Spec Finish

FIS review www.thefis.org 11 It’s about competence… With Brexit intensifying an already acute skills problem, FIS is working hard to ensure that the new English Apprenticeship Standards hits the ground running and all four home nations are supported by schemes like BuildBack and Kickstart to actively lead and induct people into our sector. The Building Safety Bill puts greater responsibility on employers to test competence and we will be publishing clear competency frameworks and career pathways (based on the FIS SAKE Model) for occupations within our scope in 2021. It’s about integrity… The Building Safety Bill asks testing questions about products and interfaces and through the Construction Products Association, we and sector colleagues are working hard to close the gaps. Central to FIS is our Code of Conduct and ongoing vetting, we are reviewing this currently, in line with the FIS Product Process People Quality Framework. The FIS Acoustic Verification Scheme underpins the ethos and is supporting dialogue with contractors and specifiers to about integrity. It will support further work through the cross-industry Marketing Integrity Group that FIS and Construction Products Information Code expected in 2021. It’s about collaboration… The pandemic has improved collaboration within construction and FIS has been a proactive member of the CLC in England, the CICV in Scotland and theWelsh Construction Forum. Through these groups there is widespread agreement that change is needed (if not always how we can achieve it). That collaborative culture is core to the working of FIS and to extend this we recently entered new partnerships with NBS and Barbour ABI. These partnerships will support the launch of new Specifiers Guides in 2021 and give our Working Groups a chance to review information and work with the specifier community to support informed decisions and target knowledge gaps. Our launch event, ‘Is greater collaboration in fit-out a pipe dream’ with NBS attracted around 170 individuals from the specifying world. Its conclusion was simply ‘early engagement is the game changer’. It’s about you... I learned a lot fromMurray, not least that rugby is a simple game, “do your job, believe in yourself and play for your mates”. Our job, the FIS Mission, is to make sure the good companies win and that the companies who do it right do not lose to those who will do it at all costs. I do believe as a community, if we work together, we can change things for the better and I look forward to helping to drive that change with you in 2021 #FISStrongerTogether groups and teamed up with four leading not-for-profit organisations to deliver a Best Practice Design and Installation Guide, Firestopping of Service Penetrations. This guide will support compliance with the new Building Safety Bill (which covers all of construction, not just residential). It’s been about tangible value… With cash tight we have been mindful of the need to deliver tangible benefits to our membership, both directly and through our partner network. As an example, Skills and Funding Clinics (supported by our partnership with ForrestBrown) have helped to yield over £5 million of direct funding back into the sector. Our new Membership Benefits Hub provides a link to FIS Toolkits, our growing suite of publications and risk management tools and now hosts a range of new services that we have negotiated to support our community. It’s about change… As we look to 2021, we are confronted by a market where productivity and profitability remain a concern and the risk of secondary waves and further interventions continue to undermine confidence. As the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) looks at how construction re-invents, we must think back to some notable business failures in early 2020 and our Three Steps to Rebuilding Construction campaign in February, the pandemic has been a crisis, but the reasons to change go deeper. FIS Memebrship Hub