News

(Originally published on the LABC Warranty website.)

LABC have launched our Strategic Review document for 2019. Entitled 'Raising Standards in Public Service Building Control,' it outlines the strategic developments we've been working on including:

This year's deserving LABC Superstars and Rising Stars were given their awards at the LABC Member Conference gala dinner on 25 March 2019.

To download an image, click on it, then click 'save image as'. All images feature BBA Chief Executive Claire Curtis-Thomas and LABC Chief Executive Paul Everall.

Nominate your Superstar or Rising Star for 2020

At last month's Frankham Risk Management Fire Safety in Housing event at the Institute of Civil Engineers in Westminster, Lorna Stimpson, LABC's Deputy Chief Executive was one of the keynote speakers and she called on the industry to move forward on competency as a matter of urgency.

The LABC Member Conference took place in Hinckley Island on 25-26 March. It was a record-breaking conference in terms of the number of delegates (350) and exhibitors, and a huge amount of information was passed on to our audience of local authority building control professionals, from a range of expert speakers.

The highlights

All eight members of the building control team at Swansea City Council have successfully passed LABC's Fire Safety Specialist validation, making them the first such team to get a 'full house'.

The rigorous assessment is independently verified by the Institution of Fire Engineers and a pass in the written exam opens up membership of the Institution for successful entrants if they choose to take it.

Speaking at Frankham Risk Management Fire Safety in Housing Seminar in Westminster on Wednesday 20 February LABC's Deputy Chief Executive, Lorna Stimpson called on professionals and specialists working in the housing sector not to wait on others to deal with competency issues.

(Scroll down to watch the video.)

LABC has appointed Lorna Stimpson, BSc, FCIOB, FCMI, CBuildE FCABE as Deputy Chief Executive. Lorna moves from Deputy Managing Director as part of the organisation's long-term management and succession planning.

Lorna worked as a Building Control Surveyor for 21 years before joining LABC. She is a BRAC member and sits on a variety of committees including the Joint Regulators Group advising officials about the potential functioning of the JCA and its pilots.

On Wednesday 27 March, LABC's Martin Taylor, Lorna Stimpson and Peter Keates will be joined at the LABC Fire Safety Practices Conference by high level representatives from:

• the MHCLG
• Health and Safety Executive
• the RTPI
• FM Global
• and the Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASPF).

They will discuss in more depth with professionals the changing landscape of fire safety practices, in our one day conference for all industry professionals.

So far 135 local public service building control teams have received formal ISO accreditation from Alcumus ISOQAR for their quality management. All local building control teams are expected to be similarly accredited by the end of this year. So far among the 135 accredited teams not a single case of non-conformance has been discovered.

The process has been welcomed by building control managers who have described it as 'robust' and 'an excellent opportunity'.