An excerpt from The Secret Surveyor…
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TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS
So, you’ve decided the construction industry is for you. You’ve met that fork in the road and chosen between head and hands. So, how do you get from there to where you really want to be? Well, training and qualifications.
In the olden days, that would have been a straightforward apprenticeship. Basically, you would work under the tutelage of an experienced old hand, with some monitoring and guidance, periodic examination, and you would spend about four years learning your chosen craft. You would still learn and improve thereafter, of course, but you’d be qualified, you’d be earning a proper wage, and you’d be let loose to ply your trade in the construction world on behalf of your clients.
But apprenticeships, in the real trades, are not as common as they once were. Nowadays, it all seems to point in the direction of college courses. NVQs, BTECs, or something called the T-Level, which came online in 2020. They all offer practical qualifications.
Through a combination of classroom theory and practical experience, you can earn an industry and employer-recognised qualification that will give you the right to call yourself a qualified tradesperson.
I know a bloke who is a signwriter. He left school at age 15 and got a job as an apprentice. First task, make a sign for the men’s loo. First attempt, woefully dismissed.
‘If you can’t get the height, the spacing, the detailing just right, you better fuck off now,’ his mentor told him in no uncertain terms.
Would anyone dare say that now? Actually, in the often-robust world of construction, they probably still would!
The apprentice signwriter’s working day would always begin with him making a cup of tea for both his mentor and himself. One day, in a moment of mischief, he took his boss’s favourite mug, screwed it firmly into the workbench, and then filled it to the top with the older gent’s daily brew.
‘Cuppa there,’ he said casually when his boss strolled into work.
He then watched as the man struggled to lift said cup off the table on which it sat. The penny eventually dropped, and you can imagine the cursing that followed!
Anyway, after five years of learning, doing, and doing again, the apprentice became a craftsman. He could actually remember the day that he ‘graduated’. They used to have a lorry turn up once a week with all of the materials that they needed to make their signs. It was the job of all of the young lads to unload the lorry, doing the heavy lifting of the metal sheets, pieces of timber, and tins of paint.
One day, the lorry arrived, and the foreman of the factory asked the apprentice to join them in unloading the goods. He was about to do so – a task he’d performed every week since joining the firm – when his mentor told the foreman that he couldn’t have him.
Asked why, he said it was because the lad was no longer an apprentice. He was a signwriter, and he no longer needed to perform those menial tasks. The newly inducted craftsman could now be left and trusted to stand on his own two feet and provide a professional service in the name of his trade.
There was no passing out parade or cap and gown ceremony, complete with expensive choreographed photo opportunity to acknowledge his achievement, just the endorsement of the master craftsman. That was all it took.
In today’s world, though, you need that piece of paper to back things up – City & Guilds, NVQs, BTECs, or capital Ts. For electricians and plumbers, their work needs to be signed off by a fully accredited engineer. It’s not enough to be good; you need the authority to sign it off, too.
College courses currently offered in the construction trades typically involve almost 2,000 hours of practical and theoretical work. The other 8,000 hours to become an expert (vis a vis the 10,000 hours espoused by K. Anders Ericsson) will, therefore, be earned on the job.
As for professional qualifications, a HND or a university degree comes to mind.
When I stumbled upon my chosen career, I was in my mid-twenties. A little research told me that the quickest way to qualification would be a foundation year in college followed by a two-year full-time university course. Three years out of my life.
I had no dependents. I could do it. But, three years! I’d be 28 by the time I finished.
In a moment of clarity, I told myself that I hoped to reach 28 at some point anyway, so did I want to get there with those qualifications behind me or without? I sucked it up, had a great time doing it, and had the letters after my name to propel me into a bright future of 40 prospective years of decent technical and professional work. Not that anyone has ever asked to see my university certificate, by the way!
PROFESSIONAL BODIES
You might be good at your job. You might have a good little business in the building industry. But how do people know that? How do they find you? What accreditation and, therefore, credentials do you have?
There are several bodies that can provide the desired support and affiliation. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, or RICS, is one. They deserve their own separate section. It’s coming next, especially given recent events at that organisation. (Spoiler alert – juicy gossip coming!)
Then there’s the Chartered Institute of Builders. Their website proclaims them as the world’s largest and most influential body for construction management and leadership. They even offer a Master version of their membership. When you’re handing out your business cards, you could have the letters CIOB or even MCIOB after them. If nothing else, I think it shows prospective clients that you take your day job seriously. If you’ve gone that extra mile to join, and jumped through hoops in order to get there, then I guess that’s a statement of your professionalism and commitment.
I once worked in private practice surveying for a boss who had about ten certificates on the wall behind his desk. He was a manager of this, an expert at that, an affiliate of whatever, and an associate of everything else.
He never said hello in the morning. I’d walk into work, sit down directly opposite him, and he would not say a thing. I used to think, surely rule number one in the management handbook is greet your staff!
Some councils and organisations will only work with lettered people. After all, these corporations and authorities are accountable to their stakeholders. If things go wrong, at least they can show that they tried to find trusted and qualified people to do the work.
