Professionals and Qualifications – Page 11
Who is competent to prepare or sign off each report, and how to brief and check them.
Professionals and Qualifications articles – page 11
372 articlesChecking competence before you instruct a consultant
Twenty minutes of checking before instruction saves months afterwards. Registers, membership grades, a redacted sample report and the insurance certificate are where to start.
Writing a consultant brief that avoids scope creep
Scope creep comes from briefs that describe a subject rather than a deliverable. Define the purpose, the rounds of review and the exclusions before anyone quotes.
Professional indemnity insurance and why it matters to you
Professional indemnity insurance responds to the policy in force when a claim is made, not when the work was done. That single feature decides whether you have a remedy.
Lighting assessments and who should prepare one
There is no protected title for lighting assessment, so councils look at membership, method and whether the author can justify the environmental zone they applied.
Geotechnical advice and the Eurocode 7 categories
The geotechnical category sets the investigation, the reporting and the supervision. Establish it early, because a condition requiring further ground work is expensive late.
Air quality assessors and the standards they work to
An air quality assessment is two jobs in one document. Modelling needs a verified model and local monitoring; dust assessment needs site-specific inputs, not defaults.
Chartered status and who should write an LVIA
Landscape architect is not a protected title in the UK. Chartered membership, agreed viewpoints and a visible GLVIA3 method decide how much weight an assessment carries.
Heritage consultants: what to look for before instructing
A heritage statement stands or falls on the assessment of significance. How to check accreditation, experience with your asset type and what to review before submission.
Contaminated land: the suitably qualified person test
The phrase suitably qualified and experienced person decides whether a contamination report is accepted. What competence looks like at each stage, and what a council asks to see.
RICS registered valuers and viability appraisals
Viability work is governed by a mandatory RICS professional statement requiring objectivity whoever instructs. Here is what registration means, how the council's review works and how to survive it.
Arboricultural competence and the BS 5837 survey author
Arboriculture is unregulated, so the credentials of a BS 5837 survey author are worth checking before you commission. Here is what the standard produces and what to look for in the report.
Choosing an acoustician and reading their credentials
Environmental health officers judge a noise report by its author, its instrumentation and its method. Here is what to verify before you instruct, and what to check after.
Bat licences: who holds one and what it allows
A survey licence lets an ecologist look for bats. A mitigation licence lets the works proceed. They are held by different people at different stages, and the order they come in decides when you can build.
Checking whether a survey is still valid
Survey data has no statutory expiry, but consultees reject evidence that no longer describes the site. How to check currency before paying for a repeat survey.
Overheating assessment competence and dynamic modelling
The simplified route and the dynamic modelling route are different exercises with different risks. Here is what competence means for each, and the five checks that review a model.
What competent person means in planning legislation
Competence is defined differently in each planning regime, and only some versions are statutory. Here is which test applies where, who decides, and what evidence satisfies them.
Accredited testing and why laboratory choice matters
Regulators check the schedule of accreditation, not the logo. What accreditation covers, what it does not, and how sample handling and holding times decide whether data survives scrutiny.
Geotechnical competence and Eurocode 7 supervision
Eurocode 7 rests on assumptions about who does what. How geotechnical categories change the scope, why supervision of the investigation matters, and the difference between factual and interpretative reports.
Viability assessment competence and RICS standards
Viability assessments are valuation exercises tested by an independent reviewer. What competence councils expect, which inputs decide the outcome, and how to challenge one.
Who can prepare an air quality assessment
How environmental health officers judge the author of an air quality assessment, the difference between monitoring and modelling competence, and how to scope the work.
Conflicts of interest when your designer writes the reports
Advocacy documents are expected to argue for the scheme. Assessment documents are meant to report what the method produces. The conflict lives in the second group.
Who can carry out a Phase 2 ground investigation
A Phase 2 ground investigation must be designed, supervised and interpreted by suitably qualified and experienced people. What councils look for, and how to check it before you appoint.
Choosing an archaeologist: registered organisations
The council's archaeological adviser sets the scope, not your contractor. Tender against the written brief, and protect the post-excavation stage in the budget.
What chartered membership of the RTPI actually means
Planning is not a protected profession, so anyone can act as your planning agent. Chartered status brings assessed competence, a code of conduct and a complaints route.
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