Hub.
Alan McAulay, previously Team Leader at South Lanarkshire Council Building Standards, and James Whiteford, Lead Building Standards Surveyor at Scottish Borders Council, have been appointed as the Building Standards Hub (BSH) Directors from Monday 23 May 2022 for 18 months. The Directors will be working closely with Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS), Building Standards Division (BSD) and Fife Council to deliver on the scope of work for the pilot stage of the hub.
The Building Standards Hub will provide a central administration, co-ordination and guidance resource available to all local authority building standards teams in Scotland to support consistency between local authority verifiers. The hub also aims to formalise and develop current LABSS building standards services and explore the provision and sharing of specialist verification skills in areas such as fire and structural engineering. The hub will provide a forum for developing and delivering relevant training for Local Authority Building Standards surveyors. The hub will also include a digital transformation element to support local authority building standards services on this journey.
Partnerships at a national level are also planned, for example, the facilitation of workload sharing between local authority verifiers to support customer service delivery during localised workload surges or temporary staff shortages. Extensive stakeholder engagement has been undertaken by the Hub directors, with feedback to date indicating support for the concept of a permanent hub after completion of the pilot phase.
Further information about the proposals can be found on the Scottish Government website: Building Standards Building Standards Futures Board: Verification Delivery Model – Building Standards Hub Pilot - Building Standards (blogs.gov.scot)