Building standards verification services - national performance and workforce: annual report 2023-2024
This report provides an overview of the performance of building standards verification services across Scotland and information on the professional workforce employed by local authorities to provide verification services.
5. National performance trends
National picture
5.1.The majority of verifiers have improved their overall performance levels providing more consistency to the quality of services across Scotland, as shown broken down by local authority size, in Chart 4.
2017-18: 71.53% targets met;
2018-19: 84.24% targets met;
2019-20: 90.45% targets met;
2020-21: 98.22% targets met;
2021-22: 92.80% targets met;
2022-23: 92.10% targets met;
2023-24: 94.97% targets met.
Professional expertise and technical processes
- KPO1 – Minimise time taken to issue a first report or to issue a building warrant or amendment to building warrant
5.2.The performance for issuing a first report (KPO1.1) and building warrant or amendment to warrant (KPO1.2) has remained steady during the 2021-22 to 2023-24 period, as shown in Chart 5.
KPO1.1:
2021-22: 87.66%
2022-23: 89.28%
2023-24: 90.38%
KPO1.2:
2021-22: 86.34%
2022-23: 88.48%
2023-24: 88.80%
- KPO2 – Increase quality of compliance assessment during the construction processes
5.3.There are currently no performance targets set for KPO2 and a wider review is currently underway.
Quality customer experience
- KPO3 – Commit to the building standards customer charter
5.4.All 32 verifiers have implemented and published the Building Standards National Customer Charter (KPO3.1). This is supplemented with their own local charters.
5.5.Verifier response times (KPO3.2) to requests for information for customers reporting performance concerns to Scottish Government have been met within the five day target, during the 2021-22 to 2023-24 period, as shown in Chart 6.
KPO3.1:
2021-22: 99.22%
2022-23: 100%
2023-24: 100%
KPO3.2:
2021-22: 100%
2022-23: 100%
2023-24: 100%
5.6.Verifiers have made improvements to the quality and consistency of information published on their websites which promotes better communication with building standards customers.
- KPO4 – Understand and respond to the customer experience
5.7.The National Customer Satisfaction Survey of Building Standards customers has been conducted annually since 2013 by Scottish Government, in close partnership with local authorities. A new digital platform was launched on 1 April 2022 to allow local authorities to collect and analyse customer feedback at the point of service, to support their ability to respond to the customer experience more effectively and in real time.
5.8.The overall National Customer Satisfaction rating for Scotland (KPO4) increased from 7.8 to 8.2 (exceeding the national target of 7.5) during the 2022-23 to 2023-24 period, as shown in Chart 7.
KPO4:
2021-22: 7.1 out of 10
2022-23: 7.8 out of 10
2023-24: 8.2 out of 10
KPO4 Target:
2021-22: 7.5 out of 10
2022-23: 7.5 out of 10
2023-24: 7.5 out of 10
Operational and financial efficiency
- KPO5 – Maintain financial governance
5.9.During the three year period, overall fee income saw a sharp increase during 2022-23 period which correlates with a rise in the Value of Works, which decreased back to average levels during 2023-24, as shown in Chart 8.
5.10.Verification staff costs increased by 11% during the three year period. This increase has not yet been reflected in workforce supply levels, which decreased by 2.5% during 2024.
BW related fee income:
2021-22: £35,382,540
2022-23: £41,196,757
2023-24: £32,856,333
Staff costs for verification:
2021-22: £23,363,272
2022-23: £24,156,375
2023-24: £26,079,156
- KPO6 – Commit to eBuilding Standards
5.11.Building Standards customers can submit electronic documents and payments directly to local authorities. The move towards digital services has been supported by Scottish Government’s eBuilding Standards platform and the number of applications submitted electronically has continued to rise, year on year, since the platform was launched in 2016.
5.12.The eBuilding Standards platform is used and promoted by all 32 local authority verifiers (KPO6.1) and the system facilitates continuous improvement towards fully digitised end-to-end processes, covering the whole customer journey (KPO6.2), as shown in Chart 9.
KPO6.1:
2021-22: 100%
2022-23: 100%
2023-24: 100%
KPO6.2:
2021-22: 85.94%
2022-23: 92.19%
2023-24: 100%
- KPO7 – Commit to objectives outlined in the annual verification performance report
5.13.The Annual Verification Performance Reports are a strategic planning and management tool to link performance reporting to continuous improvement actions. Reports include information on the vision for each service and future strategy.
5.14.All 32 local authority verifiers have implemented and published their reports during the 2023-24 period (KPO7.1) as shown in Chart 10 and they publish performance data against each of the KPOs (KPO7.2) on their local authority websites:
KPO7.1:
2021-22: 90.63%
2022-23: 100%
2023-24: 99.22%
KPO7.2:
2021-22: 89.84%
2022-23: 99.22%
2023-24: 95.31%
Contact
Email: buildingstandards@gov.scot