The Building Safety Act (BSA) is the most significant piece of new legislation in a generation. It will fundamentally change the way in which buildings where people live, are designed, constructed and maintained and how the records are kept of what was built by whom and how.

The BSA comprises primary as well as secondary legislation which is complicated and has new responsibilities and processes. Ladybird hasn't written a guide on the BSA but if they did it might look something like this.

The Building Safety Act
At 12.54 am on 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower. The fire spread rapidly on the outside and engulfed the building. By the time the fire was put out 72 people had died.

The disaster played out across television screens and was constantly debated, often with the word “how”. How in this modern time did a recently refurbished building burn so quickly and what caused so many lives to be lost when we had a Building Control process, tested products and systems to meet them?

Dame Judith Hackett was asked to investigate and in her interim report, she pointed out that there was a lack of evidence of what has been built, what was compliant, and if those constructing it were competent.

FIS at the time responded with the Product, Process, People (PPP)¹ initiative that emphasised the importance of record keeping, to be clear about what is being asked for and document what was built including progress images and recording who was involved and their qualifications.

Dame Judith’s final report Building a Safer Future² set out a number of recommendations to change the process and culture (many of them built around the Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations) and they were all accepted by Government. The Government then drafted a Building Safety Bill which was added to the Statute book as law in April 2022.

The BSA applies to all buildings, special attention however is paid to the process required when building or refurbishing high risk buildings (HRBs).

What are high risk buildings?
HRBs are defined as being at least 18m high or at least seven stories and containing at least two residencies.

HRBs are considered under two states:
1. During design and construction and
2. In occupation.

Care should be taken to clarify if the buildings are in scope. HRBs during design and construction include residential buildings, care homes and hospitals. Only residential buildings are considered to be HRBs during the operational stage.

The BSA
The BSA defines a number of new bodies, roles and responsibilities.

Firstly, the new bodies:
• The Building Safety Regulator (BSR)³ will be responsible for overseeing the safety and standards of all buildings (remember it’s not just HRBs).

Under the control of the BSR, The National Regulator for Construction Products will replace the Trading Standards to oversee and enforce the regulatory requirements for building products.
And there will be a New Homes Ombudsman, where people in new build homes can raise concerns and complaints.

There are also newly defined responsibilities in the BSA:
• Accountable persons will have a number of duties including registering the building and ensuring all risks are managed and residents’ voices are heard.
Building owners, developers and landlords will be required to pay a building safety levy on new residential projects.

There are new duty holders defined:
• The client, which commissions the work.
• The principal designer, which carries out the design
• The principal contractor, which controls the construction work
• The contractor, which carries out the construction works

Everyone involved in constructing buildings (from shed to shard, and from labourer to leader) will be required to demonstrate that they are competent to carry out their roles, responsibilities and functions.

Individual competence is described under four headings in Flex 8670 as a person’s Skill, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviour (SKEB).

Organisational competence will be assessed on the capabilities including management process systems, polices and resources.

FIS has recently published The Sector Guide Competence Management Plan⁴ to provide examples and signposts to available information and assist organisations in improving quality and safety whilst ensuring they meet the requirements of legislation.

How have liabilities been changed by the Act?
The Defective Premises Act⁵ was limited to the first six years after completion. The BSA includes a clause to look back 30 years (from 2022) and then extend the current six years to 15 years on all new buildings.

What are the gateways?
The BSA defines three stop go gateways at key stages of an HRB project,

• Gateway 1, before planning permission is granted.
• Gateway 2, before work can commence.
• Gateway 3, after completion but before occupation can take place.

Gateway 1: The client should submit a fire strategy in the form of a statement alongside the planning application, whilst the designer needs to demonstrate they have prepared a “safe” design.

The HSE will examine the applications and may reject or approve; in the case of a refusal the application should be amended and resubmitted, this may delay the project by six weeks or more at each gateway.

Gateway 2 (October 2023) The client will be required to submit information and details on how the proposals comply with building regulations with four critical elements:

• Full plans demonstrating compliance (including clear design responsibility matrix and realistic programme.
• Quality Management System to include change management protocols, inspection, sign-off regime and mandatory occurrence reporting.
• Digital Information Plan
• Competence Management Plan

Only after approval from the BSR can work start on site.

Gateway 3 (October 2023) The client must be able to demonstrate that the building is safe to occupy and apply for a completion certificate.

• The principal contractor submits the Golden Thread as built drawings and the operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals and information.
• The building can only be occupied after the BSR has checked that the building work is compliant and has issued a building control certificate.

The finer details of the “Golden Thread” of information are yet to be published, but it is clear that it is a separate set of information from the O&M manuals. The Government refers to it as storing the building's information. https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/blog/Built-Environment-Blog/bs-8644-1-digital-management-of-fire-safety-information/

FIS will publish details separately on the digital spine of information. The information in the “Golden Thread” should be secure, stored digitally, be a single source of the truth, available and accessible, and be presented in a way that a person can use.

During design and construction, the information should describe the building and demonstrates that it complies with the Building Regulations.

After the occupation, it should include a record to demonstrate how it’s being maintained and how the building and any safety risks are being managed.

Design responsibility
The overall design responsibility sits with the principal designer who will need to take advice from subject matter experts that products and systems can be safely incorporated with other systems to create a building that is safe for the occupants.

Subject matter experts could include manufacturers, designers and contractors. Those offering designs should ensure they have Public Indemnity (PI) insurance to cover them in case of a claim.

It’s important to understand your responsibility when giving any advice or suggestions on design or materials to use or changes to a system as you become the unintentional designer⁶ by default.

Designs will have to be completed earlier in the process in order to have sufficient detail to demonstrate compliance at Gateway 2.

Other regulation and guidance
Mandatory and voluntary occurrence reporting⁷ will be a requirement on all new buildings and will be set out in secondary legislation for specific people responsible for the safety of HRBs to capture and report certain fire and structural safety issues called safety occurrences to the Building Safety Regulator.

• Further secondary legislation is expected by 1st October and will provide more information on the “Golden Tread”, the transition period, as well as mandatory reporting.

What you should do at a glance
The steps shown below are relevant to manufacturers, designers, consultants, contractors and specialist contractors. Read in tandem with the roles and responsibilities at the three Gateways.

FIND OUT MORE
This is a summary of a more detailed guide that is available to FIS members. To read more visit www.thefis.org/membershiphub/publications/sector-guides/

Source
1 www.thefis.org/knowledge-hub/product-process-people
2 https://tinyurl.com/yhvz2udp
3 www.hse.gov.uk/building-safety/regulator.htm
4 www.thefis.org/members-login/?redirect=/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Sector-Guide-Competency-Management-Plan-Final-17-Jan.pdf
5 www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/35/data.pdf
6 www.specfinish.co.uk/the-unintentional-designer
7 www.hse.gov.uk/building-safety/safety-cases/report/occurrence
8 www.thefis.org/skills-hub/competency-passport