News

Site Operating Procedures CLC latest (third) version 15/4/20

Baily Garner is now following the latest CLC guidance set out in its Site Operating Procedure Advice note (3rd) version 15/4/2020 and drawing this latest guidance to our Partners attention, to request that it is being followed on those sites currently in operation.

The Housing Forum – Coronavirus: a view from the sector

The Housing Forum members have put together a bulletin entitled “Coronavirus – a view from the sector” which reaffirms a Partnership approach to how the housing industry should manage the implications of the current Covid-19 public health crisis. Baily Garner LLP were keen and active contributors to this guidance which we would encourage readers to read, contemplate and share.

Kensington Street Shortlisted at the Housing Design Awards

Our Kensington Street scheme has been shortlisted in the Completed Schemes category at this year’s Housing Design Awards. Baily Garner provided Architectural and Employer’s Agent Services for this 100% Affordable Housing Scheme in Brighton for Brighton and Hove City Council and the Guinness Partnership.

You can view the project as well as the other nominees here. We are very excited to see who the winners will be when announced this July.

Our plans and actions to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak (Update 24 March)

UPDATE 24 MARCH

As the Covid-19 crisis has been deepening, day by day, we have been carefully reviewing all our operations and putting plans into place to ensure that we are following and complying with all government guidance to keep people safe and reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus infection whilst, at the same time, also ensuring we continue to provide the appropriate service and support to all our clients and construction project partners.

Following the Prime Ministers announcements on Monday 23 March, we would like to update you as follows.

Offices closed from close of business Tuesday 24th March

We are in the position where all our staff have the capability to work from home without any loss of service provision so in the light of the Prime Minister’s announcements on 23 March we will be

  • Following government guidance about essential travel and closing all our offices from close of business Tuesday 24th March
  • Where sites remain open and the contractor’s policy allows visitors, subject to all Public Health England guidelines being observed and transport being available it is our intention to continue to visit sites to carry out our duties, wherever this is possible
  • All our staff have the ability to continue supporting you on all our projects in our customary inter-disciplinary way, accessing all necessary IT software and systems from home, and communicating face to face using video conferencing technology through Microsoft Teams.
  • This technology can also be used to keep in contact and host virtual project specific meetings even if meeting participants are not all Microsoft Teams users, so if this will help your project please get in touch with your Baily Garner project contacts
  • Telephone calls to the office switchboard numbers will still be monitored and messages managed and forwarded during this closure period but we do recommend that where you need to contact somebody, you use their mobile phone number as the initial means of contact where you know it.
  • Senior management are meeting regularly at both strategic and operational levels to ensure that we continue to deal appropriately with all the challenges of managing a business in such unprecedented times.
Continuing to keep you updated

We will continue to update you as clients as events continue to unfold using all available media including social media and further website updates as well as personal communication where this is appropriate. Please stay safe.

Consultant Thought Leadership Group

Baily Garner are proud to be members of the Consultant Thought Leadership Group, a group of Chartered Surveyors, Employers Agents and Project Managers that have got together to help drive quality and change within the construction industry through collaboration and knowledge sharing. The attached open letter to all our clients discusses the impact of Covid-19 on our industry and discusses some potential ways through

  • contractual obligations,
  • recording best where we are now for when we have to return to sites
  • maintaining cashflow

It is the first of a number of thought pieces that we will share openly.

Our plans and actions to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak

Purpose

In addition to our Business Continuity Policies, we are doing the following in order to to deal with the 2020 Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak. Due to the changing nature of the risks, it is a plan that is subject to regular review and change.

What is Baily Garner Doing to Minimise Risk…Generally?

We are following Government Guidelines and implementing our own business continuity procedures around this advice

This has included
  • Promoting a considered and responsible approach at all times so that we preserve the health and safety of all our staff and stakeholders and manage our response proportionately.
  • Communicating with employees, partner organisations and clients to provide all relevant information that they might need to limit infection spread during the outbreak.
  • Senior management meeting regularly at both strategic and operational levels to ensure that emerging risks and all potential threats to maintaining a full service during the incident are identified and mitigated as practically as possible to ensure a safe working environment for our staff and as high a level of practical consultancy service as is possible for our clients.
  • Gearing our IT response to maximise our ability to continue working using remote working technology.
  • Encouraging our staff to raise all concerns openly and reasserting our flexible working capability into working practices .
…and Specifically?

