I am sure that it will be more suitable.
The fundamental issue is the fact that there was no one with responsibility to ensure on the client’s behalf that what the client procured was procured to the standard that was required in the contract. The quality assurance in the project failed. There is plenty of information in the report, which includes the tables of defects that were found across the schools. Six different main contractors were involved in building the 17 schools in Edinburgh and they used different bricklaying subcontractors and different personnel in those companies. It amazed me that the same basic faults were found to have occurred across all schools to a similar degree.
Only yesterday, I was at a meeting in London where an architect told me about a wall in a gymnasium in a school that had been built last year. On the basis of this report, the contractor had gone back to look at the wall and had found that there were no wall ties in the whole wall. It was a two-storey wall and, if it fell, it would be liable to kill people in or outside the gymnasium.
The fault therefore is probably not limited to Scotland, but I can speak only about the evidence that I collected in relation to the inquiry, which focused on the information that I received from the City of Edinburgh Council, which was very helpful and open, and the other local authorities to which I wrote to ask for information on each of their projects.
The similarity of occurrences across all the schemes was amazing. We found a lack of embedment of wall ties, a lack of inclusion of header ties and a lack of inclusion of bed joint reinforcement. Those are fundamental and basic elements of the construction of walls that are essential to give them the stiffness that they require to resist wind loading in a range of specified conditions under the codes of the country.
Nobody was watching that. None of the quality assurance systems of the contractors and none of the roles of those involved, such as the independent tester in the public-private partnership projects—somebody who, in theory, signed off the buildings as being completed in accordance with the requirements—were sufficiently detailed or intensive to assure the client that buildings were built in accordance with the specifications. The only way in which that can be done is by having a clerk of works on site who visits so regularly that they can see the elements before the walls are closed in, particularly when walls are being built on a day-to-day basis.
That element of supervision, which was standard in previous procurement models has, to a large degree, been discarded by public procurement processes, particularly PPP, on the basis of quite a few legal advisers putting about the perception that the client does not want to take responsibility for contributory negligence by having their people look at the wall, comment on it and ask the contractors to do something. The client stands back and lets the builder do it.
The risk with that is that the builder might do it wrong. There are perverse incentives for contractors not to mark their own homework down, which would force them to rebuild walls. It would cost them extra money and delays that could lead to liquidated damages. The contractor will always give the contractor’s homework the benefit of the doubt, whereas independent scrutiny by others will allow errors to be captured. When a contractor knows that a clerk of works is on site, their attitude is different. They know that, if they build something inappropriately, it will be marked and they will be told to rebuild it.
Our procurement models have created a gap in the level of detailed inspection. The independent tester role is very much interpreted by clients as giving reassurance through certification that the building has been completed satisfactorily. The level of duties that such testers have and the fees that they are paid allow them to visit a site maybe once a month, or not even that, and they see their primary role as commenting on progress and whether the building is finished, whether it looks like it should, and whether all the bits are there, rather than commenting on the quality of construction and the detail behind it, which are fundamental to the future users of the building.
We have a gap in the system whereby the client thinks that the contractor is protecting them and that the architect who works for the contractor is working on their behalf. The client also thinks that the independent tester gives the contractor credibility. Finally, as members will see in the report, the client thinks that the building control officers who come out to the site also give a level of assurance.
The level of visits by building control officers has decreased over the years. The report shows that 90 per cent of visits related to drainage issues, and only one or two at the end were looking at the construction of the building. Rightly so, and as described in the legislation, those officers did not see it as their role to be supervisors of the work of the contractors. The client—the City of Edinburgh Council in this case—cannot delegate away responsibility to ensure that what they are procuring is a safe building for children and other users to be in. The client has to take appropriate steps to ensure that there is independent scrutiny of whether a contractor is delivering what they have promised to deliver, rather than relying on that contractor to do it automatically.
The level of supervision should reflect the level of risk. If it is found that 100 per cent of schools in Edinburgh have failed, all those schools will require to be supervised until it is found that that is not the behaviour of the industry and that walls are being built safely. The client can then look at the next risk issue. None of us would pay a contractor for doing work in our kitchen without making sure that it is all finished before we paid them. In effect, if the client steps back and says, “We do not want to take any risk in judging the contractor—you do it and it’s over to you if it fails,” and the building fails in a way that is to do with the structure or fire safety—another element that I picked up in the report—and somebody is killed as a result, it is fine if there is one person to sue, but the client has not fulfilled their responsibilities by taking appropriate measures to ensure that what they have procured is safe.
The current procurement systems have lost that role. There is now a gap in the detailed level of scrutiny in many cases, but not in all cases, because some local authorities are still using a clerk of works. There are lots of issues to do with the change in the role of the professional, who no longer represents the client but represents the builder. There is an assumption that the professional is still acting on behalf of the client when in fact they can act only on behalf of the contractor, and in many cases they are forbidden from talking to the client directly without the contractor’s approval. Professionals do not tend to report or cannot report to clients directly when they see defects; they report to the contractor, and it is up to the contractor to decide whether to fix those defects.
There are gaps in the process. Best principles of managing projects and quality assurance can make any of the procurement systems work. They can make PPP work, make design and build work and make traditional construction work. We have changed the system. Clients are not wanting to take on risk. We have left a huge gap, which can cause real problems and will continue to do so until something is done about it.