welcome everyone who's joined so far we've got a few hundred registered for today so we're just going to give it a few minutes to let everyone join and then we'll we'll kick off shortly okay we'll kick things off so welcome everyone to today's I the Scotland Regional group cpds webinar which is on common Sr audit findings but we K off just going to highlight some upcoming events that we have so our next inperson seminar is going to be at the dark Studio of Edinburgh on Tuesday 2nd of October that's on structural fire engineering after that in uh November on the 5th we are going to welcome our current president Tanya the hook to Glasgow we've got a presentation on the University of Glasgow uh campus Redevelopment project and then later in November we've our main event for the year which the structural Awards which is going to be at the drate in Glasgow on the 14th of November so projects which have been short will be announced shortly and tickets are available promisees to be a fantastic evening a great chance for us all to celebrate the amazing work we're doing in Scotland so for to seeing a lot of you there for that main event as always please follow us on LinkedIn for uh finding out about all upcoming events and yeah giving us feedback on things we're doing in Scotland on today's talk onr common audit findings and thank you very much to Mark who agreed to present today so Mark is chair ofr Scotland Registration Board he's a ched engineer with over 40 years experience and he was previously a partner with harle had he been involved with board and audit pool since 2006 so I'm going to pass over to Mark in a minute and he's going to give her about a 40 45 minute presentation and then at the end we'll do Q&A if you got any question you'd like to ask please put them in the zoom chat function and then we'll go through as many we can at the end appreciate a lot of questions we might run out of time Mark's kindly offered to answer that we don't get to by email is also offered to share the slides after today's event so thank you and over to you mark thanks Richard um I will share my screen if you bear with me a second hopefully you can all see that page excellent thank you uh good afternoon all thank you very much Richard for the introduction um and thank you to everyone for joining us today I believe there's quite a number so that's really good to see that we're generating a high level of interest um it's quite gratifying actually to be able to get in front of everyone again uh and talk to you about a few of the issues that we come across um when we are out and about doing audits um I do have a lot to cover so I will bash on but um I have to say that as with everything associated with certification the presentation is fairly dry um so please bear with hopefully you will all be able to take something away from today um excuse me I did wonder about a title for this uh we did start off calling it um common audit findings and then uh I of ended up calling it auditing but actually on review I think we should call this presentation certifying uh and I'll explain to you why as we go through so a brief introduction about me I amk Lawler I am chair of the Scottish Registration Board to operate the scheme in Scotland on behalf of SC limited um my background is over 40 years in mainstream consultant engineering practice uh during which I was involved in the design of on all manner of projects large and small uh pretty much the length and breadth of the country as well um I also had 15 years as a partner in an ad practice and finished my career with them as a consultant laterly I in addition to that I was anr certifier from 2005 to 2022 uh so 17 years from when the scheme was first implemented and during that time I raised over 300 1300 certificates sorry um which might seem a lot to some but maybe not so much to some others uh and then alongside that I have been involved on and off with the Scottish Registration Board since 2005 um and during that time I've conducted over 300 audits uh again so familiar with the whole process and getting out and about and speaking to people about their certification processes uh and I've also carried out about uh 100 or more presentations and workshops so uh that is me um let's have a look at the program and what we're going to cover today uh we are going to start with some basics of the certification process and why we do what we do why we do it as certifiers why we do why we do what we do as Auditors uh we're going to look at the certification performance criteria briefly and how that they can help you in your process we are going to look at common findings from approved certifier Audits and where we think it might go wrong and we are going to look at common findings in approved body audits um bear in mind that the certifier needs the bod's support so that tends to be the the root of any findings that we come up with um principally anyway and then as Richard said we'll finish with a brief Q&A session so we'll hopefully get you a way back to your desks uh within the hour or slightly over the hour we'll see how we go uh I have to say though um this goes back to the title of a presentation today what will we not cover this presentation will not tell you how to pass an audit it is not about passing an audit that's probably one of my my least favorite bug beers when I hear someone asked the question how do I pass an audit certification is not about passing an audit uh it's certification of the design of the building structure is about establishing compliance of the design with the building standards as required by the legislation so I will hopefully show you why that applies in the next few slides so let's look at the basics and we'll start by looking at the Declaration on the certificate what do we do in part A of the certificate we certify that having exercise reasonable skill care and diligence in consideration of the design proposal for the project described in the application that the structural design complies with the building Scotland regulations with respect to standards 1.1 and 1.2 so what's the key statement there I certify that the design proposal for the project complies with standards 1.1 and 1.2 pretty fundamental uh statutory instrument 428 which is the building procedure Scotland regulations 2004 and there in close 371 you will find that records shall be maintained by approved certifiers who are members of a scheme and those records shall include information showing how compliance with the building regulations was established so these are that's a fundamental legal requirement as laid out in the legislation one one of them one of one of them we'll come touch briefly on one of the other ones momentarily uh and then looking uh at the four primary stages of the certification process the first one is scoping certifiers need to see that a scope of certification correctly identifies all elements that need to be covered in the certification of a project uh the next stage is planning certifiers need to see that the process has been carefully plann to account for the design process the complexities of the design and for the warrant submission and then