Podcast: How the ICE plans to improve safety risk management
Past ICE President Paul Sheffield explains the key recommendations of the new Building Safeguards report
This podcast features Paul Sheffield, chair of the recent ICE review of safety risk management in civil engineering, in conversation with Mark Hansford, the institution’s director of engineering knowledge.
The review began in April 2024. Although prompted by the implementation of the Building Safety Act 2022, it sought to assess significant changes in the safety risk landscape that had occurred since October 2018, when the ICE published its In Plain Sight report in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Sheffield, who served as ICE President in 2019-20, discusses the key findings of this extensive review, which are contained in the new Building Safeguards report.
The report points out that the risk of structural failure has increased significantly since 2018, as many major assets still in use have far exceeded their design lives. This reinforces a key finding of the ICE’s 2025 State of the Nation report, which raised “serious concerns… about the condition of critical infrastructure”.
Acknowledging that the sector’s response to Grenfell has been inadequate, Building Safeguards sets out an ambitious ICE action plan on safety risk management. Sheffield explains its main priorities, which fall into the following three categories: competence; learning from failure; and culture and practice.
The ICE’s review of safety risk management
If you’ve taken that step in your life to become a chartered engineer… then you know a bit about professionalism and responsibility. I think that gives you the sort of moral compass and the obligation to do the right thing
Paul Sheffield, ICE President 2019-20
Linking our work back to the UN SDGs is a core part of the ICE’s plan and mission. This content ties in with the following SDGs:
