Week one
Priya reads the environmental reports, licences and permits, and lists every condition: what, where, when, and who's responsible.
Priya's journey · Assurance · Lesson 4
The newts
Before you start
In the story
The newts were in the report. The report never reached site.
Back to the story
The right way
The plan
The no-go areas and seasonal windows go onto the constraints plan and into the programme, and every induction shows it. The gang know there's a pond, why it matters, and where not to dig.
March
The compound goes on the other side of the site. The newts are moved in their window, with the ecologist watching. Rex never meets one, which is how it should be.
Appendix FA licence nobody on site had read, a newt in a bucket, and three months lost.
On the constraints planEvery condition listed, mapped, briefed and in the programme.
Think like Priya
The law asks for things the drawings never show. What licences, permits and surveys does this site have, what does each one say we must or mustn't do, and has that reached the people with the digger?
Continue Priya's journey
Story 5: Fixed, but nobody wrote it down
Site fixes a problem by lunchtime. Nobody tells the designer, or the drawing.
The right way, explained
Some parts of town have rules you can't see from the road: a protected garden, a bridge you can only cross in summer. The town map marks them, or the next builder drives straight through.
If you're the site manager
Ask for the constraints plan before anything is stripped or dug, and make the no-go areas part of every induction and every permit to dig. If it isn't on the plan, ask before you assume it's fine.
In the town See it in the town: the newts were in the report. So why was the digger in the pond?
Priya's view: a warning sign on the road ahead for every rule you can't see from the road, each with someone's name on it.
- 1 A warning sign for every information risk on the road ahead, written like any other project risk, each with a named owner and something being done about it.
- 2 The old register's only sign. Faded, vague, and nobody's name on it.
Legal constraints are requirements too!
A licence, a permit or a season is a requirement like any other, and the information about it has to reach the digger: listed, owned, mapped and briefed.
Sam's Heads Up Your newts might be bats
InfoTown good practice: Legal constraints are requirements like any other; they go on the list and reach the work.
On your job: It might be bats in the old Precinct's roof, birds nesting in the hedge, or a limit on silty water going into the river. A different creature, the same route.
For the audit What the auditor will ask
- Show me the environmental constraints for this site, and how the site team knows them.
- Show me how a licence condition got into the programme.
For the audit What good evidence looks like
- A register of licences, permits and their conditions, with owners and dates.
- A constraints plan on the CDE that matches it.
- Induction records that cover the no-go areas.
ISO 19650 Requirements that reach the work
ISO 19650 expects requirements to be captured and passed down to the people doing the work. It doesn't name legal or environmental obligations; treating them as requirements that must reach the work face is InfoTown's advice.
Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.