Out-Law News 2 min. read
13 Feb 2024, 10:12 am
Building owners must move swiftly to ensure they are complying with their obligations on building safety in England, an expert has said.
Katherine Metcalfe of Pinsent Masons, who specialises in building safety regulation, said that the approach was necessary after regulations about the occupation of high-rise buildings came into force and further new rules on record-keeping were published by the UK government.
The measures are part of a wider package of reforms to building safety regulation in England, which is underpinned by the 2022 Building Safety Act.
Under the Act, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), has the power to direct ‘principal accountable persons’ (PAPs) – who are among those that have building safety duties under the new regime – to make an application for a building assessment certificate. The BSR has indicated that, in 2024, buildings over 50 metres in height, buildings with ACM cladding that have still to be remediated, and certain large panel system buildings with a gas supply, will be prioritised for building assessment certificates.
To obtain a building assessment certificate, PAPs need to prepare a safety case report and other supporting building safety management systems. The Higher-Risk Buildings (Management of Safety Risks etc) (England) Regulations 2023 set out more detail on the required form and content of these documents.
For example, the regulations set out principles for assessing and managing building safety risks during the occupation phase, and outline what information should be included in safety case reports. They further explain the standards of record-keeping duty holders must meet, clarify how often PAPs must update their resident engagement strategy and the complaints policy and procedures they must implement, and also detail the circumstances in which information and documents must be disclosed to HSE and residents.
Other provisions in the regulations set out duty holders’ obligations to report certain ‘safety occurrences’, involving fire or structural safety incidents and near misses. Among the details to be disclosed when there is a reportable safety occurrence are whether people were killed or injured, how the issue was discovered, and what measures were taken to mitigate or remedy the issue.
A further set of regulations pertaining to record-keeping and the provision of information for higher-risk buildings has been published by the government.
The Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2024, set out more detail on the so-called ‘golden thread’ of information that APs need to keep and provide to principal designers and contractors for any work on the building – which includes information recorded as part of the planning, design or construction of the building, structural safety measures put in place, fire safety management measures, evacuation information, the schedule of any maintenance and repairs that are planned, and mandatory occurrence reports.
Other related developments include the publication by HSE of a new toolkit to help duty holders in preparing safety case reports, and new guidance on operating a mandatory occurrence reporting system.
In respect of occupied buildings, the online high-rise residential building register is also now searchable. Metcalfe said this will support due diligence associated with property transactions and added that duty holders are being asked to update the register once they have prepared a safety case.
Metcalfe said: “The UK government and HSE are now working at pace to implement the remaining aspects of the Building Safety Act 2022. They have taken a light touch approach to accountable person duties so far to give duty holders time to implement policies and procedures. It is vital that accountable persons now make sure they have timebound plans to achieve compliance sooner rather than later.”