Consultation on the new safety regime for occupied higher-risk buildings

Question 1

Scope of the consultation

Accepted Answer

Topic of this consultation:

This consultation seeks views on policy proposals for the in-occupation phase for higher-risk buildings in scope of the new, more stringent regime. It covers the following areas:

Registration
Certification
Accountable person(s) and the principal accountable person
Safety case approach and the safety case report
Mandatory occurrence reporting
Residents’ voice and duties on residents
Golden thread contents
How the golden thread is managed and stored
Duties on the accountable person(s) and the principal accountable person to share information
Appeals
Enforcement
Key building information

Scope of this consultation:

Building Safety

Geographical scope:

These proposals relate to England only.

Impact assessment:

Yes, there is an economic annex which provides qualitative and quantitative analytical updates for some of the areas being consulted on through this consultation. This is included at the end of the consultation. Where an area on which we are consulting has not been covered by this economic annex, it is because the estimates set out in the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment are still valid. Details on the current estimated impacts for these areas can be found in the published Building Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (PDF, 1.36MB).

Question 2

Basic information

Accepted Answer

Body/bodies responsible for the consultation:

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Duration:

This consultation will last for 12 weeks from 20 July 2022 to 12 October 2022.

Enquiries:

For any enquiries about the consultation please contact: occupiedbuildingsconsultation@levellingup.gov.uk.

Ways to respond:

You may respond by completing an online survey

or

You can email your response to:

occupiedbuildingsconsultation@levellingup.gov.uk

If you are responding via email, please make it clear which questions you are responding to.

When you reply it would be very useful if you confirm whether you are replying as an individual or submitting an official response on behalf of an organisation and include:

your name,
your position (if applicable),
the name of organisation (if applicable),

or

You can send written responses to:

Consultation on Occupied Higher-Risk Buildings
c/o Reform, Legislation and Regulators Division
Building Safety Programme
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
3rd Floor, Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Question 3

1. 	Introduction

Accepted Answer

1.1. Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy in June 2017, the government appointed Dame Judith Hackitt to lead an independent review of building regulations and fire safety. In her May 2018 report, Building a safer future, Dame Judith outlined a new approach to managing fire and structural safety risks in high-rise multi-occupied residential buildings. Overall, 53 recommendations were made for government and industry to drive the cultural change and behaviours necessary to improve building safety.

1.2. The government committed to implementing Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendations and, at the end of April 2022, the Building Safety Act received Royal Assent. The Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) will make buildings safer and deliver improvements across the entire built environment, including strengthening oversight and protection for residents in high-rise buildings. Its focus on risk will help owners to manage their buildings better, while giving the home-building industry the clear, proportionate framework it needs to deliver more, better, high-quality homes.

1.3. The Act received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022 and will be supported by a package of secondary legislation, that will provide further detail on much of the content of the Act. From Summer 2022, the government is consulting on much of this secondary legislation, before final versions are laid before Parliament for approval.

1.4. A key part of these reforms includes introducing a new, more stringent regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings. These are known as higher-risk buildings. Government is consulting on the Higher Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations.

1.5. The Act defines higher-risk buildings for the new occupation regime as buildings which contain at least 2 residential units and are at least 18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys (whichever is reached first). The government intends to supplement this definition in regulations.

1.6. The new, more stringent regulatory regime will place legal responsibilities on those who commission building work, participate in the design and construction process and those who are responsible for managing structural and fire safety in higher-risk buildings when they are occupied. These people will be called dutyholders during design and construction and principal accountable persons and accountable persons when the building is occupied. When building work is carried out on an existing higher-risk building (refurbishment) this may involve both dutyholders and a principal accountable person and accountable person(s), as many buildings will remain occupied during the refurbishment.

1.7. All occupied higher-risk buildings will have at least one clearly identifiable accountable person. If an occupied higher-risk residential building has just one accountable person, they will automatically become the principal accountable person. Where the building has 2 or more accountable persons, the one responsible for the repair of the structure and exterior of the building will be the principal accountable person. They will have the same statutory obligations for assessing and managing building safety risks in their own area of the building as other accountable persons but will also have additional responsibility for meeting specific statutory obligations for the whole building.

