Tag: systems thinking

The jury is out in Britain about whether or not we should have standards for housing. This is because the current government is all about cutting red tape. The term ‘standard’ can be ambiguous. Depending on the context, ‘standards’ could mean principles of quality or requirements (as in ‘she has high standards when it comes to men’). Or ‘standards’ could be interpreted as quasi-regulations (as in ‘we could have avoided the horse meat scandal if we had tougher standards for the food supply chain’). According to Scott Steedman, Director of Standards at the British Standards Institute, BSI standards are about knowledge. They shouldn’t be interpreted as regulations, benchmarks or specifications. So if standards aren’t benchmarks and specifications do we need them to achieve decent quality homes? And if the answer is no, what do we need? Continue reading “Do standards achieve higher quality homes?”