Building surveying: one profession or two?

Citation

Hoxley, M. (2011), "Building surveying: one profession or two?", Structural Survey, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2011.11029aaa.002

Building surveying: one profession or two?

Article Type: Editorial From: Structural Survey, Volume 29, Issue 1

I have just finished analysing data collected as part of a study into building surveying education. Over 800 responses have been received to a web-based questionnaire by people who have completed a building surveying course in the last few years. Nearly 3,000 emails were sent to a sampling frame provided by the RICS and the response received was exactly 30 per cent. Collecting data in this way is so much easier than the old postal questionnaire and the responses can be downloaded directly into SPSS or similar statistical analysis software. The last postal questionnaire I sent out had a response rate of 17 per cent and involved considerable expense in terms of stationery and postage – much of which was of course unused! This was followed by hours of data entry. Web-based data collection is thus far less expensive, much more environmentally friendly and many times faster.

The Building Surveying Professional Group Board had some input into the design of the questionnaire and much of the survey looked at how education prepares people for the APC and the profession generally. The main results will be published elsewhere and have of course yet to go through any peer review process but some interesting findings are emerging. One is the different perception of those who have completed an undergraduate course and those who have completed a postgraduate course. Some of the results will be bad news for providers of building surveying education as many respondents had quite negative views of their experience. I spent a depressing afternoon reading through the comments of the nearly 500 respondents who took the time to express their views about their courses and I am afraid that the majority were not supportive of the relevance of the course they studied.

I asked respondents how they would describe the type of work they undertook. About 45 per cent said “project work” and another 45 per cent said “professional work including condition assessment”. It is this dichotomy, which is in my view at the heart of the problem for any organisation wishing to provide building surveying education or training. The APC requires BS candidates to be competent in both main areas of work and providers of education have to ensure that their courses adequately cover both aspects. The problem is that the knowledge, skills and attributes required to undertake both areas of work are quite different. I have been an APC Assessor for more years than I care to remember and I have long held the view that the broadness of what a BS candidate needs to know is the principal cause of the high referral rate in the BS APC. After looking at the data I have collected, I am now also inclined to the view that this is also a problem for BS education. I wonder whether it is time to consider dividing the BS profession into two, one that undertakes project work and the other that is principally concerned with the condition of buildings?

Papers in this issue

In this issue Yusuf Arayici and his colleagues report on a very interesting Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme for building information management adoption and implementation by an architectural practice in Liverpool. Judging from the results of this study, the much heralded and long promised benefits of new technology are starting to filter down into industry. Steve Donohoe provides some disturbing evidence of the lack of knowledge of the new bribery act by building surveyors while A.I. Che-Ani and his Malaysian colleagues describe the development of a condition survey protocol matrix. The final two papers report on laboratory testing of materials that in their different ways have potential to contribute to environmental sustainability. Willams, Goodhew and Griffiths report on their flexural strength testing of earth-block masonry for sustainable walling while Alan Richardson and Paula Drew provide very interesting (and perhaps unexpected) findings of their comparative performance testing of fibre reinforced polymer and steel reinforcement bars.

Mike Hoxley