Digitisation of the golden thread – Your questions answered!

On Wednesday 15 March, IFSEC Global hosted a webinar session, sponsored by PlanRadar, entitled: The digitisation of the golden thread – are you golden thread ready? Here, we cover some of the questions asked by attendees during the session that weren’t answered live by the speakers on the day.

The hour-long session explored the evolution of the golden thread principles and how they’re working in practice since Dame Judith Hackitt introduced them to the fire and building safety industry following her review of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Panellists Robert Norton (UK Team Lead, PlanRadar), Andrew Cooper (Managing Director, Global HSE Solutions & Global Technical Services) and Sofie Hooper (Head of Policy, IWFM), covered the following topics:

• What does the term ‘Golden Thread’ mean?
• How does it drive advances in digitised construction and building safety?
• What are the benefits and challenges of the implementation of digital record-keeping?
• What are the duties of the ‘Responsible Person’ and who is this person?
• Examples of the ´Golden Thread` in practice

Global HSE – Golden thread principles put into practice

Representatives from fire protection specialist, Global HSE, were on hand throughout the webinar to provide their experiences and views on how the golden thread is being implemented in practice in the projects its team of experts have worked on. Several questions were directed towards the team, so we put those remaining queries that weren’t answered during the webinar to Andrew Cooper, Managing Director; Jonathan Harwood, Commercial & Operations Manager; Ross O’Loughlin, Head of Global Technical Services; and Aadam Khan, Technical Advisor.

How do you go about verifying that cavity barriers are being installed correctly in high rise modular timber buildings?

Aadam Khan: Our standard practice is non-specific, whereby we complete a design review pre-construction assessing the façade/wall configuration, material make-up, fire rating requirements as per building regulations and product compatibility. From this, we support with specification of products and ensure installation manuals are adhered to.

We then complete onsite audits at the installation stage, ensuring the product is of the appropriate specification, the workmanship is acceptable, and we take measurements to ensure compression/expansion has been considered aligned with the tolerances of the manufacturer of the cavity barrier.

Do you have any experience of using NFC tags with service penetration seals? Or is it just doors?

Jonathan Harwood: Global have experimented with most identification systems including NFC tags, plugs and QR codes. Whilst all offer very similar benefits, we have chosen for NFC plugs on our manufactured composite doors due to the benefit of evidencing no access. We have opted for self-adhesive, branded QR code for door maintenance and passive fire so that our company can be identified for traceability and cost benefits.

How do you practically maintain and record all this information in buildings where multiple contractors, leaseholders and direct labour may be completing works?

Aadam Khan: We upload all our reports, email correspondence and surveys onto an itemised project folder separated into relevant sub-folders for the project. Upon completion of the project, we look to get the completed folder sent to the client with a Global Reference. With our reports, we send client response forms and chase these to ensure any issues highlighted are clarified and solutions recorded.

Do you provide a tender pack review service to advise on likely requirements with an ongoing monitoring service from stage 5 to completion?

Aadam Khan: During our Design review for the project we will always ask for the Fire Strategy, as this should clarify all aspects of the fire safety elements to the project. In most cases this is not up to standard, or missing, where we have our fire engineering team review and support the project and the fire scrutineering team support with the specification of the fire rating requirements for the fabric of the building.

With all the legislative changes in fire, do you believe that the training for Fire Risk Assessments needs to be changed or improved?

Ross O’Loughlin: We believe all fire risk assessors should be trained and have experience in the building type and occupation they assess. The industry standard is being developed, and taking the lead from the NFCC would not be inappropriate. The level 4 certificate and diploma would be the right sort of level for those involved in QA and review of other work. Assessors should hold a level 3 qualification and be undertaking work based on experience.

We would not expect someone who has passed a qualification to be immediately competent. Fire risk assessing is a complex role and takes experience, peer review and mentorship. The NFCC competency framework is a good starting point but building on knowledge, utilising CPD opportunity and working in a team where peers can support and develop assessors, is the key to competence.

Legislation does not stand still and we believe in continuous development and selection of the right sort of CPD, commitment to lifelong learning and being able to handle ambiguity, all which are critical in delivery of this important role.

Do you know when the 2012 Fire safety in the purpose blocks of flats will be available in 2023, as many clients do not know whether to upgrade or replace existing nominal doors because of the lack of clarity on this point if above 44m in thickness?

Jonathan Harwood: It has not been made exactly clear when the guidance will be published. On the Government website it states intended for 2023. With our clients, we explain the risks in maintaining nominal and notional doors and the mitigating factors of replacing.

Under the BM Trada scheme there is scope to maintain under ‘Approved Repair Techniques’ that offer a Record of Maintenance Activities Form on completion. However, the contractor would need to be told by the client of the intended fire rating prior to assessment. IFC and FIRAS only offer certification for new fire rated components. Critically it does not cover the original installation and existing materials.

Has the Building Safety Regulator defined what platform they wish to receive the Golden Thread of information on from Accountable Persons?

Ross O’Loughlin: This has not been defined as yet. The golden thread of digital information is set out as principles and used to determine the information required from built environment and construction. The Government will specify digital standards which will provide guidance on how the principles can be met in the near future.

The point is the information needs to be accessible to all – building owners, occupiers, BSR, Fire Service etc., so the information gathered needs to be sharable with all types of stakeholders and presented in a digital format that is easy to use. By following the principles set out on the gov.uk website, with a platform that meets this criteria, then we would say the AP would be strongly positioned for scrutiny.