there is reviewing certifiers need to review all suitably checked design information prior to certifying the design and lastly we have documenting certifiers need to ensure that comprehensive records are maintained to show how compliance was established as I said a couple of slides ago that's a fundamental legal requirement on certifiers uh and what about auditing why do we audit well the Scottish government requires that all approved certifiers who are members of a certification scheme are audited that is after all how ministers get confidence that the requirements of each of the schemes are being met remember of course the audit checks the certification process it does not check the design uh an our SC scheme sets out a variety of performance criteria against which both the approved bodies and approved certifiers are audited so let's look briefly at those uh if you go to our audit procedures which were updated March 2022 you will find an appendix a 14 approved body performance criteria against which we audit and in appendix B you will find 27 approved certifier criteria against which we audit uh I've noted an extract from appendix B the performance criteria for proof certifiers this is basically the layout that is followed through all of the appendix requirements at the back of the audit procedures um I've just picked a random B 4.7 stability elements in the First Column you will find performance criteria that basically tells you what you need to do uh in the middle column you will find an indication a list of potential non-conformances things that might constitute a major non-conformance the list isn't exhaustive and then in the last column there you will find a list of things that might constitute Improvement issues again the list is not exhaustive um you'll find as well that if you review these documents read the documents carefully the language is fairly repetitive um and the focus in most of the criteria is evidence of the certifier review remember that the certifier should be maintaining a record of how compliance with the standards was established so that's what that's all about you will also find the performance criteria on the website if you go to the resources button on the top right hand corner of the page you don't even need to log in I've actually logged in on this page that's copied across there but you don't need to log in you just need to click the Scotland button that will take you to the front page and click the resources button uh if you then select the certification performance citeria button that will take you to a drop- down menu of all of the certification performance criteria for approved certifiers uh you then select the required category in this case funly enough I've gone for 4.7 again stability elements you will find that the performance criteria is identical excuse me is identical there to what is described in the appendix B of the audit procedures you will also find the lists of potential non-conformances which come further down the page uh are identical um but in addition to that there are some additional background as to why we've asked for what we've asked for so these these can actually be quite useful on the website slightly more expansive than um the the criteria in appendix B and appendix a um these are only provided for uh certifiers at the moment we do intend to expand into approved bodies in due course uh and then certifiers will obviously refer to the performance criteria and the appendices of the audit procedures when they are conducting audits um so it kind of stands to reason it makes common sense that certifiers might want to consider the same criteria when certifying I mean it might seem blindingly obvious but uh for some reason a lot of people people seem to miss that point um so let's now start to look at the uh most common findings in approved certifier audits I'm going to start with a couple of General findings that don't have don't relate to specific um criteria first one is evidence of how compliance with standards was established in other words evidence of the certified review as I say you will see that word evidence repeat consistently throughout our criteria this is probably the most common issue encountered um a lack of evidence of the certifi review or indeed no evidence it will have an impact on most of the certifier criteria if it's um if it's consistent throughout certification practice it usually stems for from poor records of the process the certification process who certification records uh and not surprisingly it will also be reflected in the Body Audit often stems from a lack of support on the part of the body um it's very easily resolved I have to say excuse me um you can provide evidence of your review in a number of different ways um Auditors will always be looking to see the certifi fingerprints over the documentation by fingerprints we mean clear evidence that has been some form of review throughout and it may comprise a checklist based on the certif certification performance criteria uh that would enable a date to be recorded and you might want to incorporate that within your certification plan talk a bit more about that later it might include notes on the certification plan added by the certifier either by hand or PDF markup or typed in as long as the dates clear the dates are clear um that's clear evidence that the certifiers been involved it might include check prints Mark cies of drawings and calculations and specifications it may include a record of any review meetings that have been held between the certifier and the designers with any actions and any outcomes and any dates associated with all of that uh there might be a review sheet prepared by the certifier with comments uh again dates and responses and how things are resolved uh are always F uh an email Trails can be a really useful uh way of demonstrating that certifier has been involved in reviewing design so a dialogue between the certifier and the designer whether in-house or um third party and then I've added in ubiquitous Etc there because um that is by no means an exhaustive list there are number of different ways as I said of giving evidence that you have reviewed the certification records uh another General one that we seem to come across quite often certifying for third parties where a certifier might take uh a project from another engineering practice perhaps um and provide certification services for it that's a really strange one in my view um erodic teams have often found that for some bizarre reason certifiers in these circumstances seem willing to to lower their own usual high standards so you might go along to audit a certifier and pick up one of their own jobs and and it scores very well when review the audit and you pick up the next job that they certified for somebody else and it can be a bit of a disaster so I think that's something that you need to be careful of uh it is likely to generate a number of findings over a few different categories it's often based on insufficient information um maybe the maybe the other engineers said it'll be okay I've done it correctly just got with it and we often find that in these circumstances