The horrific fire at Grenfell Tower has rightly raised huge questions of all kinds about the construction industry – of the codes and regulations it follows, of the products it uses, of the way it procures, of the way it manages the buildings it builds, and of how it responds when rules are bent or broken. Work to answer those questions has been ongoing ever since. But until last week’s publication of a report, called Raising the Bar, relatively little has been said about one of the most fundamental questions of all: are the individuals in the industry competent to do what they do?

The 600-page report, the culmination of behind-the-scenes collaboration by more than 150 institutions and 300 professionals, aims to be a blueprint for how the industry can ensure its designers, engineers, installers and managers are verifiably competent to design fire-safe buildings. Drawn up in response to Dame Judith Hackitt’s report on fire safety regulation, its initial aim is to create a framework for the safe construction of high rise housing blocks – high risk residential buildings or HRRBs in Hackitt’s jargon. But its ultimate ambition is much broader: nothing less than a system for proving life-safety competency of individuals working across the whole industry.

So while you may not have heard much about it so far, you probably need to get your head around it. Andrew Barraclough, group design director at contractor Wates, says: “Some people think this is about just turning the dial a bit on fire safety. I think it’s much more fundamental than that. Those who think this is just an HRRB issue are in for quite a nasty shock.”

So, what is the system the report proposes? If agreed, how will it be implemented? And what implications could it have on the cost and availability of skilled people?

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