The findings and recommendations of the Grenfell Inquiry report should mark the end of paper-based certification for safety critical construction products, according to the UK Certification Authority for Reinforcing Steels (CARES).
CARES chief executive Lee Brankley said: “We can no longer leave open any route to a repeat of the dishonesty and incompetence in approvals revealed so shockingly by the Grenfell tragedy.
“Where safety critical materials enter supply chains their performance and provenance must be subject to rigorous and searching examination, with any approvals or certification only issued in secure, fully digital formats.”
He said that paper routes to product certification represented an “unacceptable vulnerability” that must be closed as swiftly as practicably possible, given that the “catalogue of catastrophic failings” leading to the tragedy showed just how commercial pressures led to safety being sidelined.
“Ending this means a fundamental shift in supply chains from specification to procurement,” Brankley said.
“We must accept that there remain ongoing vulnerabilities as long as people continue to issue assurance certificates and product information in paper form. The truth of a product’s performance; the safety or sustainability standards it is required to meet, and the independent verification tied to rigorous assurance this demands, can only be guaranteed digitally,” he said.
CARES said that it welcomed the Grenfell Inquiry’s call for an end to departmental fragmentation in the government’s approach to construction supply – as well as the report’s recommendation that a properly resourced chief construction adviser role be reinstated and enhanced.
CARES says that it even supports the inquiry panel’s recommendation for a new construction regulator to be set up to take over the full spectrum of standards, testing and certification (thus effectively nationalising organisations like CARES).
“As the ramifications of the Grenfell Report reverberate across our industry there will no doubt be a focus on the next stage in this long process of seeking full accountability,” Lee Brankley said. “While that is in the hands of others, the opportunity that is now in the hands of those of us who wish to learn from this is to take whatever swift actions we can now that can bring positive change.
“Secure, transparent and wholly digital product history is one such change we must now seize.”
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