certifiers are bow to pressure to sign the certificate before the the information is complete to sign it far too early just want to add in a we a site here let goes back to what I said earlier about other legal requirements just remember that Reckless certification is an offense under the legislation it's it's an offense that you cannot insure against it's not a civil liability it's a criminal liability so I'll leave you to dwell on that momentarily uh and as ever this will also be reflected in the Body Audit so let's now look at the categories uh the performance criteria in particular um b1.1 certification procedures and records that covers a multitude of different areas um and we often find that there's a lack of or an inadequate certification strategy usually stemming from inadequate scoping and planning scoping and planning basically underpin all certification so it's essential that these are carried forward comprehensively it often leads to findings in a number of different categories again and usually arise is when there is a poor or indeed no certification plan in operation certification plan is probably key a key document um for a number of reasons which we will cover as we go through the presentation and because of pure scoping elements are often omitted which is quite alarming when you see that something is certified in a drawing but there's no information no structural information on it at all uh it often results in pure planning of a staged warrant application and some elements are certified on the basis of insufficient details and calculations when this whole strategy hasn't really been thought through thoroughly again this will be reflected in the Body Audit so what about the certification strategy what can we do to fix it um comprehensively planed plannned approach is going to resolve most of the issues that we find here uh a good comprehensive certification plan would include a section on scoping the project also in planning a good certification plan will enable the process to be planned to reflect the various complexities in the design and the whole warrant submission process uh it will also benefit from a checklist which would be based on our performance criteria in appendix B uh and it will facilitate recording of the process and enable dates of the various activities to be recorded So the certification plan I would suggest is probably key here um I guess it's not essential that you have one but I would suggest that for everything but the most simple small small scale jobs it's pretty important that you do otherwise things are going to be missed and they will be found audit uh another one that is common so the distinction between certification records and project records is pretty clear certification records are the record of how compliance was established project records are effectively what was certified so we quite often find that there is an inadequate or indeed a lack of Records of what was certified again this is going to lead to findings in a number of different categories and again it will be reflected in the Body Audit so just to be clear let's just have a quick look again at the certificate declaration in part A I certify that having exercise reasonable skill care and diligence in consideration of the design proposal for the project described in the application so you are certifying the design proposal for the project described in the application so the information submitted with a warrant application effectively describes the project in the application and it's obviously there for very important that you understand what that information is because that is what you are certified so how do we ensure that there is a comprehensive record of the project well the first thing you can do is utilize the list of information used for the purposes of certification that's the thing that's attached to your certificate where you record the list of drawings you can add to that any relevant engineering drawings and details and any specifications and indeed relevant reports such as maybe the ground investigation maybe uh an existing building assessment if that's to be submitted with the warrant package uh it should also include Architects and any other third party details as relevant and now by Architects drawings I'm not talking about iron rary schedules and window schedules we are talking nevertheless about principal plans and ation what describes the layout of the building and what describes the building envelope seems pretty obvious to me and then all information listed there it should be current and it should be coordinated at the point of certification so what do we mean by that well there's no point in in listing revision a of the architect's ground floor plan when in actual fact it's revision D that the architect is going to submit with the warrant application so it's critical really that you ensure that that's all coordinated correctly um and bear in mind that that is effectively your Line in the Sand that is what you're certifying so anything that happens after that point might not be covered by the certificate so this is how you protect yourself and make sure that what make sure it's absolutely clear what it is that you've certified excuse me uh B 1.4 use of third party design details option in other words the use of schedule one for uh contractor designed elements um we often find that it's been used inappropriately we often find it's been used on stage projects now there are some exceptions to that but you should in general avoid using it where the project is staged uh we often find that there is a lack over or And Delay advice to the client on the implications of using schedule one uh and probably more common than anything we find that there is insufficient preliminary design uh um Andor an inadequate specification so uh there needs to be a comprehensive performance specification there also needs to be design intent indicated clearly on the drawing uh so the certifier needs to be satisfied that the preliminary design and that the final design uh will be compatible with the primary structure to which the element is to be attached and again this is likely to be reflected in the Body Audit under uh h 2.9 which we'll talk about later so how do we go about resolving that well again without wishing to State the blindingly obvious use this option in the correct way read the guidance there's mad guidance there's guidance notes there's performance criteria there's blogs Avail yourself of all of that information uh consider other options does it make sense to to schedule something out when maybe staging would be appropriate what's the advantage in staging well the big Advantage is that you will have all of the information in your hand uh checked uh and resolved prior to certification so you're not running around later uh trying to catch up on everything and provide a form Q excuse me a week after it's needed excuse me um what you also need to do whatever possible is agree any schedule on elements as as early as possible with the rest of the design team members uh and then it's important that you advise the client or the AG and or the Agents of the