We review the government website every day and implement any changes to best practice recommended within the guidance

We have a visible and constantly updated area on our intranet home page with links to all the necessary guidance

Our Partners, HR and Group Managers are actively managing their teams in terms of potential risks and are available to advise and discuss with staff all concerns at any time.

Hand-washing and more visible general sanitation guidance has been increased in our workplaces with onsite posters in toilet areas, hand sanitisers around the office and regular dialogue with onsite cleaning staff about any additional requirements during this period.
We have published specific guidance on the details of symptoms, reducing the risk of spreading the virus as well as responding to staff questions through an FAQ site.

We are checking with our clients and partners that their own contingency plans are practical and fit for purpose.

Updated Friday 13 March

We today provided some additional suggestions, considerations and commentary to our clients on our plans to maintain continuity of site work during the current Covid-19 crisis. You can find a note from our Managing Partner Continuity of Site Operations during the Covid-19 Delay Phase  and a more detailed appendix 2020-03-12 Appendix to Generic Note.

 

Email Delivery Problems – an update

Following some changes to email settings made in a Microsoft update in January we are encountering a higher than usual number of mail delivery issues when sending and receiving emails from clients. If this is/has affected you, here’s some detail you should share with your email service provider or IT team so that they can liaise with our IT team to resolve the issue https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/use-dmarc-to-validate-email. .

Baily Garner sends an email to you and you don’t seem to receive it.

This is because your email server is rejecting the email and is either referring it to your spam folder or just blocking completely (with no bounce-back message being sent to alert the sender).

If you encounter this, (and obviously you will only know there is a problem if Baily Garner staff alert you to this) Baily Garner’s IT team can provide you with the exact time and date the email was ‘delivered’ to give to your IT team and they can liaise with them to help resolve the issue.

 

You send an email to Baily Garner that doesn’t get through

This is because (getting a bit technical here) your DKIM/SPF data settings are invalid and are not being authenticated by our email server.

These settings exist to help verify that the email is definitely from the person purporting to send the email and not an impersonator or hacker

In all instances, BG’s settings will mean a ‘message delivery failure’ bounce -back will be sent to the sender. If you receive one of these messages please take it to your IT team who should be able to amend the settings to enable future emails to be sent to BG without issue.

 

We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing but are happy to help resolve any issues.

 

Second Quality Summit for Technical Staff – “such an engaging day”.

Baily Garner’s second (and now becoming annual) ‘Quality Summit’ for all its technical staff was held at etcVenues in Monument London on 22 November and was another great success.

Read more >

Second Annual Baily Garner Summit is Nearly Here…

All our technical staff will be attending our second Quality summit at ETC Venues, Monument on Friday 22 November.

As well as receiving technical updates on cladding and Part B, we will be talking “quality – from the clients point of view” with speaker contributions from

  • Brendan Sarsfield (Chief Executive at Peabody)
  • Steve Makowski (Chief Executive Officer for the National Housing Academy)
  • Alan Edgar (Production Director Mount Anvil) as well as
  • Andy Tookey (our own Managing partner).

The day will also include a practical session working  with some digital tools , and a follow up to last year’s QCI top tips session from Paul Pearce as well as much more!

We’ll present a brief resumee of the day for those that are interested next week.

Andy Tookey and Baily Garner Feature in Masthead October 2019

The quarterly publication for the South East London Chamber of Commerce, the Masthead, features Baily Garner’s own Managing Partner, Andy Tookey as it’s Big Interview for the October 2019 edition.

In a wide ranging interview, Andy talks about his early career, the essence of Baily Garner, the importance of quality in the modern construction world and our focus on training our own people and bringing them through to safeguard the future of Baily Garner in a post Brexit world.

You can read the full article on pages 25-27 here.

Kensington Street Wins Best Architectural Design

Congratulations to our Kensington Street project team on winning the award for Best Architectural Design at the South East Construction Awards. The team worked in close collaboration with Brighton and Hove City Coucil, Guinness Partnership and Sunninghill Construction to deliver the 12 city centre units.

Jack’s Article – RICS Built Environment Journal

Baily Garner are pleased to continue our authorship support to the RICS Built Environment Journal and Jack Thompson-Smith has contributed to our latest publication on the important issue of taking care of healthcare assets which can be read here on Page 53 

Kensington Street Shortlisted Finalist in 2019 South East Construction Awards

Kensington Street has been shortlisted as a finalist for Best Architectural Design at the 2019 South East Construction Awards. The recently completed Brighton-based project designed by the Baily Garner architecture team is nominated with the winners for all categories being announced on the 26th of September – Well done to the architects…and fingers crossed for 26th!