1.8. Requirements of the new, more stringent regime for higher-risk buildings are being brought forward through part 3 and part 4 of the Act and will be supported by a package of secondary legislation. These requirements include a new, more stringent building control regime for the design and construction of higher-risk buildings, a requirement to register the building, the introduction of a safety case approach to managing fire and structural safety during occupation, duties to engage residents, the ongoing management of a digital golden thread of information throughout the building lifecycle and the creation of a mandatory occurrence reporting framework. The Building Safety Regulator (part of the Health and Safety Executive) will enforce the new, more stringent regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings; overseeing compliance with the new regulations once they come into force.

1.9. This consultation covers policy proposals for the in-occupation phase for buildings in scope of the new, more stringent regime. Specifically, this consultation covers:

Registration
Certification
Accountable person(s)
Safety case approach
Mandatory occurrence reporting
Residents’ voice and duties on residents
Golden thread contents
How the golden thread is stored and managed
Duties on the accountable person(s) and the principal accountable person to share information
Appeals
Enforcement
Key building information

1.10. This consultation document also includes an economic annex which provides qualitative and quantitative analytical updates for the policy proposals set out.

Development of these proposals

1.11. We have worked closely with the Building Safety Regulator (in its shadow form), industry and other external partners to develop the provisions underpinning the new, more stringent building control regime.

1.12. We have also worked with industry working groups including the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC), the BRAC golden thread working group, the Joint Regulators Group (JRG), the Residents’ Voice Advisory Group and the Early Adopters Group. Others in industry have also supported our work devising these procedures.

1.13. We are extremely grateful for the advice and assistance provided by the participants in these groups and look forward to working with them to finalise these proposals after we have received the consultation responses.

Timetable for implementation

1.14. This consultation will close on the 12 October 2022.

1.15. See the transition plan.

Question 4

2. 	Registration

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

2.1. As part of the new regulatory requirements, the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) will require all occupied buildings in scope of the new more stringent regulatory regime (higher-risk buildings^{[footnote 1]}) to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator.

Background to proposals

Registration of all occupied higher-risk buildings

2.2. The principal accountable person is responsible for applying for registration of the building under section 77 of the Act, through the Building Safety Regulator’s digital platform.

2.3. To register the building, the principal accountable person must provide some basic details about the building and its accountable person(s). The information provided is intended to enable the Building Safety Regulator to confirm the location of the building, that it is within scope of the requirements under the Act and identify the persons responsible for the safety of the building and the duties under part 4 of the Act. A fee will also be payable to complete the application.

2.4. Under section 78 of the Act, the Building Safety Regulator is required to publish a register of the higher-risk buildings that have been registered, which may include the information which was submitted with the application. Including this information in the published register would enable residents and other interested parties to ascertain the building is registered and who is responsible for its fire and structural safety.

2.5. In respect of any new building which is partly or fully completed after the commencement of section 77 of the Act, the building (or the completed part(s) of it) must not be occupied before the building has been registered. This includes buildings that are designed and constructed under the new building control regime for higher-risk buildings (the gateways process) and buildings that are part way through design and construction when the regulations relating to the new building control regime come into force.

2.6. For existing occupied buildings, the principal accountable person will have a reasonable period after the regulations are signed and published to register their building(s) before they become liable for the offence. More detail about these provisions is set out below.

2.7. Secondary legislation will set out the rules about, amongst other matters: information to accompany applications for registration; and the content of the register. We welcome comments on specific proposals that are intended to be included in that legislation, as set out in this consultation.

