Building Safety Act 2022

Building Safety Act 2022

The Building Safety Act has been introduced with the aim of improving building standards to ensure the safety of residents in high-risk buildings (HRBs) in England. The act will not apply to Scotland and will only apply in limited areas of Wales and Northern Ireland. Whilst the act received royal ascent in April 2022, it will not be fully enforced until October 2023 as further secondary legislation is yet to be published. This article aims to provide a summary of the act and its key requirements.

Higher-risk buildings (HRBs)

In England, and as currently defined in the act, a higher-risk building is:

• at least 18 metres high or has at least seven storeys and
•   contains at least two residential units

Further definitions may come from subsequent regulations over the next 18 – 24 months, but hospitals and care homes above the height threshold will also be included. Registration of existing buildings is expected to begin in April 2023, with the Building Assessment Certificate process expected to begin in April 2024.

The role of the HSE – BSR and NRCP

The act creates and defines three new roles, two of which will be based within the HSE: the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) and the National Regulator for Construction Products (NRCP).

The BSR will be the building control body for all HRBs and will have three main functions:

• Overseeing the safety and standards of all buildings
• Helping and encouraging the built environment industry and building control professionals to improve their competence
• Leading implementation of the new regulatory framework for HRBs

The NRCP will oversee a more effective construction products regulatory regime and have the power to remove any product from the market that presents a significant safety risk, and to prosecute any companies breaching the rules.

New regulatory framework for higher-risk buildings

The reforms introduced by the act will give a new regulatory framework for HRBs including (but not limited to):

• HSE is a statutory consultee for planning applications
• BSR will be the building control authority for HRBs
• A ‘golden thread’ of building information
• Mandatory reporting of prescribed fire and structural safety occurrences

Accountable Person (AP) and duty holders

The act creates a new role of an Accountable Person (AP) for HRBs. The AP will be the organisation or person who owns or has responsibility for the building. It may also be an organisation or person responsible for maintaining communal areas of a building. Under the act, the AP will have a duty to take all reasonable steps to:

• prevent a building safety risk happening
• reduce the severity of an incident if one does occur

The act identifies additional duties on those who procure, plan, manage and undertake building work of any kind relating to HRBs. Duty holders will need to work together to plan, manage and monitor both the design and building works ensuring cooperation and communication, with systems in place to ensure all works comply with the relevant building legislations.

Building safety risk assessment, safety case and safety report

The act defines a building safety risk as the spread of fire and / or structural failure and the assessment should focus on these elements. It is not a health and safety risk assessment or a fire risk assessment, nor does it replace the requirement to complete either of those. The spread of a fire includes the spread of all forms of combustion, including smoke, fumes and heat.

An effective building safety risk assessment will:

• review the building systematically to consider what can go wrong and the effects this could have
• consider and challenge existing control measures
• consider whether all reasonable steps to prevent a building safety incident from happening or limiting its severity have been taken
• contribute to creating the safety case

The safety case is all the information used to manage the risk of fire spread and the structural safety of the building. Some of this information will show how the AP is preventing fire spread and structural failure in the building and how they are limiting the consequences.

The safety case report is a document that summaries the safety case. It will identify the building’s major fire and structural hazards and shows how the risks are being managed. The report should give the reader confidence that the AP has identified the major risks and is managing and controlling them.

The ‘golden thread’

This is designed to be a tool for building owners to manage and operate HRBs safely with requirements relating to the management, recording and accessibility of information about a building that allows someone to understand the building and keep it safe. Not only must the collected information be assembled but it must also be managed, monitored and review to ensure it remains current accessible to those who need it.

Further guidance and information

As the act has been recently introduced and the secondary legislation to enforce it is still in production, there are various sources of broad guidance on the topic. The HSE building safety reforms provide an excellent introduction to the topic and gives further information around the BSR, managing occupied buildings, roles and responsibilities, information for residents and how to create safety case and safety case reports. This can all be found by clicking here.

Further support and advice can also be provided through our training and consultancy services.

Source: Dave Wright