CIAT's position statement on Principal Designer registration

Statement from CIAT on registering as a Principal Designer with the Institute.

CIAT is focusing on the registration of the Principal Designer (PD) as outlined under the Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023. Only Chartered Architectural Technologists will be eligible to apply to register as PDs under CIAT's scheme.

Criteria to register with CIAT as a PD will be based on the legislation and the competence criteria as described in the following British Standards Institution (BSI) publications:

• BSI Flex 8670, Built environment – Core criteria for building safety in competence frameworks – Code of practice v3.0) and
• PAS 8671: 2022, Built environment – Framework for competence of individual Principal Designers – Specification

The PD is an individual or company that takes on the role to assist the client and contractor in planning, monitoring, and coordinating the designers and design work by taking reasonable steps to ensure that the design work is compliant with relevant requirements.

There is no intention to include the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM) in this initiative, as they serve a different purpose (albeit that the same professional may be competent to offer both services). The relationship and differences between the two PD roles are covered under PAS 8671 as below:

This PAS does not cover the duties of Principal Designers under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM). Whereas the primary objective of the Principal Designer under CDM is to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate health and safety in the pre-construction phase by identifying, eliminating or controlling forseeable risks, the primary objective of the Principal Designer under the BSA is to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate design work compliance.

CIAT is currently in the process of:

• establishing competence performance criteria
• determining performance evidence requirements to demonstrate competence
• determining proportionality for registration under different building types
• developing methods to assess competence
• establishing CPD criteria to maintain registration

The requirements, processes and fees for registering as a PD with CIAT will be published early in the spring.

A presentation on CIAT's activity in relation to the BSA and the registration of Principal Designers can be found on our BSA hub. Members and affiliates are advised to continually check the hub for further updates and information as well as checking our events calendar.

For further information, please contact [email protected]

Professor Sam Allwinkle PPBIAT FCIAT
Chair of CIAT Principal Designer Competency Steering Group