COMPETENCY PATHWAY

ASFP Competency Pathway

The built environment sector is currently going through an unprecedented level of change. Following the Grenfell Tower disaster and subsequent publication of the Hackitt report, many challenges have been highlighted which need to be addressed in order to make buildings and their occupants safer. As a result of this the Building Safety Act has emerged, supported by a major programme of secondary legislation stretching up to 2024. This is the single biggest change in building safety legislation in a generation.

The Act has driven creation of the Building Safety Regulator – responsible not only for safety and performance of buildings, but also promotion of competence and organisational capability in the built environment. It is clear that there is now more focus than ever on ensuring that organisations have staff capable of conducting their work safely and effectively, and that those organisations are creating a safe and effective environment for them to work in. The key message is one of culture change – that industries and sectors need to take responsibility for determining, measuring, and evidencing the competence of their workforce.

As it has for decades, the ASFP is working to address these challenges. This includes supporting the sector in strengthening measures to determine and certificate organisational capability, and introducing new methods of articulating, measuring, and recording the competence of the individuals working within it. For ASFP’s work to truly add value, it needs the support of organisations across the full range of disciplines and activities involved in ensuring the right passive fire protection is included in buildings to make them and their occupants safe.