Timescale and process for registration

2.8. It is proposed that principal accountable persons must register their buildings with the Building Safety Regulator by 1 October 2023. After this date a principal accountable person would commit an offence if a higher-risk building was occupied but not registered. This means that principal accountable persons have 6 months, from when the regulations come into force in April 2023, to submit their applications to register their buildings.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that 6 months is sufficient time for the principal accountable person to provide the information to register their building?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you disagree or neither agree nor disagree please say how many months you consider would be necessary to provide the information for registration?

2.9. It is proposed that a principal accountable person may designate an agent to submit an application on their behalf, providing that when the application is submitted the agent confirms they have the authority to make it. If appointed the agent will act as the point of contact for the Building Safety Regulator in connection with the application^{[footnote 2]}.

2.10. The agent will also have to confirm the accuracy of the contents of the application on behalf of the principal accountable person. The principal accountable person and the agent must understand that knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information to the Building Safety Regulator is an offence.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that an agent may act for the principal accountable person in connection with the application?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you think should be made.

2.11. In order to apply to register a building, the applicant will need to provide certain information about the building and its management. This includes:

Details of the principal accountable person for the building and any other accountable person(s) (including name, contact details and address) and, if there are multiple accountable persons, confirmation of who is responsible for which part of the building;
The name and title of a nominated individual who will act as a single point of contact for the principal accountable person within the organisation;
Whether the principal accountable person is a local authority, a registered private provider of social housing, a registered provider of social housing, or another type of organisation;
Building address;
The year the building was completed, or the age band of the building where its precise age is not known, and whether on construction it had relevant building control consent;
The number of storeys and height (in metres) of the building;
The number of dwellings in the building; and,
A statement confirming that the information submitted is, to the best of the applicant’s knowledge, truthful and accurate.

2.12. Separate to the registration process, applicants will also be asked to provide further information about their building. More information on this is set out in the consultation section on the key building information.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the required information is sufficient to identify the building and whether it is within scope of part 4 of the Act, and identify the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) (if there are multiple accountable persons) for the building?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what else needs to be included. Could you explain why this information is important to include in registration?

Changes to registration information

2.13. After the building has been registered with the Building Safety Regulator, it will be the responsibility of the principal accountable person to inform the Building Safety Regulator of any changes to the information supplied as part of the application for registration, other than any change of accountable person(s) where notification rules are governed by section 90 of the Act.

2.14. All changes must be notified to the Building Safety Regulator within 14 calendar days, excluding Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday in England and Wales, of either the change occurring or the principal accountable person becoming aware of the change.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the principal accountable person should notify the Building Safety Regulator of any changes to registration information?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what else needs to be included.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the Building Safety Regulator should be notified within 14 calendar days, excluding Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday in England and Wales, of the change occurring?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you disagree or neither agree not disagree, please state how many days you consider should be allowed for notification of changes?

2.15. In applying for registration (or in providing subsequent changes) it is proposed that the principal accountable person must provide a physical address (not a PO box address) in England and Wales for themselves, and an address or addresses for all other accountable person(s) of the building. This is needed for general communication and for the service of notices if required.

Question: Do you envisage any difficulties with the requirement to provide a physical address in England and Wales for general communication and the service of notices?

Yes
No
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you envisage difficulties, please explain why and what mitigations do you propose?

Buildings built under the new regime

2.16. It is proposed that, in submitting an application for registration for buildings that have been built under the new building control regime (the gateways process), the principal accountable person must provide the unique reference number that we expect the Building Safety Regulator to give to each higher-risk building whose construction it is overseeing for the building control completion certificate. This will enable the Building Safety Regulator to verify that it has granted a relevant completion certificate (or partial completion certificate) prior to occupation.

2.17. Under section 76 of the Act, an accountable person will commit an offence if they allow occupation of any residential units in part, or all, of a higher-risk building for which they are responsible, before a relevant completion certificate is issued. In addition, as noted previously, section 77 makes it an offence for a principal accountable person to allow residential occupation of a higher-risk building before it is registered with the Building Safety Regulator.

