Scottish Building Standards Hub (SBSH)
The SBSH is an independent stand-alone specialist unit hosted within Fife Council supporting local authority building standards services across all 32 Scottish local authorities and wider industry.
The high-level objectives of the SBSH are:
- To support increased consistency nationally in the building standards service.
- To support increased capacity within building standards services.
- To provide resilience to verifiers.
- To support the drive for efficiencies.
- To support investment in skills and new technology.
The SBSH delivers its range of services and activities across 6 business units:
- Business Unit (BU).
- Operational Partnership Unit (OPU).
- STAS Unit (SU).
- Technical and Procedural Unit (TPU).
- Digital Transformation Unit (DTU).
- Learning and Development Unit (LDU).
The SBSH supports local authority verifiers and wider building standards activities and works and engages with a wide variety of key industry stakeholders including:
- Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS).
- Scottish local authorities.
- The Scottish Government's Building Standards Division.
- Professional institutions.
- Trade representative organisations.
- Research establishments.
- Education providers and establishments.
- Certification scheme providers.
The SBSH works in partnership with Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS) by managing and administering their range of building standards system services, being:
- The Scottish Type Approval Scheme (STAS).
- Information Papers.
- The Dispute Resolution Process.
The SBSH operates, manages, and supports hubs of expertise and provides specialist advice to verifiers in the following areas:
- Fire engineering expert hub (FireHub).
- Structural engineering expert hub (StructHub).
- Specialist advice on fire safety design.
- Specialist advice on environmental and energy design.
The SBSH supports the operation of LABSS Consortium Technical Working Group (CTWG) and provides technical assistance. The CTWG is the established means to co-ordinate national outcomes through technical and procedural interpretational matters.
The SBSH supports the operation of LABSS Digital Delivery Group (DDG) via the ‘Digital Hub’, being the communications and strategy conduit between stakeholders and verifiers. The Digital Hub supports the BSD digital transformation strategy and contributes to national digital transformational matters.
The SBSH facilitates workload sharing between local authority verifiers in the assessment of building warrant applications, brokered by introducing a local authority who requires assistance in the assessment of building warrant applications with a local authority whose business model provides that service.
Expanded ‘operational partnerships’ also includes the wider liaison and engagement that exists in the daily operations of the SBSH with LABSS, BSD and wider industry stakeholders.
The SBSH operates and manages a web-based Learning Management System (LMS) containing digitised learning and training material specifically for building standards practitioners working for local authority building standards services in Scotland.
The SBSH supports the provision of CPD and training either provided directly or in conjunction with industry partners and stakeholders.
The SBSH supports national workforce development and strategy, including LABSS ambassador’s networks, modern and graduate apprenticeship schemes and delivering lectures.
The SBSH operates and manages a web-based validation of skills system specifically for building standards practitioners working for local authority building standards services in Scotland.