Imposing ISO 9000 quality assurance system on statutory agents in Hong Kong

A major part of the building control system in any country has to do with quality assurance (QA) of building the process and the products. As in many other countries, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region delegates part of its statutory role to statutory agents to deal with the QA function. As a case study in the context of the Hong Kong construction industry, the relationship between QA and the role of statutory agents is investigated. An authorized person (AP), normally an architect, is the statutory agent as an integral part of the property development control system in Hong Kong. Although AP's statutory roles have already been recognized, their formal roles in respect of QA have never been studied. This paper, being supported by a research project carried out in 1997, presents the result of a study on the relationship between the QA system and the AP practice. The research revealed that in the APs' professional practice most of them have a basic concept and awareness of QA. Their checklists to run projects are similar to a QA manual. To discharge their statutory duties APs are already performing most of the QA standards similar to the ISO 9001 requirements. This paper concludes that the ISO 9000 requirements could be an extra administrative burden to a statutory agent.