2.18. Requiring the principal accountable person to provide the unique reference number for the completion certificate, or the partial completion certificate, will support the Building Safety Regulator to validate that a principal accountable person or accountable person is not breaching these requirements.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that for buildings built under the new regime, the principal accountable person must provide the unique reference number for the completion certificate?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you would make.

Buildings that will be subject to transitional arrangements

2.19. Whenever changes to the building regulations take place, transitional arrangements apply. When a developer submits a building notice, initial notice or full plans application to the local authority, the building regulations standards in place at the time of the application will apply, so long as work under the notice, or application, has already started or starts within a specified period of the notice being given.

2.20. Higher-risk buildings, for which construction has started before the new regime comes into effect, will be built to the building regulations standards in place at the time of the submission of their initial notice or full plans application to the local authority, rather than the requirements of the new, more stringent regime in design and construction. These buildings will benefit from the transitional arrangements. The exact transitional provisions we propose to apply when the new regulatory framework for higher-risk buildings comes into effect are set out in the consultation on the proposed changes to the building regulations.

2.21. Before these buildings can be occupied, and in line with the section 76 offence referred to above, the Building Safety Regulator will need to verify that these buildings have been provided with the appropriate completion or final certificate, depending on whether building control oversight was provided by a local authority or an Approved Inspector. It is therefore proposed that, in submitting an application for registration for such buildings, the principal accountable person must provide a copy of their completion certificate or final certificate. This will enable the Building Safety Regulator to verify that i) they have received the requisite certificate prior to occupation and ii) the building control body overseeing the building is satisfied that it complies with the requirements of building regulations. A building will not be registered unless a copy of the appropriate certificate has been provided by the principal accountable person.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that for buildings for which construction has started before the new regime comes into effect and which are subject to transitional arrangements, the principal accountable person must provide the appropriate certificate to the regulator?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you would make.

Existing buildings

2.22 For all other buildings (including existing residential blocks being brought into the new system and those built as offices and subsequently converted to residential accommodation), we propose that, in submitting an application for registration, the principal accountable person must confirm whether to their knowledge the building met the appropriate building standards applying at the time of completion.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you would make.

Question 5

3. 	Building Assessment Certificate

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

3.1. A building assessment certificate will only be issued by the Building Safety Regulator if it is satisfied that, at the time it carries out its assessment, the accountable person(s) for the building are complying with their duties under part 4 of the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act).

3.2. Once a building has been registered, the principal accountable person will be required by the Building Safety Regulator to apply for a building assessment certificate when they receive a direction to do so.

3.3. The Building Safety Regulator will publish its timeframe for issuing directions for categories of occupied buildings, based on physical characteristics and potential risks, in its strategic plan published under section 17 of the Act.

Background to proposals

Application for Building Assessment Certificate

3.4 The principal accountable person for a registered higher-risk building must apply for a building assessment certificate upon receiving a direction from the Building Safety Regulator to do so (see section 79 of the Act). The principal accountable person commits an offence if they do not apply within 28 calendar days of the direction being issued, unless they have a reasonable excuse.

3.5 For new builds, the principal accountable person will be directed to apply for a building assessment certificate within 6 months of occupation.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that 6 months is the appropriate time scale for calling in (i.e. issuing a direction) applications for a building assessment certificate following occupation of a registered new build building?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree please set out (in months) what you consider the appropriate time scale should be?

3.4. The application must be made through the Building Safety Regulator’s digital platform. The application must be accompanied by:

a copy of the latest safety case report for the building (unless it has already been given to the Building Safety Regulator – see consultation section on the principles of managing building safety risks and the safety case report);
a copy of the residents’ engagement strategy;
prescribed information about the mandatory occurrence reporting system in place; and,
prescribed information demonstrating compliance by each accountable person that they have met the requirements of their duties under section 89 of the Act.

3.5. The costs incurred by the Building Safety Regulator in conducting its assessment will be charged to the principal accountable person.

Prescribed information to accompany an application for a building assessment certificate

3.6. Secondary legislation will set out the rules about prescribed information to be provided to the Building Safety Regulator when applying for a building assessment certificate.

