Building Standards verification performance framework - national customer satisfaction survey: survey findings 2021

2. Introduction

2.1. Background to the Survey

1. The building standards system in Scotland was established under the Building (Scotland) Act 2003. The Act gives powers to Scottish Ministers to make building regulations, procedure regulations, fees regulations and other supporting legislation as necessary to fulfil the purposes of the Act. The purposes include setting building standards and dealing with dangerous and defective buildings.

2. The remit of the building standards system is to protect the public interest by setting out the standards to be met when building or conversion work takes place, to the extent necessary to meet the building regulations.

3. The standards are intended to:

• Secure the health, safety, welfare and convenience of persons in or about buildings and of others who may be affected by buildings or matters connected with buildings;
• Further the conservation of fuel and power; and
• Further the achievement of sustainable development.
  

4. The role of the building standards verifier is to protect the public interest by:

• Providing an independent check of applications for building warrants to construct buildings, provide services, fittings or equipment in buildings, or to convert buildings;
• Granting or refusing building warrants;
• Carrying out an independent check of construction activities through the process of reasonable inquiry; and
• Accepting or rejecting completion certificates.
  

5. Verifiers are appointed by Scottish Ministers and the Act provides for a variety of verifiers should they be required. At present, the only appointed verifiers are the 32 Scottish local authorities, each covering their own geographical area.

6. In 2011 Pye Tait Consulting, on behalf of the Scottish Government, developed a set of nine national Key Performance Outcomes (KPOs), which were implemented as part of the 'Building Standards Verification Performance Framework' and launched on 1^st May 2012. The intention of these was, through more accurate and effective comparisons, to ensure consistency and quality in terms of outputs and overall service, along with a greater focus on peer review, benchmarking and sharing of best practice. Additionally, the KPOs underpinned a strong culture of continuous improvement.

7. In 2013/14 the Scottish Government commissioned Pye Tait Consulting to develop and run the first national customer satisfaction survey for building standards. This was based on the need to obtain nationally consistent data on customer perceptions of their local authority verifier building standards service. The first survey provided baseline data for trend analysis in subsequent years and was repeated in 2015 and each year since then.^[6]

8. This report presents the findings from the 2021 national customer satisfaction survey.

2.2. Changes from May 2017

1. In 2015, the Scottish Government commissioned Pye Tait Consulting to evaluate the performance of local authorities in their role as verifiers,^[7] with an aim to inform Scottish Ministers in the lead-up to the next appointment of verifiers from May 2017. The evaluation identified various considerations including the scope for a review and refresh of the performance framework.

2. In 2016, the Scottish Government completed this review in consultation with Local authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS) and with independent input from Pye Tait Consulting. The 32 local authorities were re-appointed on 1^st May 2017 for varying lengths of time based on their prior performance, some of which were subsequently re-appointed for a further period from 1^st May 2020. A full review of appointment periods is planned to be undertaken before 1^st May 2023.^[8] The new 'Building Standards Performance Framework for Verifiers' was also implemented from May 2017.^[9]

3. Two of the seven new KPOs, categorised under 'Quality Customer Experience', aim to ensure that verifiers adhere to the commitments in the building standards customer charter and meet or exceed customer expectations. The 2021 survey aligns with KPO4 – titled 'Understand and respond to the customer experience'. The purpose of this KPO is for local authority verifiers to monitor customer satisfaction with the building standards service and ensure it meets or exceeds customer expectations.

2.3. Proposed changes for future years

1. In early 2019, the Building Standards Futures Board was established to provide guidance and direction on developing and implementing recommendations made by the Review Panels on Compliance and Enforcement and Fire Safety. The Board's programme of work aims to improve the performance, expertise, resilience, and sustainability of the Scottish building standards system.

2. In 2020, Acorn Learning was commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake a review of the national customer satisfaction survey. This research found that the current satisfaction survey is highly valued and plays a vital role in measuring service quality across Scotland, and the ability to compare performance year-on-year is important. The research did, however, note that there is scope for continuous improvement in the way satisfaction is measured.

3. One Futures Board workstream was the 2021 review of the Operating and Performance Frameworks to assist verifiers in assessing their service against requirements. Reviewing and improving how customer feedback is collected and reported can help to ensure that a modernised, reliable and flexible solution can be found.

4. In 2021, the Scottish Government commissioned Pye Tait Consulting to identify and propose a preferred model which the Scottish Government (Building Standards Division) could use to deliver the national customer survey for building standards.^[10] The future model that was proposed as the preferred option, and which has since been taken forward by the Scottish Government for testing and piloting, is a short, sharp survey for customers to complete at one of two stages: at approval of building warrant, or acceptance of the completion certificate. The survey will be rolling/ongoing and is expected to comprise a short set of six to ten questions with one open-text box for comments. This model is intended to be used to evaluate customer satisfaction from 2022 onwards.

2.4. Methodology

1. The 2021 survey questionnaire (a copy is presented in Appendix 2) was shortened compared to the 2020 version. The aims of this were twofold: to remove questions that were no longer fit-for-purpose and to improve the response rate.

2. Questions removed include:

• For which of the following reasons did you make contact with your local authority verifier Building Standards service?
• Are you aware of the need to notify the Building Standards service before warrantable work commences?
• Are you aware of the new Construction Compliance Notification Plan (CCNP) which is issued by the local authority verifier at the same time as the building warrant is granted?
• Did you have an inspection visit by Building Standards service staff?
• Have you visited the Building Standards section of the local authority verifier's website?
• Did you visit the offices of the local authority verifier Building Standards service?
• How satisfied are you with each of the following aspects of the Building Standards service offices?

3. In addition, a number of small changes were made to existing survey questions to reflect the shift to remote working following the Covid-19 pandemic.

• A new sub-question was added to the current Q14 to ask for customers' satisfaction with the thoroughness of the virtual inspection; and
• Two questions in Section 6: Accessibility were revised from "in person" to "in person / virtually".

4. The scope of the survey was all building standards customers between 1^st April 2020 and 31^st March 2021, defined as:

• Applicants for building warrants (including any agents);
• Submitters of completion certificates (including any agents); and
• Others that have interacted with the building standards service.
  

5. Local authorities supplied their customers' contact details (name and email address only) to Pye Tait Consulting for the express purpose of being invited to participate in the survey. On advice from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) following GDPR coming into force in May 2018, the national customer satisfaction survey is in the legitimate interests of the buildings standards system and its customers. However, prior to GDPR, customers may have previously opted out of being contacted for the purpose of this survey, and local authorities double-checked with these customers if they still wished to opt out of their details being shared with Pye Tait.

6. The survey opened on 4^th October 2021 and closed on 4^th November 2021. It was hosted online and customers with email addresses were directly invited by Pye Tait Consulting to participate. Local authorities were also at liberty to promote the survey to their own customers (i.e. those within scope) as appropriate, with some promoting the survey via social media channels.

7. When completing the survey, customers were presented with a link relating to the specific local authority verifier to which their response related. Customers of multiple local authorities were presented with links for each local authority verifier of which they had been a customer and thus could complete the survey multiple times, once for each local authority verifier.

2.5. A note about the analysis

1. For most survey questions, the findings contained within this report have been cross-tabulated by type of customer (see Figure 3.2.a). It should be noted that the findings have not been subject to statistical tests to determine the significance of any apparent patterns and should therefore be treated as indicative. Percentages shown in charts and tables may not add up to precisely 100% due to the impact of rounding.

2. Certain charts in this report refer to a base number of 'respondents' (meaning total customers answering that particular survey question) and others refer to a base number of 'responses' (total boxes ticked for survey questions where customers could choose more than one answer).