By Jon Vanstone, Certass.

Recently, I was in a meeting with a number of major UK housebuilders talking about endorsements that give confidence. When discussing glazing it became apparent that the view of our industry was a little confused.

Standards required for housebuilding, driven by the work of bodies such as NHBC and Home Builders Federation (HBF), have rapidly increased over time. Gone are the days of asking generalist builders to fulfil the glazing element. However, knowing who to trust is not so easy when dealing with our market.

Housebuilders have built a defined list of products used on any site, particularly important regarding glazing when dealing with the progressive tightening of the Climate Change Act and its five yearly carbon budgets.

The UK is targeted to deliver 300,000 new homes a year to ever-increasing standards in a highly competitive market. Housebuilders currently pick glazing firms they trust and have built up a history with, the standards required for any new business are the same as used when choosing a roofer.

The CSCS blue skilled card is the most sought-after on-site evidence, yet the withdrawal of the experienced worker route from 2021 is going to require glazing to do something different.

Roofing, like glazing, has similar qualification rates, yet the solution to the CSCS issue is to work with CSCS collaboratively in recognising the RoofCERT accreditation programme. Those who are not qualified can be assessed as competent and accredited accordingly.

It is folly to expect those who have spent a lifetime on the tools to gain a qualification, and acceptance of an accreditation structure that looks at competency in installation work is generally seen as OK by industry. Glazing needs to consider this as it moves forward in commercial sector work and the process needs to be driven by talking to those it impacts.

Housebuilders are quickly realising that by specifying RoofCERT today they have a solution for tomorrow, but glazing is two years behind this and the CSCS issue is closing in.

With all the work that BuildUK and others are doing to create a digital solution for onsite recognition of skilled workers, the process will evolve along its current direction. The CSCS card, although not ideal within its current format, will be around for a long time to come as the de facto proof of competence for commercial construction workers.

Sure, businesses will need to comply with other standards and requirements when pitching for such work, but the installer on-site needs to be recognisable as proficient.

Time is running away from us and if we are to innovate then we need to collaborate and consult with those who actually do the work. Programmes designed in meeting rooms by well-meaning groups of bureaucrats tend to be divorced from the reality of working on-site.

If we want to create something recognisable and useable by other areas of construction, we need to deliver that which installers believe will work. Fundamentally, we need to be working on this now.