WHAT PRICE KNOWLEDGE?

STANDARDS
In law ignorance is no defence so you’d be well advised to keep up with all the relevant technical standards. But how big a hole will this leave in your pocket?

Words Jan-Carlos Kucharek

IN AN INCREASINGLY litigious climate, generally as well as in the construction sector, it’s not only important that architects keep up-to-date with all applicable building regulations, associated construction standards and Statutory Instruments, it’s part of the Architects Registration Board’s code of conduct under the Architects’ Act 1997. Standard 4 of the code states: ‘Architects should carry out their professional work faithfully and conscientiously and with due regard to relevant technical and professional standards’ and ‘perform their work with due skill, care and diligence’.

The expectation of diligence is fair enough, but while access to the Approved Documents is free via the government’s planning portal, it is not the same story for other contract documentation. Some British Standards will modify the reading of the Approved Documents: for example BS8300:2009 (£240) affects Part M and BS5588 (Part I £158) influences Part B.

The National Building Specification (NBS), the benchmark for built quality in construction, is a valuable contract document, but it comes at a price to architects, even though it’s owned by RIBA Enterprises. So what are the implications if you don’t keep abreast of ‘relevant technical standards’ and how much is it likely to cost you to make sure that you do?

Well, the good news first. According to Simon Howard, professional standards manager at Arb, no architect has been found guilty of serious professional incompetence by the Professional Conduct Committee for failure to keep up-to-date with the most recent codes. That said, Alistair McGrigor of property lawyer Nabarro says that although he has no experience of an architect’s lack of knowledge of technical information being a cause for litigation per se, ‘it may be thrown into the mix when a lawyer is building up evidence to support a case of professional negligence’. As always in law, ignorance is no defence.

So what are the options? More good news. Access to British Standards and ISOs, despite anything you might read online to the contrary, can be free – it just involves you leaving the office to access them. The British Standards Institute does allow access to BS Standards at the six legal deposit libraries and online at a limited number of public and university libraries nationally (see link to list, box below), although the BSi states there are restrictions on the printing off of information viewed there. The BSi also has a knowledge centre at its HQ in Chiswick, where BSi members can access all the standards free of charge. Non-members can also visit, but there is a charge of £20/hr. Architects should consider membership of the BSi anyway, as it halves the price of purchased standards. Sole trader membership is £104. For a small to medium-sized enterprise of up to 30 staff, BSI subscription rates go from £116.90 +VAT per year, depending on turnover.

As far as office desktop access to technical standards is concerned, subscribing to standards supplier IHS’s ‘Construction Information Service Level 2’ is about as good as it gets. Tailored to meet the needs of architects, this will give you online access to over 470 construction-related British Standards and ISOs and 27,000 abstracts from 4,000 construction-related publishers. It is fully searchable, classified, and is automatically updated as new standards are introduced. This one-stop-shop for technical data comes with a hefty subscription price – £2,200+VAT per licence per year if you are a BSI member, and £3,370+VAT if you’re not. It does beg the question whether, during the recession, the Construction Information Service should consider allowing information to be accessed on a pro rata, project by project basis. Accessing the information, such as during the three months of production information, when it would arguably be most required, might promote take-up of the service by architectural practices for whom the yearly expenditure simply proves too great.

Almost a professional necessity, access to the NBS database will cost slightly more, although as Clare Morris, NBS marketing manager for information end users, says, it’s not as expensive as one might think; and, she argues, the NBS has borne in mind the knock-on effects recession has on the industry, saying:  ‘In times of economic downturn, offices take on smaller projects which can actually require more specification decisions than larger ones, and the NBS offers some very cost-effective solutions to help with the problems associated with specifying smaller projects’ (see box below).

If there are any modifications to be made to the NBS in how it is procured, geared to the purchaser (the architect) and the end user (the contractor), the advisory panel, comprising architects and industry experts, may hold the key. Recognising the adversarial nature of contracts, Morris admits that the contractor has yet to be brought to the table to discuss how aspects of the NBS might be improved, although she says that a ‘bring along your contractor day’ has been considered. This would help, as all too often ‘a job may get priced merely by the size of the spec’.

She adds a piece of advice. The judicious exclusion of clauses from the standard specification is not necessarily a bad thing. ‘Basically,’ she says, ‘if you read a clause and don’t understand it, you might be well advised to leave it out altogether.’ But she won’t knock the product itself, pushing it as the industry standard and wanting to dispel preconceptions. ‘People seem to think it’s only for larger projects, but it has the potential to deliver an awful lot of value – you just may have to attribute the initial outlay to “administrative expenses”.’

AT A GLANCE

Specifications
The NBS Building Specification comes in three tiers, each of which offers a good general scope, three updates a year and free software support.
Minor Works comes in at £275+VAT/year for 118 work sections including preliminaries.

The ‘Abridged’ service, which will include the JCT Intermediate Contract, starts at £725+VAT/year with 171 work sections including preliminaries.
The ‘Full’ Service which deals with all other contracts starts at £1,130/year+VAT. Network licences for this will be £2,110+VAT.

NBS Scheduler creates project-specific schedules of work with an automatically generated reference specification. It covers refurbishment to new build and costs £465+VAT/ year.

The NBS Domestic Specification is a paper-based product for use on a single domestic scale project and costs £25+VAT from RIBA Bookshops.
target=– “blank” www.theNBS.com

British Standards
A list of public libraries providing access to online or hard copies of standards is at:
http://tiny.cc/k0nQk
BSi membership benefits, including 50% discounted access to BS Standards are outlined at: http://tiny.cc/6Klfs

HOW IT WORKS FOR HAWKINS\BROWN
‘We have office resources allocated to monitor changes in Building Regulations, British Standards and planning law, mainly through our librarian, whose job it is to keep up-to-date with them and convey it through the office intranet. Information is also gleaned through specialist working groups, Lifetime Homes standards and the press. We have quarterly workshops and CPD sessions where we will invite approved inspectors to come and talk. We recently hosted one with an NHBC building control inspector to update us on emerging policy. This all goes down as an office expense, and is not something absorbed by the client.

‘As far as specifications go, we have always generated our own in-house. We have used the likes of Davis Langdon Schumann Smith when the procurement route has required us to, but generally we feel more comfortable being the authors of the specifications for our own designs. Spec writing is an evolutionary process, not just with every job that goes through the office, but in terms of new materials and technology developments. You have to take on board changes in contractual practice as well and recognise that, with JCT contractor designed portions, your role may be limited to specifying required performance rather than specific products.

‘You do get caught out occasionally. Approved Document requirements for glass balustrades, for instance, are modified by BS standards that require reinforcement of the upper edges now, but we have audit trails in place to clarify where and when design decisions like that get taken, and more importantly, who made them. But the best thing really is just to practise and build.’

Wayne Glaze, director