implications of using schedule one prior to commencing certification if you do it after you've certified it you're just going to end up where we are at the moment where everyone runs around at the 11th hour trying to find informations to enable uh the certifi to sign off form q and we all know the issues that that arise when that happens so please use your best Endeavors to invoid it and of course the last thing you can do is ensure that the preliminary design is prepared and coordinated with the primary structure and that the this the performance specification is robust and comprehensive I'm going to refer here for the first time to the annexes in the procedural guidance affectionately known to us as the blue book um there's a link to on the website in the resources menu uh the blue book is the procedural I'm going to say this off the top of my head the procedural guidance on certification brackets including information to be submitted with the warrant application Clos brackets uh it's got a bright blue cover which is obviously why we call it the blue book um but the annex is at the back of that AR key um when a certifier is checking drawings the certifier should be referring to those annexes to make sure uh that the information in the annexes is also communicated on the drawings uh B 2.2 overall stability for some reason seems to be missed or purly considered so the method of achieving stability isn't thoroughly thought through uh there's no clear description of how stability is achieved now it's particularly important in complex buildings maybe not so much for straight forward Timber framed house with no sway frames but it's important otherwise uh there might be insufficient or indeed in some cases no calculations for the overall stability clearly that's an over it's overall stability is an absolutely key consideration in all buildings so certifiers need to see that the stability system proposed is adequate and you might want to record comments as you review it you might want to see that a comprehensive statement describing stability system is provided uh and in complex situations that might need to be supported by outline sketches again just make sure that this these statements these designs reflect the complexity of the system proposed uh and this the certifi needs to ensure that there are sufficient suitably checked stability calculations don't certify if those calculations don't exist or if there aren't enough of them to your satisfaction uh v2.3 disproportionate collapse seems often to be brushed over primarily because there's an inadequate or indeed no risk assessment that can result in the risk class and the risk group being incorrectly identified uh and so the provision to resist disproportionate collapse is incorrectly assessed uh and then we find from that the disproportionate collapse details indicated in the drawings are just not up to scratch so again disproportionate collapse is a key consideration for all buildings I would urge you for even the most simplest of buildings to record a comment to the effect that this is risk class 1 a b or whatever uh therefore no special measures are required just record it and that shows clearly that you have considered disproportionate collapse as part of your certification process obviously for higher risk categories you might want to say something a bit more than that so certifiers need to see that an adequate risk assessment has been undertaken to identify the risk class and the risk group uh certifi needs to ensure that uh the requirements are correctly assessed uh and the certifier needs to ensure that adequate checked calculations have been prepared and that there are sufficient details indicated on the drawings again just common sense uh B 3.1 ground investigation reports we often find that the scope of the investigation appears to be inadequate uh and that there is an inadequate or indeed no interpretation of the ground conditions that have been recorded uh and quite often sadly with this there seems to be a lack of or indeed no evidence that the certifier has reviewed the report in any way shape or form uh and sometimes we'll find that the foundation solution doesn't reflect the ground conditions reported or the um solution recommended in a site investigation report or whatever um if the certifi if the designer and the certifier agree that the the foundation solution is going to be different then make sure that you record your consideration of that and why you've concluded that it can be changed uh as always site investigation reports are a key element of the design process so certifi need to see that the scope of the investigation reflects the scale of the project I mean there's no point in having six trial pits around the periphery of a seven or eight story flatty development that's just not not appropriate at all we have seen that in the past certifiers need to see that there's an interpretive report which again is commensurate with the scale of the project and they need to see that the foundation solution proposed is appropriate to the conditions recorded and again certifiers need to clearly record evidence of their review again this can be overmarking report or it can be a little crit sheets or whatever a number of different ways of doing it but please ensure that there is evidence of the review uh b3.2 existing building assessment the scoping of it is often inadequate it doesn't necessarily reflect the level of intervention in the existing building it's quite often poorly recorded so we might find that there are existing building drawings maybe a few photos but there are no words to go with that for example just one example um quite commonly there isn't any sort of clear statement on the impact of the design of the alterations uh on the existing building and whether or not any mitigation measures are required uh and quite often the periphery of the building or is there anything on the perimeter of the building that that the new building might impact quite often that's missed we quite often see issues where for example um even in the smaller scale buildings there's an extension built tight to a boundary and there's been no consideration at all as to what's on the other side of the boundary and so for existing building assessments it's important the certifier sees that the scope reflects the The Works proposed the level of intervention proposed and it's important that the record of the assessment is clear and that it includes a conclusion on the impact of the work of The Works uh and an indication of any proposed mitigation measures and of course the certifi needs to see that the environment of the building and its surroundings have been fully accounted for in the assessment e4.2 next sub structure um this primarily relates to description of soils the ground conditions anticipated or rather a lack of description and so it's important that the certifier sees that the anticipated sub soils are clearly described again refer to the annexes in the Blue Book tells you there what you need to do um and it's important that the certifier sees that there's a clear description of the ground conditions as recorded in the the