3.7. Section 80(1)(b) of the Act provides that, in submitting an application for a building assessment certificate, the principal accountable person must include details about its mandatory occurrence reporting system which meet the prescribed requirements detailed in the consultation section on mandatory occurrence reporting. We propose that the application must be accompanied by a document that demonstrates compliance with section 87(5) and (6) of the Act. In doing so, the document would show how the principal accountable person will establish and operate an effective mandatory occurrence reporting system for the receiving of information relating to a building safety risk. The system would enable them to comply with section 93(1) of the Act (investigating complaints).

Question: Do you agree or disagree how the detail about the mandatory occurrence reporting system should be given in connection with the application?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what information you think should be prescribed, and how it should be submitted.

3.8. Section 80(1)(c) of the Act provides that, in submitting an application for a building assessment certificate, the principal accountable person must include prescribed information demonstrating compliance by each accountable person with their duties under section 89 to provide information to relevant persons. We propose the application must be accompanied by a statement by the principal accountable person confirming that each accountable person has provided the information and copies of documents required to be given to (a) the Building Safety Regulator, (b) another accountable person, (c) residents and owners of flats in the building and (d) other prescribed persons, by regulations made under section 89 of the Act.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed requirements for the provision of prescribed information for application for a building assessment certificate?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please describe the prescribed information you think should be provided.

Issue or refusal to issue a building assessment certificate

3.9. Under section 81(3)(a) of the Act, the Building Safety Regulator must issue a building assessment certificate if it is satisfied that all relevant part 4 duties in the Act are being complied with at the time the assessment is carried out.

3.10. If it is not satisfied all the duties are being complied with and the Building Safety Regulator considers the contravention of the duty or duties can be remedied promptly, we expect that it will normally give notice to the principal accountable person^{[footnote 3]}, under section 81(4)(a) of the Act, setting out each contravention of duty and specifying the time by which the contravention must be remedied.

3.11. If the contravention notice issued by the Building Safety Regulator is complied with to its satisfaction, the Building Safety Regulator may issue the building assessment certificate (see section 81(4)(b) of the Act).

3.12. If the Building Safety Regulator is not satisfied that all the relevant duties are being complied with and this issue is not to be resolved by a section 81(4) contravention notice, it must refuse the application for a certificate under section 81(3)(b) of the Act^{[footnote 4]}. Where an application for a building assessment certificate is refused, an appeal^{[footnote 5]} can be made against the decision to the First-tier Tribunal, following an internal review under section 25 of the Act.

Notices under section 81 - content and requirement for copies to be served on all other accountable persons for the building

3.13. Regulations may be made which specify information that must be included in a notice given to the principal accountable person refusing to issue a building assessment certificate under section 81(3)(b) of the Act. We propose that the regulations will provide that the contents of a refusal notice must include the following:

a brief description of the contravention of the duty or duties that give rise to the decision;
the reason why the contravention has caused the Building Safety Regulator to refuse the application for a building assessment certificate;
information about the right to appeal against the decision following a review under section 25 of the Act; and
the date of the decision.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this information must be included in a notice refusing to issue a building assessment certificate?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain why and what you think should be included in the notice.

3.14. The principal accountable person in the Act is, in a building with one accountable person, that person (see section 73(1)(a) of the Act). Where there are 2 or more accountable persons for the building the principal accountable person will normally be the accountable person who has ownership in possession of the structure and exterior of the building or is not the owner but has repairing obligations in relation to that part of the building (see section 73(1)(b) of the Act). Consequently, the principal accountable person for a building will normally be the head lessee, freeholder or sometimes a management company under tripartite leases.

3.15. Section 81(3)(b) of the Act requires the Building Safety Regulator to notify the principal accountable person of its decision to refuse to issue a building assessment certificate. There is no requirement in the Act to notify any other accountable person for that building of that decision.