What is important to note is the government will not be mandating the software or tools required to collate this information.

How will the change in Extended Limitations Periods impact the industry?

Andrew Cooper: Prior to the BSA 2022 any claims in England and Wales under the 1972 Defective Premises Act had to be brought with six years of project completion. These timescales were changed as of 28 June 2022 under the Building Safety Act to 15 years for jobs starting after this date and 30 years for all retrospective claims.

Effectively this means:

1. Claims can be sought for dating back to 28 June 1992! Note: this includes remediation, not just the build date!
2. Works completed on 27 June 22 will potentially be subject to a claim until 27 June 2052.
3. Projects completed on 28 June 22 can have claims raised until 28 June 2037.

The increase in limitations periods has the potential to open the floodgates regards claim for defective works, whether remedials works or works under the original contract.

Furthermore, BSA Regulation 7 regards selection of suitable materials, workmanship and ensuring a design is compliant and safe is now an overriding responsibility of contract being a key area of focus.

My personal thought is that we will see a greater willingness to pursue contractors/developers for defective design and works. Litigation will become more common. QA/QC checks regards design, selection of materials, checks on workmanship and robustness regards quality control throughout the construction process will now be at the forefront of the industry (we hope).

The Building Safety Manager role was removed as a requirement within the Building Safety Bill’s passage through parliament – do you think that will, or has, significantly impacted the impact of the legislation?

Ross O’Loughlin: My personal views are the removal from the Building Safety Act was a poor decision, in terms of application of the legislation, without a focused person to do so. The removal may have been to show that in ALL cases it would be difficult and depending on the nature and use of the building then perhaps inappropriate to have a BSM.

This is just conjecture, of course, but the removal of this role, for whatever the reason, should not be considered as deletion in all situations. Building owners, and building portfolio holders, would be naive to expect to stand up to scrutiny from the BSR without a BSM. The BSM focus as laid out in the BSB before removal, would be to act as a specialist in collation and enaction of fire related data and be the key driver for fire safety in the organisation. Ultimately, the arbiter on improving the safety of the in-scope buildings and ensuring the safety case is correctly adopted and produced.

Before building works begin, is ‘early engagement’ happening?

Ross O’Loughlin: Early engagement in our experience, is improving. We are always beating the drum on encouraging Fire Safety in the design. The problem we are seeing is that architects and others in design are hoping to be able to cover off fire safety in their cost. Without the experience this can be dangerous and almost always results in extra costs in remediating a design that has not successfully covered fire safety.

We are seeing tier one and two contractors asking more questions on fire strategies and improved knowledge on the subject. But early engagement can be at any time of the build. If fire safety professionals are consulted at the earliest point of any decision making on fire safety, then the chances are the building will be built compliantly.

PlanRadar – Digital job management software

Several questions were targeted at PlanRadar’s Rob Norton, as attendees sought to understand more about the capabilities of PlanRadar’s digital job management software in a fire safety context. Many were answered within the webinar itself, but here we’ve outlined some of those additional questions that were asked of Rob.

Do you [PlanRadar] do the drawings or do we upload the drawings we have?

Rob Norton, UK Team Lead, PlanRadar

Rob Norton (RN): Customers can upload the drawings free of charge at any time. It takes seconds to import hundreds of drawings. You can also update any revisions as and when required. The Pro licence gives you 100 drawings per user.

How flexible is this app for CDM projects that are fast moving? For example, where fencing is moved regularly and fire evacuation routes dynamically change.

RN: Very flexible, we can customise your forms and questions set ready for all projects. You create multiple master projects with the right forms for the project, copy the master project and add the new project details and drawings. This takes minutes to do and is live on all mobile devices attached to the project.

How easy is it to share data with external organisations like insurance companies without a massive data dump? Can it be filtered for instance? Would an insurance company surveyor be able to read the QR tags on site or would we need a license?

RN: You can create custom filters to instantly share the right information to a client in a specific bespoke report (PDF or Excel). You can invite the insurance companies in free of charge as a ‘watcher’ to then review/scan the QR codes or NFC tags. They cannot edit your data without a paid licence.

Do you [PlanRadar] conform to BS8644-1 for your structure?

Yes, you can use the system to support the document capture of BS8644-1. We are releasing a full CDE next week.

How many users can the app realistically serve and can details for evacuation routes be highlighted and shared to workers on site? To support signage etc.,

RN: There are no limitations on how many users can be invited into PlanRadar – we work with global companies with tens of thousands of users. Yes, you can share evacuation routes and any details with the entire site team and even have read receipts as to when they’ve seen it or sign off on documents.

Do you [PlanRadar] include 3D models and are documents associated with a 3D environment in your platform?

RN: Yes, we can support 3D models and documents within PlanRadar and associate these with elements in the model tree.

I have known Insurance companies to not pay out for industrial fires with serious consequences – does this app support mitigation with insurance companies?

PlanRadar supports the data capture for all information onsite and keeps a ‘black box’ record with tamperproof audit trails. The system could therefore provide proof/evidence of work completed onsite, any comments made, photographic and video evidence where applicable etc.

Plenty more questions were covered during the session, as well as presentations provided by Robert Norton and Andrew Cooper about the digitisation of the golden thread – so watch back on-demand, here >>