Membership of a professional body can make you stand out from the crowd. Not everyone joins. Not everyone has to. Yet, it does give an air of respectability, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
THE R.I.C.S.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Sounds good, doesn’t it? These are the standard bearers, the crème de la crème of our profession. After all, we bear a royal charter. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, a recent scandal has rocked this noteworthy institution. To the point where its members might wonder what they have actually bought into. Will they be guilty by association? Would it even be better not to be a member at all?
The organisation can trace its roots back to 1792 when a group of like-minded gentlemen sought to pool their expertise and advance the reputation of their profession as surveyors in the construction industry. It all sounds very Phileas Fogg, but almost a century later – in 1881 – they were awarded a Royal Charter. Later, in 1947, they officially announced themselves as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. All very grand.
RICS offers technical-level membership as well as that of Full Member, Associate, and Fellow.
Many employers demand accreditation as many clients and organisations, such as insurance companies, will not take the word of any surveyor who doesn’t carry the RICS letters after their name. With it, you come fully bonded. Without, well, you could be anyone.
An august operation, then, no doubt.
One that was recently let down in a big way by its leadership.
In 2018, a financial report was carried out by the accounting firm BDO that found serious governance issues. RICS had well over 100,000 members globally with an annual income of £80 million, and just four people (including the president and chairman) had ownership of those funds. And those four people answered to no one. They could do with those funds whatever they wished. That’s what the report said.
Also on the board of the RICS were four non-executive members who, upon reading the BDO report, recommended that it should be shared with the rank-and-file members. ‘Put it out there,’ they said.
Guess what? They were all dismissed.
The report had highlighted how the organisation was at risk of ‘unidentified fraud, misappropriation of funds, and misreporting of financial performance’ but, clearly, it was best not to tell the membership about that.
A subcommittee of previous board members, known as the GC19, also raised their alarm at the report’s conclusion and the treatment of the (dismissed) non-execs.
Cue more entrenchment from the gang of four. According to BDO, these gilded individuals didn’t like being challenged and they were also quick to take offence when criticised.
Now, with the non-execs free to air their grievances to the press, and the GC19 members doing likewise, attention turned towards the organisation itself that carried that royal seal of approval.
QC Alison Levitt was brought in to carry out a review of the crisis. She concluded that the RICS should make a public apology to the ousted directors who had raised the alarm when the initial report was essentially buried, and also apologise to the GC19.
She said that both of these parties had behaved in an exemplary fashion and that they were right and brave to have raised the issues in the face of quite a lot of hostility from the RICS board.
Huge shame on the latter.
The construction magazine Building reached out for opinion and found that the core membership of the RICS felt ‘disengaged and neglected’, and overall satisfaction with the organisation, based on 9,000 responses, was at just 43 percent.
At present, Lord Michael Bichard has been appointed to carry out an official review that will examine the whole purpose of the RICS. Maybe it will lose its royal charter.
The people responsible for the scandal have all resigned, praising each other as they left the building to pursue other opportunities, having had a wonderful time, and being immensely proud and deeply privileged to have been able to serve this wonderful institution, etc, etc.
So, what went wrong?
I once dealt with a regional director of the RICS in his personal capacity as head of his own construction company. According to the RICS, he had held the position for a decade or more and was known for his ‘integrity and fairness’.
The fucker then lied to me!
I was chasing down a debt. We’d done some work for them, and were owed money. I’d only recently joined the firm I was with, and I asked if there were any outstanding accounts that I could try to tie up on their behalf.
Pointed in the direction of a job we’d done for this bloke, I read through the job file, appraised myself of all the issues, put my ‘fair hat’ on and walked through the bones of contention.
One of the heads of claim should go to us, I thought. One of them should go to them. Meet in the middle on the next one, that sort of thing, until I had a settlement figure in mind. It was time to give this fella a call.
I told him who I was, who I represented, and explained that I was trying to reconcile our account which – even with my ‘fair hat on’ – looked like they owed us a few quid. Not loads. Maybe ten grand.
I explained my credentials. An MA, I said, with 20 years of surveying experience. I’d also written a few books, including some on construction. I know what I’m talking about was the basic message. Don’t mess with me.
‘And I’m the president of the so-and-so region of the RICS,’ he said haughtily. ‘Have been for 15 years.’ Something like that.
I asked for our money. Even taking into account all of his previous rebuttals of our claim, I believed we were owed this amount of money, and mapped it out.
He acquiesced. He said there were a few residual issues on the job and that if we would correct them, he would issue a payment for my fair settlement sum.
Happy days.
We went back to site, did the repairs, and I then called him up to ask for our money.
You can guess what happened.
He moved the goalposts, saying that because of blah, blah, blah, he wasn’t going to pay because of bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘that is not what you and I agreed to. You said that if we did x, y and z, you would then release those funds.’
Now, he wanted us to do some additional work, and only then would we get paid.
He’d lied to me. He was taking advantage. His word was certainly not his bond, and the matter ended up in arbitration. Naturally, this master gamekeeper turned on the charm and knew what to say (he’d sat in that judge’s chair himself on many occasions), so we were on a hiding to nothing. My boss lost his (in my view) legitimate claim.
That was a president of one branch of the RICS.
And as for the organisation itself? Well, Lord Bichard’s report will tell us more, later in the book.