3.16. We propose, therefore, that regulations should provide that a copy of the notification sent to the principal accountable person under section 81(3)(b) must be copied to any other accountable person for the building. This is important because any accountable person for the building may seek a review of the decision or appeal under to the First-tier Tribunal under section 104 of the Act. In order to decide whether to exercise that right to seek a review all accountable persons need to be informed of the decision to refuse to issue the building assessment certificate. If the Building Safety Regulator is satisfied that the contravention of a duty could be remedied “promptly” the notice under section 81(4)(a) of the Act explaining the contravention of duties and by when they must be remedied is only required to be served on the principal accountable person

3.17. In buildings with multiple accountable persons, it may be another accountable person who is responsible for the duty and, therefore, responsible for remedying the contravention. It would be unreasonable to expect an accountable person to remedy a breach of duty for which they are responsible (not the principal accountable person) without the regulator informing that person of the contravention and giving them the opportunity to remedy it, particularly as non-compliance with the notice can lead to refusal to issue the building assessment certificate. We, therefore, propose that regulations should provide that a copy of the notice sent to the principal accountable person under section 81(4)(a) of the Act must be copied to any other accountable person for the building.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that copy notices issued by the Building Safety Regulator under sections 81(3) or (4) should be provided to all accountable persons for the building?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Display and content of certain information about accountable persons and the building assessment certificate

3.18. Section 82 of the Act requires the principal accountable person to display, in a conspicuous position in the building, a notice providing prescribed details of the accountable person(s) for the building, the current building assessment certificate and copies of any compliance notices relating to the building which are still in force. If a special measures order is in force for the building, the building assessment certificate must cease to be displayed^{[footnote 6]}.

3.19. An offence is committed if, without reasonable excuse, the relevant notices or building assessment certificate are not displayed, or if a copy of the building assessment certificate continues to be displayed despite a special measures order being in force.

3.20. Under section 81(6) of the Act, the Secretary of State has powers to prescribe rules and make regulations concerning building assessment certificates and related notices.

3.21. A building assessment certificate is a document which confirms that, on the date the assessment was carried out, the duties under part 4 of the Act are being complied with by the accountable person(s), as assessed by the Building Safety Regulator.

3.22. We propose the Building Safety Regulator must plan to carry out such an assessment at least every 5 years, although they may conduct an assessment at any time^{[footnote 7]}.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the Building Safety Regulator must plan to conduct an assessment at least once in every 5 years?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please set out in years the frequency with which you think the Building Safety Regulator should conduct assessments.

3.23. It is proposed the information to be recorded on the building assessment certificate will include:

the issuing office address of the Building Safety Regulator;
e-mail address and telephone number of the Building Safety Regulator;
the date the assessment was completed;
a statement that the Building Safety Regulator is satisfied that all relevant duties under part 4 of the Act are being complied with on the date the assessment was completed; and
the date of issue and signature of an officer of the Building Safety Regulator, authorised for that purpose.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this is the right information to be included in a building assessment certificate?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what information you think should be included.

3.24. Separately, and in addition to the building assessment certificate, the principal accountable person must display in a conspicuous position in the building a notice giving prescribed information about all the accountable person(s) for the building. This notice is required to be displayed at the same location as the building assessment certificate.

3.25. It is proposed the information to be displayed in the notice must include:

the current details of the name and address of every accountable person for the building;
if any address is not in the United Kingdom, an address – not including a PO Box - in England or Wales for correspondence and receipt of notices; and,
contact telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of the accountable persons.

3.26. Where the building has more than one accountable person the notice must specify which of those is the principal accountable person and for which parts of the building each of the accountable person is responsible.

3.27. It is also proposed that the notice must include the date the notice was published.

3.28. We are not proposing to be overly prescriptive on how the Building Safety Regulator issues the building assessment certificate or notice, however, save that this needs to be in given in writing and can be provided through electronic means.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this is the right level of information which needs to be included in a displayed notice?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what information you think should be included.

