The construction industry is unique by virtue of the fact that buildings costing many millions of pounds and still often have very little in the way of a structured handover to the people who will use and manage them.  Marcus Hill explains what is being done about that.

PC or not PC, that is the question – and I am of course referring to Practical Completion, the opportunity for the contractor to demobilise and move his team on to the next project and, so often, the unfortunate starting point for the client and his facilities manager in taking over a partially completed building.

Instruction on how to operate the building in an efficient manner and the opportunity for the end user to provide meaningful feedback on the way the building really works for them is haphazard.  If a new building fails to meet its expected performance standards, it will probably under-perform for its whole life.  Remedial action is not particularly effective, as invariably the design and construction teams have been disbanded.

The issue of whether a construction project has achieved Practical Completion under JCT Forms of Contract has long been the source of many disputes within the construction industry. This is not surprising as these Forms of Contract rely upon the issue of a Certificate of Practical Completion to trigger such matters as the release of the first retention, exclusion of liability for liquidated and ascertained damages and insurance of the works.  This in effect transfers the risk from the contractor to the client, and uninformed clients frequently do not comprehend the significance of this step.

Practical Completion is in general understood by the construction industry.  But, in practice, there remains a difficulty in arriving at a formal definition that is accepted within the industry as a whole, leaving the meaning open to wide interpretation.

Closing the gap

Historically, there has been a demarcation between the construction and ongoing operations of a building, and this frequently results in buildings simply not fulfilling the original requirements of the brief.  The 'gap' has often been wide - but, thankfully, due to a combination of legislation, market forces, client demands and increased collaboration between the construction and facilities professions, it has narrowed…if not yet closed.

Even when a building is accepted as complete, it is essential that the main contractor facilitates access to specialist contractors and the design team to support the end user and make sure that the building is performing efficiently with any faults being owned, managed and rapidly resolved.  Equally, clients/end users, whilst keen to ensure there is stability to their business (often wanting to be up and running or have a seamless transfer when moving to a new building) must engage with the design and construction team, highlighting issues and providing feedback without being confrontational and apportioning any blame.

Let us examine how the gap here has been closed, focusing on procurement methods and legislative advances. 

The advent of design and build contracts (the first form of contract being the Standard Form of Contract with Contractors Design in 1981) meant that there was greater collaboration between those involved in the design of buildings and those constructing them. Without doubt, this improved communication between the design and construction teams, as well as ensuring closer involvement of the architect in the building process - thereby improving 'buildability'.  However, there was still a lack of input from the facilities management profession, which ultimately takes on the operational responsibility for managing buildings in a cost-effective, efficient and sustainable manner for the whole life of the structure. 

The Royal Academy of Engineering (in 1998) identified the following ratios as typical operating and owning costs for a building:

• 1 unit for construction costs
• 5 units for maintenance and building operating costs
• 200 units for business operating costs.

So taking those ratios into account, why are there very few facilities managers working for design consultancies and constructors and why is there not greater team working?  After all, in 1994, Sir Michael Latham’s report, 'Constructing the Team', recommended greater involvement of FM in the construction process.

The introduction of the Private Finance Initiative model perhaps, for the first time, has provided some focus here - by identifying the risk and the operational impact/cost of running a building for periods of up to 30 years.  Therefore, the decisions made at design and construction phase are for the whole life of the building with the risk residing with the PFI consortium.  This is nothing really new about this: back in 1987 Seeley (in 'Building Maintenance 2nd Edition') stated that designers could contribute significantly to a reduction in maintenance costs if they asked themselves four questions when designing each component or part of a building:

1. How can it be reached?

2. How can it be cleaned?

3. How long will it last?

4. How can it be replaced?

PFI consortia are normally made up of a series of entities. Often these include constructors who move in to providing FM services post-completion, and therefore they have been able to close some of the gap between design, construction and operation.  They have a vested (financial) interest in getting it right - not for the purposes of practical completion, but for the whole life of the contract.  Mistakes therefore are not confined to being costly one-offs, with the legacy managed and paid for by others.

In additional factor for change, the advent of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations in 1994 made significant advances in ensuring that good design and construction methods were adopted, including giving consideration to how buildings could be maintained with an emphasis on safety.  For example, the cleaning of external glazing meant that increasingly designers and constructors had to think about how to reduce the cost and risks in the overall life of the building.

More to be done

Despite all this, there is still a gap between construction and ongoing operation.  In 2006, BSRIA's Key Performance Indicators report revealed that poor quality of operation and maintenance (O&M) manuals remained a major problem for clients.