Karen Featured in PA Life

Baily Garner’s Karen Crowley (PA to Managing partner, Andy Tookey) has had an article featured in PA Life Magazine highlighting her work on the ISO14001 accreditation for Baily Garner. Read here how Karen helped to make BG more environmentally-friendly.

24Housing Roundtable Discussion

Andy Little

On the 1st of July 2019 our Partner Andrew Little was invited by 24Housing to participate in a Roundtable discussion on the subject of “Clearing the confusion” debating what have we learned, what has changed and what more needs to happen 2 years after the Grenfell tragedy. Sponsored by Kier, the Group was formed of Senior and Director level individuals  representing Clients, Consultants and Manufacturers and the article can be found here

Our attendance at this recent event represents our continued drive to improve quality standards and performance across the industry and builds on a number of the themes and challenges set out in our co-authored Stopping Building Failures Report published by the Housing Forum.

Tops Club Shortlisted for Housing Essex Excellence Award

We are excited to announce that Tops Club has been shortlisted for a Housing Essex Excellence Award, Baily Garner provided Quantity Surveying services to the residential project. We have been nominated for the 2nd category – Best Housing Schemes Under 50 homes. The awards ceremony will be held on the 10th of October.

Member of South East London Chamber of Commerce

Baily Garner is delighted to have become a member of the South East London Chamber of Commerce and looks forward to joining all the other local businesses in making a really positive contribution to the Greenwich and surrounding area communities.

Congratulations to Dan – our New Associate Partner

Dan Bridgewater

We are pleased to announce the promotion of Dan Bridgewater to Associate Partner, effective from 1 May 2019.

Based in our Birmingham office, Dan joined the practice in 2013 and his well deserved promotion recognises his commitment to both Baily Garner and his clients.

The individual abilities and experiences that our new Associates bring to their respective teams and offices are invaluable and we are delighted to congratulate Dan and wish him every success in his new position.

Mock Interviews for Year 13 Pupils

We continue to take an active role working with and supporting our local communities, a recent event saw Sarah Chisholm take part in a “Construction Youth” organised event at a school in Gravesend, giving Year 13 students an opportunity to experience a typical interview scenario.

Students had the chance to practice and improve their interview skills, as Sarah and two other panel members took them through a mock interview, asking the sort of questions students are likely to encounter and helping them to understand what employers will be looking for in a successful candidate. After receiving useful feedback from the panel to build their confidence, students really made the most of a great opportunity to prepare themselves for the future.

Baily Garner Breakfast Briefing – 18 January 2019 – Brexit and Construction (an economic view)

We hosted the latest in our series of invitation only Baily Garner Breakfast briefings on Friday 18th January 2019 at the Ned, Poultry…on the hugely topical subject of Brexit.

Read more >

2019 Graduate and Year Out Application Deadline

Applications for our 2019 Graduate and Year Out opportunities close on 31st December 2018 – please submit your CV and covering letter as soon as possible.

 

Baily Garner Sponsor Homes 2018

We are delighted to have sponsored the Homes 2018 event at London’s Olympia and take part in two well attended sessions – Managing Partner Andy Tookey, co-author of The Housing Forum’s “Stopping Building Failures” report, joined a panel examining the findings of this best practice guide, whilst  Andrew Little and John Milner’s presentation “MMC: Tipping Point or False Dawn” produced a lively question and answer session at this successful two day event.

We’re Cyber Essential Plus Accredited

After taking significant steps towards protecting our online systems to achieve Cyber Essential accreditation earlier this year, following a recent audit we are delighted that we have now successfully completed and been awarded Cyber Essential PLUS accreditation. The ‘PLUS’ accreditation means that, as well as our IT procedures and process complying with the standard, “at the time of testing, our defences were assessed as satisfactory against commodity based cyber-attack”. This is a great achievement which we are very proud of – huge thanks go to our IT Department for their hard work in achieving this.

Attending your University Careers Fair?

Autumn is always a busy period for university careers fairs – we’ve been travelling across the country talking to students about our Year Out and Graduate opportunities and have received some great feedback so far from Anglia Ruskin, Oxford Brookes and Nottingham Trent universities.

Here’s where you will find us in the next few weeks:

Wednesday 7 November: 

  • Brighton University and Sussex University (come and say hello to Os Kamil and Kayhan Rasit)
  • Sheffield Hallam University (Peter Fisher will be answering your questions)
  • Birmingham City University (come and say hello to Laura Ward)

Tuesday 13 November: 

  • University of Reading (Meet Zach and Dilraj on Stand 17 between 11 am and 2 pm)

Tuesday 20 November: 

  • South Bank University (Dan Brownlee and Rob Tyler are teaming up for this event).

