Graham Watts OBE, Chief Executive of the Construction Industry Council (CIC), has been appointed as the new Chair of the Building Safety Competence Foundation (BSCF).
Graham Watts OBE
Watts has spent more than three decades as CEO of CIC and was awarded an OBE for his services to the construction industry in 2008. He is a member of the Industry Response Group, set up in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and from June 2018 until January this year, was chair of the Competence Steering Group (CSG).
Watts has also been an independent Non-Executive Director of the BSCF since August 2021. He takes over from Lord Gary Porter who has been chair of the scheme since it launched publicly in April 2022.
Watts said: “I am delighted to take up this appointment as chair of the BSCF, which directly follows on from my previous work in enhancing competences related to building safety as chair of the CSG for the past five years.
“I believe passionately that a competent workforce is paramount across all sectors of our industry, and I’m looking forward to supporting the excellent work of the BSCF in continuing to raise standards.”
Neil Gibbins, Lead Fire Safety Consultant at the Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures UK (CROSS-UK), has also been appointed to the BSCF board as an independent Non-Executive Director.
Neil Gibbins
Like Watts, Gibbins has supported the post-Grenfell industry-led competence work and was the secretary of the CSG’s fire engineers group (working group three). He assisted Structural-Safety with the expansion of CROSS to incorporate fire safety in 2021 and sits on the CROSS technical board.
Neil is also chair of the BSCF building control scheme committee.
Lorna Stimpson, Executive Director of BSCF and Chief Executive of LABC, said: “Graham and Neil’s impressive CVs speak for themselves. Both already understand the critical importance that BSCF plays in helping building control professionals on their competence validation journey, which means that they can hit the ground running.
“I’d also like to thank Lord Porter for his time chairing the BSCF board, helping us at the start of the BSCF journey.”