si uh and notes also that the anticipated bearing capacity is there and that should reflect also what's included in the calculations I would recommend that when when recording a description of the anticipated soils on drawings you should include a description of the materials the color I think that's quite important the color expected um and then some of the material properties like density stiffness and of course the bearing capacity the anticipated bearing capacity that's all indicated in the blue book b 4.7 stability elements seems to be commonly missed uh the stability elements those elements required for the stability of the building are not clearly shown on the drawings uh this is common particularly in domestic projects um for some reason don't know why but quite often houses that are Timber framed but may have large openings that require a sway frame um these are stability elements they need to be clearly indicated as stability elements the timber framed walls need to be where where the rocking walls need to be clearly indicated as stability elements a blue big requirement so please do it um and consider when deciding what needs to be shown on the drawings consider the complexity again of the stability system uh and there's a certified to see that stability elements are clearly shown on the drawings 4.9 structural ties fixings and connections it comes up alarmingly often in certifier audits uh you need you need to ensure that these are detailed fully and comprehensively ties fixs and connections are basically what hold our buildings together we often find that there are inadequate or indeed missing connection details it's quite common with Gable restraint stps for some reason uh and quite common with holding down arrangements and other roof construction details where you've got a trust drafter roof I'm not really sure why that happens but um it just shouldn't and it's quite clear again uh what is required um we we quite often find that where steel connections are indicated on schedule one there is no clear design intent and the design intent is important for even the simplest of connections um giving the example of a beam to column connection where you have assumed that the the beam will be connected to the web of the column um but the fabricator and their wisdom decides that to face plate across the toes of the flanges of the column would be easier for erection purposes and so what does that do obviously induces a greater eccentricity for which the column is not designed so it's important that you indicate a design intent not just for complex connections but also for uh the simplest of connections uh we quite often find it where you've got details pack details packs um they aren't included with the project information most commonly with timber frame buildings uh I'm not really sure why these are emitted but uh again really easy to resolve as I said connections need to be carefully detailed so certifiers need to see that there are sufficient details to demonstrate how the various elements come together certify needs to see the design intent for steel connections is clear and the certifier needs to see that all relevant details noted in the list of information that're included as submitted with the certificate so so again details packs for the likes of timber frame buildings standard details uh the next categories B 5.1 and 5.2 building envelope and building envelope fixings and supports are flump together because they're kind of synonymous um we often find it there poor consideration of cladding interactions where there are multiple systems so it's not unusual at all to have four or five different cladding systems on one building uh um and there's often no consideration of how they come together and how they interact with the primary structure and how they interact with each other uh you might find that there are no calculations or inadequate calculations and details for the cladding and for the cladding fixings and we might find that there are inadequate or indeed no consideration of glazing and the fixings that's probably quite alarming too A lot of people for whatever reason seem to overlook glazing and glazing fixings so as with everything these elements require careful consideration and the certifier needs to see that the details and Cals are sufficient to describe the design of the structural elements they need to see that the interactions and interfaces are designed and detailed appropriately and one thing that we quite often see is where we have large glazed panels supported by Steel workor uh and obviously the glazing will sustain very limited deflections but for some reason isn't accounted for in the design of the steel so these are things that need to be thought through and the certifier needs to see that they have been considered as part of the design uh the certifier needs to see that the fixings are appropriate to the substrate and adequate for the loads again we quite often find that we have metal fasteners specified for window frames that might be fixed to masonry or timber frame buildings just completely inappropriately or that they're not up to the low required because the certifier doesn't understand how the glazing element is actually working whether it's spanning horizontally vertically two ways whether are millions all that kind of thing the certifier has not understood how these things are coming together uh b6.1 internal partitions and ceilings often overlooked because they can be considered to be non-structural which I have to say is simply not the case uh we find that there's inadequate or indeed no consideration of the design and detailing it's a particular concern in public buildings um and evidence as to how these how compliance of these elements has been established um can be provided in a number of different ways so the certifier can see that there's an adequate risk assessment which considers safety particularly in public buildings what are the consequences of any failure of any of these [Music] elements the certifier can see that a ient checked calculations have been presented prior to certification certifier can ensure that sufficient details are provided for partitions such as the head and base fixings any stud details including the fixings and centers and the certifier can see that sufficient details are provided for ceilings again particularly in public buildings where the consequences of a ceiling collapse could be significant uh and that will include consideration of the construction of the ceiling and the supports of the ceiling houses supported what's it supported from 6.2 protective barriers we often see reports in the cross circulars about failures of protective barriers so I'm not really sure why people don't pay more attention here we will often find that the design of the barrier structure in the infill is inadequate or poor we will often find that there's pure consideration of the interaction with the primary structure so how if it's a can lver barrier pardon it's a can lever barrier how is that fixed to the primary structure of its base has the torsion arising from the moment being taken account of in the support excuse