The International Building Quality Centre (IBQC) has just released Risk-based Building Classification and Mandatory Inspection Guidelines.
18-months in preparation, a product of a tremendous amount of altruistic industry by a multinational coalition of experts, the names of which are identified in the guidelines.
Kim Lovegrove chaired the coalition and Lovegrove & Cotton provided the secretariat.
What do the guidelines seek to do and where did their impetus come from?
In the pre-covid era the writer and IBQC board member Alejandro Espinosa Wang, a senior private sector specialist with the World Bank were deployed in a law reform advisory capacity to a number of jurisdictions where they identified key elements that make for best practice building regulatory ecology.
In studying best practice building regulatory regimes this writer recognised that there are a great deal of very good building codes on the planet but very few have embraced a risk-based design classification methodology, let alone one that is calibrated with a mandatory inspection regime.
The World Bank has extolled the virtues of risk-based building inspections in a paper ‘What role should risk-based inspections play in construction’, which stated:
“Since 2005, 18 economies have incorporated elements of risk-based building inspections… Risk-based inspections, as opposed to random untargeted inspections, allow governments to allocate resources where they are most needed without compromising worker and public safety… Risk-based inspections have become more popular in the past decade, resolving some of the issues from random and phased inspections. Though many risk-based inspections systems include a minimum number of phased inspections for all buildings, they typically give priority to buildings with high risks – such as environmental ones and optimize the process…. Risk-based inspections are conducted to ensure a buildings structural safety, fire safety, worker safety, and public safety but in a more efficient manner. Having fewer inspections for less risky buildings lowers costs without compromising safety, in increasing flexibility and enabling inspections move away from random and phased inspections.” [1]
It is the IBQC`s contention that for there to be an effective risk-based building inspection building control system there should be a risk-based or potential based consequence regime that underpins the architecture of the building code.
These guidelines do that as they provide a conceptual framework for building codes that classify buildings according to their risk/consequence weighted profile. The introduction to the guidelines states:
“These guidelines represent a likelihood and consequence methodology as the basis for classifying buildings with a commensurate scaling of building inspections by competent practitioners. The risk posed by intended occupation of the building, associated with a range of other criteria such as height, size and efficiency, enables a proportionate inspection regime to apply in parallel which promotes safety, efficiency and innovation.” [2]
The guidelines use a term ‘potential consequence’ in lieu of risk or consequence.
The term potential consequence is coined. It is used in lieu of risk or consequence, words that are well known in the construction risk management sector. To say that a code is a risk-based building code or a consequence-based building code is not entirely accurate for it is the potential for risk or the potential consequence that is the key consideration, so the coupling of the word consequence potential is more precise.
The guidelines define potential consequence:
“Refers to the magnitude of prejudice to life, limb and economic impacts that are likely to flow from compromised construction outcomes, the potential consequences-based mechanism is designed from the outset to be read and operate in conjunction with mandated inspection regimes. It follows that its promulgation as a codified regulatory classification system would not occur until statutory regulations are amended and promulgated simultaneously.” [3]
And the guidelines in keeping with best practice contemplate a mandatory calibrated inspection regime.
The IBQC is on record as stating that best practice building regulatory ‘ecosystems’ embrace mandatory inspection regimes.
The IBQC best practice guidelines for the design of building regulations emphasises that.
Mandatory inspection regimes however are not universally in vogue. Some jurisdictions have ad-hoc inspection protocols, others allow for more self-certification and others have adopted a ‘one size fits’ all approach.
The one size fits all approach provides that regardless of the risk or consequence weighting of the building`s codified classification there will be the same number of mandatory inspection interventions.
- So an uncontroversial free standing four walled warehouse, with slab and roof, no sub-partitioning with a low consequence use and application will by law require the same number of inspection interventions as an 80-story building or a hospital or elderly persons care facility.
Matt Farrell, President of ACBOA, the Alliance of Canadian Building Officials Association and one of the members of the IBQC drafting coalition that prepared the guidelines stated that:
“Currently in North America, authorities having jurisdiction are facing a shortage of experienced building official and constantly challenged to utilize their limited resources more efficiently. The concepts presented by IBQC in the Risk-Based Building Classification and Inspection Guidelines may serve as a valuable tool for establishing procedures to address these challenges.” [4]
‘Right weighting’ the inspection regime
A potential consequence-based building classification system that allows for calibrated mandatory inspection interventions allows a jurisdiction to go ‘right weight’ with the correlation of mandatory interventions where there exists construction stages or junctures that have the potential to occasion harm.
There is little logic in going overweight on inspection intervention and the deployment of finite inspectorial resources to simple structures and going underweight on mandatory inspection interventions for buildings that pose a much greater threat to life and limb both individually and in aggregation.
For as ACBOA president Matt Farrell poignantly states inspectorial resources are finite and vary depending upon the states capacity to underwrite same so these finite and sometimes underfunded paramount resources must be deployed in the most utilitarian way.
This writer submits that these guidelines are a manifestation of some of the best thinking on the planet at this time with respect to the conceptual architecture that makes up a risk-based building codified classification system that marries with a calibrated mandatory inspection regime.
And as chair of the drafting coalition, it is fitting that the members of the coalition are mentioned and thanked.
- Professor Robert Hertle, Munich University of Technology, Germany
- Dr Vidal Patton Cole, Melbourne University Melbourne, hails from Sierra Leone, now domiciled in Australia.
- Dr Gregory Chawynsky, formally of Massey University, now domiciled in NZ.
- Ron Hamburger, USA
- Dr Jonathon Barnett, formally of USA, now domiciled in Australia.
- Professor Robert Whittaker AM, Deputy Chair of the IBQC
- Adjunct Professor Neil Savery head of ICC Oceania and board member of the IBQC
- Matt Farrell, president of CBOA, Canada
- Ed Claridge, Senior Fire Engineer, Auckland City Council, New Zealand.
- Peter Johnson, Arup Fellow, Australia
- Cameron Wade of Lovegrove and Cotton, Australia.
Footnote:
[1] World Bank, ‘What role should risk-based inspections play in construction.’
This piece is written by Adjunct professor Kim Lovegrove, the chair of the IBQC. The writer has 3 decades in law reform, is a past senior law reform consultant to the World Bank and founder of Lovegrove and Cotton Construction and Planning Lawyers. He is also a past Ethiopian Honorary Consul to Ethiopia and is the recipient of honours for humanitarian services to Ethiopia.
Disclaimer
This article is not legal advice rather a discussion of the topic in only general terms. Should you be in
need of legal advice, please contact a construction law firm. Lovegrove & Cotton Lawyers and
our experienced team will assist you based on the facts and circumstances of your case.