Congratulations to our New Associate Partner Os

We are delighted to announce that Os Kamil joins the partnership as an Associate Partner, effective from 1st November 2018.

Many congratulations on a well deserved promotion Os!

BG Quality Summit – BG’s Commitment to the Quality Agenda

Baily Garner held its first Quality Summit on Friday 5th October.

Around 120 technical staff took part in a day led by our Partners and dedicated to identifying what more Baily Garner can do to drive forward the Quality Agenda in Construction.

Read more >

Baily Garner Quality Summit

Baily Garner fully support the Quality in Construction agenda and on Friday 5th October will be holding its own one day Quality Summit for all its technical staff as part of our drive to make our own difference in this area.

We will be looking specifically at topics that contribute to the overall quality of buildings and project management such as

  • pre-contract considerations
  • the latest regulation updates
  • our action response to the recent Housing Forum Report Stopping Building Failures (a report co-authored by our own Andy Tookey) and use of digital technology

We will examine best practice examples in construction across various sectors and non-construction industries to see what lessons can be learned and we will also hear presentations from two keynote speakers

James King – President of LDSA Building Control, who will present his views on the Hackitt report, as well as a range of building control related topics

Keith Exford – Our own Non-Executive Director, formally CEO at Clarion, who will put forward a perspective on quality from the client side

We will be summarising the key points from this important day so visit this site again soon for more, or let us know if you would like further details about the day.

Graduation and RICS Award Congratulations

Congratulations to recent graduates Peter Fisher and Will Gregory on receiving their BSc (Hons) from Birmingham City University and to Peter who was also presented with the RICS Award for Outstanding Achievement.

ISO 9001 Audit Success

We are committed to maintaining our Quality Management accreditation and were delighted to receive confirmation, following a recent audit, that Baily Garner’s quality management systems continue to meet the required standards for ISO 9001.

Digital Signatures

The Technical Stuff

Baily Garner have introduced digitally signed pdf documents using a 1024bit encryption public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate issued to Baily Garner from VeriSign. The certificates are held on a Class 2 crypto device, with access being controlled via a microsoft active directory authentication using a Strong Password Policy. What this means is that you have the peace of mind to know that signer’s digital identity is legitimate.

The ‘signature’ will appear on each document in a similar looking format and will include the name of the authoriser, the date and time the document was signed and a web link to this page to help explain digital signatures, see example

This gives you the assurance that the information has not been altered since it was authorised, as any modification made to the document after signing will invalidate the signature, and acrobat reader will allow you to see what was actually signed (the original document).

For more information see http://www.adobe.com/security/digsig.html

APC Success for June

Our congratulations go to June Park who can now add MRICS to her qualifications after passing her APC – a great achievement following a lot of hard work and another success for our professional development programme here at Baily Garner

Announcing our New Non-Executive Director

Baily Garner Equity Partners are delighted to be able to announce that Keith Exford CBE will be joining the Baily Garner LLP board as a Non-Executive Director from 1 August 2018.

Keith’s 30 years of unique housing sector management experience, including his former role as CEO of the largest housing association in Europe – Clarion Housing – will bring great knowledge, experience and guidance to the Baily Garner board.

 

Join Andy at CIH Housing 2018 Manchester

We’re looking forward to CIH Housing 2018 in Manchester from  26-28 June – Join Andy Tookey at the Knowledge Theatre, Manchester Central Convention Complex on Thursday 28 June 12.00 – 12.45 exploring key themes of the Housing Forum latest report ‘Stopping Building Failures’ and ‘How the Client gets Value from Value Management’

Andy Tookey Co-Chairs Working Group for Housing Forum Commissioned Report

A Housing Forum commissioned report, Stopping Building Failures: How a Collaborative Approach can Improve Quality and Workmanship, produced by a Working Group co-chaired by Baily Garner’s Managing Partner Andy Tookey, launched at the May 2018 National Conference.

Here’s a link to the full report, focusing on procuring for quality, harnessing innovation and building defect free homes, drawing on the experience of members from across the sector.

Baily Garner Now Constructionline Gold Accredited

After some diligent work by our Bids team, we are delighted to confirm our recent upgrade to Constructionline Gold status. Thanks in particular to Sandra Potter and everyone who helped her secure the accreditation for Baily Garner LLP.