me um and we quite often find that the design intent and the performance specification are inadequate when inadequate when schedule one is used that would only apply to risk Group 1 a and 1B buildings as I said barriers are clearly e safety critical Elements which come up time and again in the cross reports so please do pay more attention to them uh and as a certifier you should see that there are sufficient checked calculations and details you should see that the primary structure is capable of supporting the applied loads and you should ensure that there is sufficient preliminary design information and design intent when schedule one is used excuse me um the last thing to just cover as part of this part of the presentation is um CPD uh as you know certifiers will review the previous threeyear submissions when auditing sorry Auditors will review the previous threee submissions uh the most common issue we encounter here um surprisingly it's not a lack of cert a lack of CPD it's actually pure recording of the activity and the learning outcome which makes it really difficult to award the hours claimed um and pure CPD will also be reflected in the Body Audit uh and so to comply with SE requirements please refer to guance not seven into the recent blog post the recent blog posts are really good really helpful so please look at those uh I would also thoroughly recommend that you make use of the SE notepad to record your CPD as and when you do it um I had a bit of an epiphany when I discovered this uh about 5 years before maybe seven years before I resigned as a certifier and it just made the whole process so much easier so again I would thoroughly recommend that you take advantage of that um ensure that the activity and the learning outcome are clearly detailed tell us what you gained from the activity how how it helped you as a certifier uh and then submit the CPD well in advance of the deadline it's quite obvious when people leave CPD till the last minute or even later uh that it's been rushed it's clear that the um descriptions are on liners that don't really help anyone um and so please do please do uh make sure that you submit it well in advance of the deadline the deadline is 31st of March uh I would thoroughly recommend that you get it in by the end of January okay let's move on now to most common findings um in approved body audits first one is category 1.2 support for the approved certifiers this will come up when there have been pure certifier audits which would indicate um significant deficiencies in the level of support often the certification plan is poor or indeed has been purely utilized if it's might be the best certification plan ever but the certifier has chosen not to follow it for whatever reason uh the time and resource allocation given over to the certification process might be completely inadequate there might be a lack of properly checked designs presented to the certifier it's just putting pressure on the certifier when these things aren't properly checked um and there might be inadequate support in agreeing a plan for certification with the rest of design team so the certifier needs to go forward and explain what they need when you need it the approved body needs needs to support the certifier uh in making that clear to the design team and then again there is bowing to pressure from the client and the agent to provide the certificate for to early so you like the pre bodybody will sometimes bow to the pressure and then apply pressure to the the certifier that the employ to provide that certificate before it's ready to be certified please don't do that uh and support can be provided obviously in a number of ways um you can ensure that the certification process being operated in the practice is robust and that the certifier is following it you can ensure that there is adequate resource and time allocated to the process you can ensure that the certifier is presented with appropriately checked designs before certifying uh you can facilitate design team meetings to agree the plan for the warrant and you can of course support the certifier in resisting any external pressures when someone comes along to you and and we've all been there you get the phone call at 2:00 saying you need to certificate by 4:00 or uh or everything's going to go horribly wrong um I think you just need to make people aware that you can't do it it's you've got a legal requirement to ensure that the certification process is complete and robust uh you don't want to find yourself accused of Reckless certification uh in which the client have to add can also be implicated in addition to that you don't want to have a project like that audited uh and the result of that might be that you lose your ability to certify and as soon as you say to the client that all of that is not good for business in my experience you'll find that the client will um will actually understand the importance of what get doing a 1.4 training this usually is recorded when the certifi CPD falls short of the requirements um is usually symptomatic of an inadequate or indeed lack of support for SC relevant CPD um and it is also symptomatic of inadequate monitoring of the certified CPD so what can this the body do to assist uh the body can make themselves aware of the guidance guidance Note 7 and the various blog posts the body can encourage various CPD activities and allocate adequate time and resource to them uh and the body can monitor CPD on a regular basis I'm not suggesting that you do it to weekly monthly even six monthly maybe yearly but preferably well in advance of the deadline uh for submission and that will give the certifier the opportunity to um improve if there is perceived to be a shortfall a2.1 protection of certifiers from Financial losses is a common issue that we come across uh so there's inadequate ored no evidence of measures in appointments to protect certifiers and there is inadequate or no evidence that the body's Pi covers certifiers during and after employment evidence can be provided in a couple of um so firstly make reference to GS Note 6 for some further assistance if you're unsure uh and then include a suitable clause and appointments in which the clients undertake only ever to pursue the body in the event of a claim remember that the uh contract is between the body and the client not between the certifier and the client uh and the body can also obtain written confirmation from the urer that certifiers are covered during and after employment easily fixed uh management of risk so there's the generality of the risk and we find it there's often inadequate or no evidence that the body manages that risk which I find really odd and we find it there's inadequate or indeed no evidence that the body manages the risks specifically relating to certification so approved bodies can help to predict themselves here by making reference again to guidance not 6 uh by ensuring there is an appointment framework some form of ter terms of reference for all commissions uh and that those include Clauses in which the limit the risks limited the risks associated with the certification are limited um again all pretty