Construction Quality Reviews

NHBC Construction quality reviews (CQRs) provide a snapshot of construction quality on up to 38 build stages across a site. They highlight whether all work seen within a build stage meets requirements, or whether one or more areas requires improvement. A CQR seeks to identify underlying causes, which often go beyond workmanship e.g., design, materials, procurement, contractual etc. Each build stage within a CQR is scored from 1 (very poor) to 6 (Outstanding), with 4 (good) indicating that observed work meet requirements, e.g., NHBC Standards, Building Regulations. The photos/scores and intelligence collated from CQRs are analysed for trends and shared across the industry to further drive quality and prevent re-occurrence.

• Third party, independent, non-bias view of build quality, providing an unrivalled industry/business level quality metric 
• Additional layers of quality control e.g., instant warnings of key issues/root causes before a defect manifests 
• Ensures issues have been rectified and learning has occurred (via NHBC Inspection observations, and close out reports) 
• Provides a communication platform for the site teams to express root causations associated around buildability of designs, suitability of materials etc 
• Provides educational opportunities for site staff from a build quality specialist 
• Provides clear focus and direction with regards to build quality at a product, build element, site, business, and industry level 
• Improves and tracks build and finish quality

Blanket/companywide 2nd CQRs at a business level provides additional quality assurance/control and a platform to cover all sites every 6 months. The process enables businesses to track quality on a rolling 6-month basis, providing alignment with half/full year ends/potential city updates. It also provides further support from our build quality specialists. 

All visits will be included within our reporting and provide additional quality related intelligence. It will enable you to benchmark site performance against Group performance, completion/industry trends on a rolling 6-month basis. 

A focus CQR visit on selected site(s) or specific build stage(s) (Build Quality Inspection) can offer additional support to a site team. Help provide direction on strengths and weaknesses above and beyond the standard/enhanced companywide visits without affecting overall results. It can also be used as a post CQR quality audit and additional reassurance to senior management. Any scores on a focus CQR/BQI are excluded from normal industry/group level reports.

No, the CQR reports are recorded at a site level only, plot numbers are stipulated in the free text field on a photo but not recorded in our database, only hyperlinks at a site level. Therefore, any NHBC homeowner system database search requests for a specific plot should not return a CQR report.

To protect individuals/companies from any reference to poor workmanship associated around a subcontractor and or product performance, NHBC doesn’t allow sharing of a full CQR report. This is reinforced by the note included on the front cover of all CQR reports We do support use of positive CQR statistics and publishing at a build stage/extract level in social media (assuming all parties included in the extract have agreed to the publication). Such extracts tend to create a positive vibe around the product, a thirst/hunger to improve quality and perpetuates the good. If in doubt, please email ConstructionQuality@nhbc.co.uk for further guidance/approval.