Glosford have been awarded the coveted BOPAS accreditation.

BOPAS accreditation will certainly be important for third-party lenders and will ensure Glosford SIPs are at the top of the list for SIP providers as only 1 or 2 others in the country currently have this.

The build-offsite property assurance scheme (BOPAS) was established to serve the interests of the lenders and to deliver repeatability of the process as the variability has the potential to translate into performance variability, which can impact warranty exposure, lender and homeowner exposure. The BOPAS accreditation introduces optimal transparency into the procedures developed and implemented by off-site providers who apply for certification; because transparency leads to accountability, and greater accountability drives operational efficiency. 

Build-offsite has jointly developed BOPAS with the aid from The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, LRQA, Building Life Plans (BLP) and the Principle Lenders, to assure the lending community that innovatively constructed properties, which they may be lending against, will be sufficiently durable as to be readily saleable throughout two mortgage terms, which may equate to 60 years and that the structural integrity will not intrinsically have a negative impact on the mortgage security during that term. 

A vital feature of the scheme is competency throughout design, manufacture and construction. Therefore, LRQA tends to place significant emphasis on skill, requiring a competency matrix which few organisations tend to have in place but are critical for a definitive determination of competency and continuity. 

Risk management is another crucial feature and spans the whole organisation from the global risk register at the board level to ensure business continuity through to project risk, departmental risk and factory floor health and safety risk – the latter being gold plated and the former elements primarily ignored. 

Moreover, LRQA has sought to develop further the safeguarding function by extending the scope of accreditation to incorporate post-handover communications with the homeowner. LRQA seeks to define the minimum requirements for the handover manual/DVD, establish KPIs for post-handover quality deficiencies and KPIs for the speed with which they are closed out so that we seek to safeguard both the homeowner and the lender. 

The assessment process seeks to establish that build off-site providers have robust systems and procedures underpinned by a risk-based approach which enables them to safely and competently deliver products or services which consistently meet their client requirements.