The Scottish Government: Research to support a strengthened Building Standards system in Scotland

Since 2012, we have delivered numerous commissions for the Building Standards Division of the Scottish Government, which is responsible for protecting the public interest by overseeing the delivery of safe and compliant buildings in Scotland.

Our early research focused on developing and reviewing Key Performance Outcomes used by local authority building standards verifiers, evaluating verifiers’ performance, designing, running and reporting on eight waves of annual customer satisfaction surveying (with reporting at national and local levels), and developing a national Customer Journey tool.

Since 2019 and in the wake of the tragic Grenfell Tower fire, we have led various commissions directly informing the workstreams of the Building Standards Futures Board, namely the Compliance Plan Approach, Certification Strategy and Verification Delivery Model workstreams. Among other projects, we led the Scottish Government’s Compliance and Enforcement consultation analysis, scoped a new Compliance Plan Manager job role, reviewed the building standards certification system (including fees model), conducted an options appraisal to inform the approach that Scotland should take to introduce a competency assessment for verifiers, and led a major review of the Building Standards Operating and Performance Frameworks.

These projects involved detailed desk research, extensive quantitative and qualitative engagement with key stakeholders through interviews, surveys, workshops and advisory groups, and high-quality reporting. By informing the discrete workstreams, the findings are collectively helping to strengthen various aspects of the building standards system so to continue to meet the needs of all who use it and to minimise the risks of non-compliance.