O&Ms are often viewed as an inconvenience for contractors, and they fail to realise that these manuals are essential for the safe and efficient future operation of the building.  How many of us would accept a car (at a fraction of the costs of a multi-million pound building, of course) without a full briefing from the salesman who hands over the vehicle, backed up with checking that the owner's manual is in the glovebox? 

Great progress has been made with the introduction by BSRIA of BG1/2007 which provides valuable and structured guidance on the strategic importance of handing over a building, educating building users and ensuring environmental systems operate at optimal efficiency.

Further progress came with the introduction of Part L of the Building Regulations last year.  Here, there is a requirement at handover for designers and constructors to ensure they are:

“Providing to the owner sufficient information about the building, the fixed building services and their maintenance requirements so that the building might be operated in such a manner as to use no more fuel and power than is reasonable in the circumstances.”

One final piece of significant legislation was the 2004 Energy Performance Directive for the EU. This saw the requirement for mandatory energy labelling, and energy performance is now becoming a key factor in the selection and use of buildings by clients along – frequently in conjunction with the desire to achieve a satisfactory rating on schemes such as BREEAM.

Working together

So how can we work more closely together?

The construction supply chain needs to accept greater responsibility, ensuring that the long term performance of buildings is considered. A project is not simply about designing it, building it and walking away.

Design input – We need to ensure that design is kept simple and proper feedback is obtained from end users.  Historically, the focus tended to be on how the workplace was functioning in terms of space standards and 'soft'/user matters.  There is a need for greater emphasis on 'hard' elements, namely, the plant, equipment, the commissioning process and the performance of the fabric of the building. Where schemes permit (such as Design/Build/Operate and PFIs), then the facilities manager should be involved in the design process and, ideally, in formulating the brief.

Construction - Facilities managers need to have greater input into quality control.  Poor installation simply means that the problem will become apparent post-completion at some stage. It is recognised that this is not always practical, for example if buildings are being speculatively built or produced as a base-build to be fitted out later.  This scenario adds further complexity, as often the age and commissioning of the base plant may be different to the fit-out. 

Handover – Very often on a contractor’s programme this amounts to a few lines covering areas such as the builder's clean and logbooks.  There should be greater emphasis on handover and a clear plan in place covering areas such as:

• The O&M manual - often an unrealistic timescale is allocated for handover and with no real process for gathering the data or structuring it.  There are many very good online systems for O&M capture: web-based systems are a simple and powerful way of gathering and structuring O&M data.
• Commissioning – needed is a structured commissioning plan with adequate time allowed for it. There is no point in designing and installing complex plant if it has not been properly commissioned to operate at optimal efficiency, or if end users are not fully briefed on how to use it.  We need to ensure that the operating life and efficiency is fully exploited and allow for return visits by the design team and contractors to ensure that alterations have not been made which would cause conflict with the original specification. Included here must be the provision of Energy Performance Certificates and Building Logbooks along with BREEAM ratings.
• The Usable Buildings Trust (www.usablebuildings.co.uk) has consolidated a number of tools for understanding the extent of user satisfaction and how systems are working. Equally, facilities professionals should provide feedback on what they are monitoring, benchmarking and controlling in their buildings, in particular for energy use.

Facilities managers will need to take greater ownership in obtaining data and providing feedback to designers and constructors, whilst still placing ever greater importance on efficiency and sustainability.   Equally, at the end of the Defects Liability Period there must be greater co-operation between the parties involved in establishing ongoing contracts for FM services such as cleaning and building services.

Client demand, sustainability and rising energy costs mean that buildings are becoming more complex.  The global economic crisis will result in occupancy becoming more fragmented (most likely, an increase in multi-tenanted sites) which will lead to buildings being split up in a way that may conflict with the original design intent of the services.  Gathering of data will become more difficult, increasing the risk of plant and equipment being locally controlled, badly managed or maintained and causing a reduction in efficiency. 

If our emission targets are to be met, then there needs to be greater understanding of the respective roles of design, construction and facilities management - and increased co-operation.  Huge advances in legislation have been made – but, as is so often the case, legislation alone cannot ensure excellence.


Marcus Hill BSc (Hons) FCIOB, MBIFM is the Chartered Institute of Building Ambassador for FM, Chairman of the CIOB Professional Review Panel and a member of the CIOB Management of Facilities Committee which produced the first Standard Form of Contract for FM, now in its third edition.

www.ciob.org.uk