straightforward easy to do I I've never had any push back from any client when I was getting these things written into appointments so I would thoroughly recommend that you do it if you don't already management of certifier activities there's a bit of overlap here with 1.2 but again A P certifier audit will indicate um inadequate or indeed no monitoring or coordination of the certifier activities it will indicate an adequate resource and time allocation um and the approved body can support Here Again by ensuring that the certifi activities are reviewed regularly is the certifier following the process that you've laid out uh and the body can ensure that enough resource and time is allocated to the whole process 2.4 management of post certification design changes seems to be missed regularly failure to advise the client or the agent of the implications of changes after the certification has been completed or inadequate evidence that the client and the agent have been advised of their obligations under the legislation in relation to changes to the approved design slope uh the approved body can resolve these qu quite easily uh they can advise clients and agents of the implications of changes to the design after the certificate has been finalized and they can ensure that the client and their agent is aware that changes to the approved design should be the subject of an amendment of Warrant uh prior to commencement of work on the area in which the design has been changed that's a fundamental requirement of our building warrant system and easily to easily resolved if it's managed correctly 2.5 maintenance of Records particular concerns here arise where a certifier has changed employer uh the employer doesn't want the certifier to take away any records of any projects so then it would become surely incumbent on the employer the approved body to help the certifier meet their own obligations in terms of uh maintaining a record of how compliance was established uh so we often find that there is inadequate or indeed no support to the certifi in that regard uh and we often find that there are inadequate and sometimes no records presented for particular projects that have been uh called to audit uh again that will be a significant finding if that's the case and approved body without again wishing to State the obvious approved body can ensure that there are comprehensive records maintained not just certification records but also project records uh and they can ensure that all records are made available for audit uh excuse me the last one I think on the approved body audits is the use of thirdparty design details option again schedule one so referring back to B 1.4 there may be inadequate or no evidence that the approved body agreed the schedule one elements prior to commencement of certification and there may be inadequate or indeed no evidence that the approved body advised the client agent of the implications of using schedule one prior to commencement of certification again very easy to resolve agree and or help the certifier to agree with schedule one elements with the rest of the design team prior to commencing the certification process uh and AD advise the client of the schedule one items and of the implications of using schedule one prior to commencing certification not difficult and if you do it before you commence certification no one can come back and say oh you didn't tell me that when they're pushing you to give them a form q and they haven't bothered to give you the information that you've clearly said you need it's Common Sense common sense and so I will leave you with a few key pointers uh please don't think about the audit it's not about passing an audit as I've said before please do think about certifying the project plan the process carefully and take account of the project scope these things underpin every successful certification process uh record how compliance with the St with the standards was established where is the evidence of your review make sure you keep a record of it maintain a clear secure record of what you actually certified in other words the project records uh communicate clearly with your design team colleagues explain to them what what you need as a certifier and when you need it to be able to um execute your own duties as a certifier and don't bow to the pressure that is often applied to certify to I push back against that because um you are potentially committing an offense if you do in terms of Reckless certification and then the last thing to say is just make sure that you record record record record record everything and don't don't throw don't throw check prints out okay you don't need to have you don't need to have shelves full of box Files full of drawings Mark check prints and the like scan them and save them on a a server somewhere and a secure file and the last thing to say is that when it comes up to audit please do work with our audit teams um you will find that uh we have worked hard to make the whole audit process more approachable uh and to do that it needs to be interactive um we like to see it as a learning opportunity both for ourselves and for the certifiers and approved bodies so please take advantage of that um please do raise concerns please do discuss uh this whole project this whole audit process uh openly uh and so that is me thank you very much hopefully I've not overrun too much five minutes or so so I will leave it open into questions uh and at that I will stop the share good stuff Richard yes thanks for that Mark very comprehensive so yeah five minutes we'll go through a few questions first one from Andrew Harvey so he's asked when you say you want to see the certifiers fingerprints over the design should this be the certifiers or can they delegate it to someone else for example you expect certifi to review a design team or subcontractor submissions themselves or could it be delegated to the project engineer project engineer might be looking at it without an scr hat on um you need to remember what this what the role of the certifier is here the role of the certifier is to establish compliance with the standards so it's probably to my mind not suitable to assume that someone else is going to do that for you because basically the book STS with a certifier so if an engineer looks at something um as a designer and and fails to observe that it doesn't in some way comply with the standards then it's not the engineer that will be held responsible for that is the certifier so I would thoroughly recommend that you don't um you don't abdicate that responsibility that you take on board and in actual Fact one of the the main tenants of our scheme is that the certifier should take an holistic overview of the design and to obviously enable that certifier needs to review all aspects of it all elements of it hopefully that answers that question okay um ni had asked about where you can access the blue book um but Ken has kindly came back and dropped a link there to the very straightforward yeah um I mean every every certifier should have that in their in the drawer it's um it's a critical part of the certification process when checking