Our Latest Associate Partner

We are delighted to announce Rob Tyler’s promotion to Associate Partner, effective from 1st May 2018.

Rob joined the practice in 2010, taking advantage of our in-house career support and sponsorship to complete his BSc (Hons) and to qualify as a Chartered Building Surveyor.

Many congratulations Rob!

BG Feature in Women in Construction Project

We were delighted to take part and feature in the Women in Construction project. Read more >

Take a Look at our New Publications

Find out more on how our expertise can help you with our latest publications

Hidden Homes – how we can help transform your empty, under-utilised or derelict areas to deliver much needed homes

Building Services, Energy & Environmental  – read more on our collaborative approach to Mechanical, Electrical and Public Health services design and sustainability advice

 

Launch of our City of London Office

As part of our continued growth and commitment to delivering a first class service to our clients, we are delighted to announce the launch of our new City of London office on 1 March 2018. Read more >

Jeremy Corbyn Opens New Community Centre at Ivy Hall

Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn was very impressed with the London Borough of Islington’s £6m development at Ivy Hall when he came along to open Brickworks Community Centre located in the impressive double height community hall. Read more >

Baily Garner Support Osborne and Demelza Children’s Hospice DIYSOS build

When Osborne asked Baily Garner to get involved in a very special project Osborne were planning, to mark and help celebrate their 50th anniversary, we were only too happy to help.

Read more >

Christmas Celebration at Sea Containers

Thank you to everyone who attended the 2017 Baily Garner Christmas Reception, this year held at Sea Containers. Here are some images of another enjoyable event. Read more >

APC Success for Suki and Alex

Many congratulations to Suki and Alex who have successfully passed their APC to become Chartered Building Surveyors. A great achievement and testament to their hard work and the continuing success of our professional development programme here at Baily Garner

Attending your University Careers Fair?

Autumn is always a busy period for university careers fairs – we’ve been travelling across the country talking to students about our year out and graduate opportunities and receiving some great feedback from under-graduates at Kingston, Nottingham Trent, Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Sheffield Hallam and Reading universities.

You will find us at Southbank’s Built Environment & Architecture Fair on Tuesday 28 November – come along and say hello to Adam and Rob or catch up with Zach and Max at Brighton University on Friday 1 December.

More dates will be added in the new year.

Homes 2017 – 22 & 23 November – London Olympia

We are delighted to be sponsoring Homes 2017 at London’s Olympia – drop by our stand and say hello on 22nd/23rd November.  Join Andy Tookey and Paul Pearce for “Treating the Quality Epidemic” at 3.15 pm on 22 Nov – a subject raising concerns across our industry.  The Homes Event is free of charge for Housing Associations, Local Authorities, ALMOs, Developers/Builders, Architects and Charities.

Baily Garner and Osborne and Building Space

Baily Garner are helping Osborne celebrate its 50th Anniversary by working alongside them to build a two-storey extension at Demelza’s Eltham Hospice in South East London that will allow seriously ill children the space to grow, develop and live life to the fullest.

Demelza Hospice Care for Children provide expert, compassionate care, free of charge to severely ill children and their families 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Baily Garner are working with other supply chain partners on this build with many donating their time and materials for free. Read more >

Celebrating our Latest Partnership Promotions

We are pleased to announce two promotions taking effect from 1st November 2017.

Congratulations to Mark Ellis, our new Associate Partner and to former Associate Partner Robert Ireland, who is now a Non Equity Partner.

Welcome James Thacker

We are delighted to welcome James Thacker who joined Baily Garner this month as Head of Commercial Surveying. James will play a key role in developing our exciting Commercial Business Plan in the coming months.

Join us at the SEC Conference 1st November 2017

We’re delighted to be exhibiting and presenting at this year’s South East Consortium Annual Conference on 1st November. The event is free for public sector clients – find out more on what the conference will be covering. You’ll find our exhibition stand in the Emerging Thinking Zone – where Bradley Webster and Jack Thompson-Smith’s session on “Pre-Manufacture: Fad or mainstream” will be taking place between 3:45-4:30pm. Look forward to seeing you there!

Congratulations to Amy Ramsook

Amy Ramsook

Congratulations to Amy Ramsook on her recent success, adding BREEAM Assessor to her professional qualifications. Well done Amy!

 

Spring at Stonebridge shortlisted in Building Awards

Spring at Stonebridge

Spring at Stonebridge Park has been shortlisted once again, this time the project is competing for the 2017 Building “Housing Project of the Year” Award, with winners to be announced in November.

Congratulations to everyone involved!