BESA suspends five members
9th January 2026
UK: The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has suspended five member companies for failing to comply with its independent audit process.
The association’s council, whose members are responsible for BESA’s governance and ensuring that it continues to meet the vision and values of its founders, said it was taking this step as part of its ongoing campaign to improve technical and professional standards across the building engineering sector.
These latest suspensions follow the suspension of 14 other firms in June last year.
The five unnamed companies are said to have failed to reach the standard required to meet BESA’s Competence Assessment Standard (CAS).
The specifics of the individual suspensions are not revealed, but the association’s CAS covers business practices, financial solvency, insurance, health and safety, and technical proficiency.
BESA says that the process is also aligned with the industry benchmark provided by the Build UK Common Assessment Standard and supports the UK government’s ambition to improve construction standards and protect building users under the Building Safety Act.
“BESA has never been afraid to robustly defend its remit and constitution,” claimed CEO David Frise. “We do not suspend members lightly but take our wider responsibilities to the industry and its ultimate clients – building occupants – extremely seriously.
“It might seem counterintuitive for a membership body to suspend or reject companies, but membership needs to stand for something. We would always favour quality over quantity, and we now have more companies waiting to join – so sticking to our principles is working.”
The current pass rate for the CAS audit, ie those companies achieving zero non-compliance at audit, is 62%. BESA said this demonstrated the system was “robust” and that several companies still had work to do to ensure they could meet their legal and ethical responsibilities.
BESA also recently launched a member pledge initiative when several of its largest and most prominent members signed an agreement to put professional and technical competence at the heart of their operations and mandate their supply chains to do the same.
The audit is carried out by BESCA, a UKAS accredited independent part of the BESA group. It investigates whether prospective and existing members have all the skills necessary to deliver quality, safe work. It includes an on-site technical audit based on check lists linked to latest technical standards so clients, main contractors and the public can have confidence when appointing a BESA member firm.
“We have never been afraid to suspend members who don’t meet our standards,” said Frise. “It is always a last resort as we would much rather work with companies to help them improve, but when it is clear that is not possible, we have demonstrated that we will take the ultimate sanction.”
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BESA suspends 14 members – 24 June 2025
UK: The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has suspended 14 member companies for failing to comply with its independent audit process. Read more…
