Bringing back quality control on site

The fallout from removing that oversight rarely makes the news. It shows up in snagging lists that go on for pages, in defects that surface eighteen months after handover, and in finishes that don't meet specification because nobody was there to push back when they should have. Contractors don’t set out to deliver poor quality. It's that quality is consistently the thing that gives when cash flow tightens, programme slips or a subcontractor is being squeezed on price. Anyone who has spent time on site knows how quickly that happens. When a contractor has a problem project bleeding money, the projects either side of it start to feel the effects. Subcontractors get chipped on price, payment gets delayed, and the people doing the work start cutting time wherever they can find it. The result is work that looks acceptable on a quick walk-round but doesn't hold up to proper scrutiny. Without someone on site whose only job is that scrutiny, that work gets signed off. The regulatory landscape has changed significantly since the clerk of works disappeared from most sites. The Building Safety Act, the principal designer role, tighter obligations around fire performance and structural compliance have all added layers of documentation and accountability to the construction process. What they haven't added is eyes on the ground. There is a real difference between paperwork and actually going out and checking the work, and that gap is where problems tend to live.

At Cognisant, we have put the clerk of works back into our site management structure, not because we have to, but because we think it is the right way to build. Independent of the day-to-day site team, our clerk of works visits every site twice a week with one focus: are we building to the drawings, to the specification, to the relevant industry standards and manufacturer guidelines? Findings go back to the site manager and, where needed, directly to the subcontractor. Every report is logged and shared with the client so they have full visibility that what is being built matches what was designed and agreed. Nothing moves to the next stage until it has been signed off. It is another set of eyes, free from all the noise of running a site whether that is the programme pressure, the subcontractor management and the hundred other things a site manager is dealing with on any given day. You cannot ask the same person to drive production and objectively scrutinise the work at the same time. The roles pull in opposite directions. Good site management matters enormously. Having someone who knows what good looks like, who will stop work when something isn't right and won't be talked out of it by programme pressure, is not an optional extra. It is the difference between a project that finishes well and one that finishes on time but causes problems for the next two years. Clients and funders are starting to ask harder questions about how quality is actually managed on site, not just how it gets reported. The cost of putting proper oversight in place is a fraction of the cost of putting defects right after handover. Bringing the clerk of works back, with a clear remit, real independence and direct reporting to the client, is one of the more straightforward ways to raise the bar.