{"id":624,"date":"2025-07-01T15:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/building-standards\/?p=624"},"modified":"2025-07-01T15:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:12:20","slug":"european-collaboration-in-building-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/building-standards\/2025\/07\/01\/european-collaboration-in-building-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"European Collaboration in Building Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

For almost three decades, representatives of the Scottish building standards community have worked with European colleagues to promote and develop building regulations.<\/p>\n

The Consortium of European Building Control<\/a>\u00a0is an organisation dedicated to the promotion and sharing of expertise on building control systems across Europe and beyond. The organisation currently comprises 32 member organisations across 22 countries.<\/p>\n

Members represent those who produce building regulations and those who verify\/enforce those regulations, both public and private sector organisations.<\/p>\n

Member organisations meet twice a year to share information and discuss topics of mutual interest. Scotland hosted a meeting in May 2024. Recent themes include action to improve compliance with standards and to define and demonstrate competence of those delivering our buildings.<\/p>\n

The organisation also produces informative reports<\/a> on topics of significant interest to those with an interest in the built environment. Recent publication topics include how competence is measured in different member countries and a summary comparison of building control systems across Europe.<\/p>\n

\"MuseumThis month\u2019s Business Meeting in Warsaw was hosted by the Polish General Office of Building Control. The meeting was preceded by a technical and cultural visit. This included a tour of the iconic Palace of Culture and Science and a construction visit to the recently-completed Museum of Polish History.<\/p>\n

The meeting theme was \u2018Digitalization – the future of building control\u2019. \u00a0The first day started with informative presentations on the building standards system in Poland, current work on construction products market surveillance and their digitisation of building procedures. This was followed by speakers covering the development and use of digital land survey information and the regime governing civil and other engineers in Poland.<\/p>\n

\"CEBC<\/p>\n

The afternoon session discussed AI and its use in automating aspects of the building control process. This included examples of compliance checking systems from the private sector and in Finland as well as a summary of digital permit processes across Europe. The speakers then participated in an hour of workshop questions, illustrating the interest in this subject and the growing opportunities for systems development.<\/p>\n

The session closed with presentations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank on the importance of an effective and enabling building standards systems as a driver for prosperity and economic growth.<\/p>\n

On the second day, we heard from the Municipality of Madrid on progress in their work to automate assessment and recording of building permits.<\/p>\n

\"CEBC<\/p>\n

Short update presentations by member organisations followed on topics including the new Building Act in Finland, recent incidents of fire spread in blocks of houses in the Netherlands and how Slovenia is looking to predict, plan and respond to risk from earthquakes.<\/p>\n

The final session covered the internal activity of the organisation and includes updates on current project work. Three projects are underway:<\/p>\n