Will the Building Act support digitalisation or digitisation of the Building Act?

Martin Kupka (left) and Ivan Bartoš at the Opening Conference of the Building Fair in Brno. CEEC Research

BRNO, 25 April 2024 - The opening conference of the Building Fair, subtitled RESTART OF CZECH CONSTRUCTION, took place in the Rotunda of Hall A of the Brno Exhibition Centre. The programme included a discussion between members of the government and leading representatives of the public sector and practitioners on the preparation of digitalisation in the construction sector. Digitisation should become a tool for streamlining the construction procedure to make it faster, less error-prone and administratively simpler for applicants and officials. At the same time, all information needs to be easily traceable using modern technologies.

The previous version of the Building Act often led to unnecessarily long and complicated administrative procedures, which hampered the implementation of construction projects. The new version should help construction companies speed up the process of obtaining building permits and the overall construction process through simplified and efficient processes. Only 2 % of the construction company directors surveyed expect construction procedures to speed up significantly after the changes in the law, while 37 % of the respondents are cautiously optimistic about the new law and the majority (61 %) are skeptical. It is likely that the law will be further amended and modified after its introduction to better fulfil its purpose and that the expected changes will actually be noticeable in practice.

This is based on the Quarterly Analysis of the Czech Construction Industry Q1/2024 prepared by the analytical company CEEC Research.

And her director, Michal Vacek says that: "The advent of digitalisation of construction management is a hot topic at the moment and is associated with high expectations from construction companies. A large number of construction company directors associate the coming digitalisation with rather negative thoughts about its functionality. However, this tool is a logical step in the advancing times and needs to be launched at the drop of a hat. It aims to make processes easier for builders, faster. Time will tell if this will be the case."

Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartos is convinced that "a long-term weakness of digitalization in the Czech Republic is disorganization and technological fragmentation at all levels (state, region, municipality). This is a problem with any change and integration of information systems. Every big change always brings with it a certain amount of scepticism and initial difficulties. We are doing everything necessary to make the public administration ready. Unfortunately, it is not within the capabilities of any ministry to ensure that every official in the territory is 100% prepared for the change in legislation and the transition to digital construction management."

Representative of a construction company, Sales Director of Subterra, Jiří Tesař, on the subject says:"Digitalisation is a general trend and its use in construction management is a question of WHEN rather than a question of YES or NO. I think that the development will be the same as, for example, BIM construction. We already have considerable experience with it from abroad, but it is not so widely used here yet. But even that is only a matter of time."

"Let us assume that the aim of the construction procedure is to permit construction, not to prohibit it," Minister Ivan Bartoš began his presentation at the conference and presented in detail the concrete form of the coming digitalization of construction proceedings. At the conference he demonstrated the system in a pictorial form and informed the attendees about the costs of its preparation. Representatives of municipalities followed the presentation closely and their reactions were generally positive. Members of industry organisations such as SPS and CKAIT were pleasantly surprised at how simple and effective the system was and considered it ready. However, experts will wait until 1 July for its implementation in practice, when it will come into force, and believe that their current concerns will be completely dispelled after that date. Overall, the professional community has received the system presented with positive reactions.

The data are based on Quarterly analysis of the Czech construction industry Q1/2024 prepared by the analytical company CEEC Research, which is published in full on www.ceec.eu.

(za)