drawings in particular to make sure that all of the correct information is indicated on the drawings okay question what can we do when local author sign completion certificates without obtaining the form cure uh other than hold your head in dispair I'm I'm not really sure not um seriously what you what you can do is report that back to scr who will take it up with uh the building standards department and the building standards Hub uh clearly that is um contrary to the requirements of the legislation and the regulations and so um it it used to happen alarmingly regularly but it seems to be under a lot more control these days but it still does happen um so yes we will use our best Endeavors to raise concerns of that nature with our client the building standards people uh who will hopefully take it up with the The Authority the verifier that's transgressed fair enough okay um yeah I have to say this is a this is an issue for Q is an issue that we have raised very recently with um building standards and with the building standards Hub uh and we've asked them to review the whole process around it and consider things that can be done to ensure that um for for start completion certificates aren't granted without a form q but also to try and resolve issues with um Legacy forms q that go back over a decade you know um we need to do something about it so what's the space okay question from me in when does fcr consider commencement of process starts given the requirements to carry out duties prior to commencement um I'm not I'm not really sure I understand that question but but to my mind um and this is Mark Lawler notr but to my mind I started the certification process when I got uh a set of archex drawings for a project to to give a fe quote for it the first thing I would do is scope out the project how do I know what I'm doing if I don't know the scope of it um so yeah I would say as early as possible like even before you would argue that that commencement has started y y y and as I said before um scoping comprehensive scoping underpins everything that you do as a certifier thereafter so it's really important that you do it comprehensively um other question what can we do when a review of a design and our does not find any issues EG is a check sheet with no no comment sufficient well I guess in that case there's no red pen and so you can you can record with the green and blue pen that you satisfied yourself that everything technicians working for them yeah In fairness it it it does happen it's not not that unusual um it just I suppose it depends on the people that are presenting the information for certification so okay um question from Steven MacArthur what can we do when building control are limiting the number of stages they are prepared to allowed for on projects uh that is a difficult one the building control the verifier has the ultimate say on what the content of the stages will be that's clearly indicated in the procedure regulations um so it's a difficult one to overcome but I guess in those circumstances as long as the design team are aware of these limitations uh there's no reason why you can't plan that into the design information process accordingly um and make sure that when you need the glazing calculations for example that you get them in time to enable you to submit uh what I mean I say this in the workshops I'll say it here again what what we were doing laterally with some of the larger projects was in design team meetings we would have an item for certification and we would also present a a contractor designed portions tracker which indicated any elements that were on schedule one and give clear dates and say what information was required and when it was required basically so I think that's good practice that um you should follow anyway irrespective of whether you're certifying a project great questions from Martin gy how much weight can should be placed on manufacturers data for demonstrating compliance in light of dishonesty fall in grf even when apparently dealing with reputable companies well again you know you've got to take things at face value I suppose and um if if something is certified by recognized Authority is I guess you you have to accept that um but you know as long as the level of inquiry you make and to the products the products concerned is reasonable um I'm not really sure what else what else you can do but certainly yes I mean that that is some of the statements that were coming out from the stage two report last week were alarming uh to say the least and we should all be concerned about that okay cont time one more question um what came from Tim wellton which is what are the implications of using schedule one should be made clear to the client what implications um well firstly that uh that as the designer you're not doing the detailed design but I suppose primarily as the certifier that um there is a process that needs to be followed that the the the element will be um certified initially on the basis of design intent and performance specification uh and then secondly that uh at the end of that process there will be required a form Q for a completion certificate um the timing of the provision of that form Q will depend on the compliance uh plan that is um outlined in the warrant approval um and to enable you to meet the timing of submission of the form Q you need to make the client aware that you will require a lot of information from other people um so that that's really what it's about uh it's pretty clearly set out in the various guidance that we issue uh in terms of the use of that option so thoroughly recommend and In fairness I could probably do a whole seminar on that that aspect Alone um and if to be honest if we had our way as SC we would probably do away with that as a procedure altogether and just make sure that everything was staged because it kind of flies in the face of the whole principle of the warrant system in which uh designs should be approved prior to commencement of work and it has led to all sorts of uh all sorts of issues further down the line as we all know anyone who's ever signed the form Q will know that there are issues with it further down the line sorry anyone who's ever put something on schedule one I be your pardon there there's plenty more we could discuss and yeah Mark it' be great to have another another session with you in the future to do that I think yeah I think these um I think it's really useful to to get in front of our membership to get in front of the profession generally so again thanks for the opportunity Richard very much appreciated I know I said that was the last question but one final final one that's right Ian asked about CPD unembodied carbon is that accepted what I would say there is if that um if that has an impact on the structural design and it can be related to your activities as a certifier then potentially yes it could part of it could be included towards your allocation for SC relative relevant CPD but you need to make that case in your submission okay we'll leave it at that thanks very much for your time and your presentation Mark um thanks everyone for attending all good bye for now