Question 6

4. 	Accountable Persons

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

4.1. As part of the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act), we have defined the dutyholder in occupation as the accountable person. The accountable person will be responsible for compliance with the new, more stringent regulatory regime for their higher-risk building or the part of the building they are responsible for.

Background to proposals

Part of a building for which the accountable person is responsible

4.2. Sections 72 and 73 of the Act defines the accountable person and the principal accountable person in relation to their legal interest of a higher-risk building and as to whether they have an obligation to repair the common parts of a higher-risk building.

Proposal

4.3. Although section 72 of the Act defines who can be an accountable person for a building, it does not set out for which parts of the building they might be directly responsible under part 4 of the Act where there are multiple accountable persons. In other words, although a person may meet the definition of an accountable person it does not explain for which parts of the building that person has the accountable person duties in part 4 of the Act.

4.4. The proposed regulations under section 74 of the Act will assign responsibility for part 4 duties to specific accountable persons based on their legal estate in possession or to the area for which they have a repairing liability as set out in a lease or by virtue of an enactment^{[footnote 8]}. This can be for the whole or a part of the building as demised under a lease and encompasses the common areas and residential units within that part.

4.5. Given the principal intention is that there is a whole building approach to safety, the accountable person will be considering fire and structural building safety risks and their mitigation within occupied residential units under sections 83 and 84 of the Act, including in those flats which are let on long leases. There is an expectation that where the building safety risks are identified as being generated from a leasehold flat the accountable person will normally be expected to enforce the duties of the leaseholder^{[footnote 9]}, and their obligations under the lease^{[footnote 10]}, as we have enabled them to issue contravention notices under section 96.

4.6. For those residential units which have been let on long leases, the accountable person duties apply only to mitigate or prevent risks to protect the common parts or residential units which are under the control of the accountable person or to mitigate or prevent known risks to those leasehold residential units emanating from the common parts or residential units under their control. (For example, to ensure that where a fire does occur it is either contained within that leasehold flat or does not enter into a leasehold flat if it originates from the common parts or other area it has control over.)

4.7. The duties assigned to an individual accountable person do not extend to those duties or functions under the Act, or in regulations, which are the responsibility of the principal accountable person, unless that accountable person is also the principal accountable person because they meet the definition of that person in section 73(1) of the Act.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach set out above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, how do you envisage we define parts of a building for which the accountable person is responsible for?

Question 7

5. 	Principles for managing building safety risks and the safety case report

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

5.1. As part of the new regulatory requirements, we are introducing a safety case regime to oversee the management of building safety risks in high-rise multi-occupied residential buildings. This new approach will provide greater assurance that risks have been assessed and proportionate steps are in place to manage them on an ongoing basis, ensuring residents are safe in their homes.

5.2. Under the new regime, the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will be required to assess building safety risks, take all reasonable steps to prevent such a risk materialising and limit the impact should an incident occur. The steps taken by the principal accountable person or an accountable person will need to be in line with prescribed principles.

5.3. Information relating to the assessment and management of building safety risks will make up the safety case for the building, which will need to be stored in the golden thread of information. A summary of this information must be presented to the Building Safety Regulator in the form of a safety case report.

5.4. Safety case reports will be reviewed by the Building Safety Regulator as part of a principal accountable person’s application for a building assessment certificate. Safety case reports may also be reviewed separately to this.

Background to proposals

5.5. Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (the Report) recommended the introduction of a safety case regime to oversee the management of fire and structural safety risks in high-rise multi-occupied residential buildings. The Report established that the existing regulatory framework and oversight regime for higher-risk residential blocks of flats was inadequate and needed to be improved.

5.6. Dame Judith Hackitt identified the introduction of a safety case approach as fundamental to driving culture change and improving the understanding and management of risks to deliver safer buildings for residents. Safety case regimes have been successful in improving safety standards and reducing incidents across a number of sectors.

5.7. As part of the revised regime, Dame Judith recommended periodic reviews by the Building Safety Regulator of safety case reports, to ensure risks continued to be identified and managed on an ongoing basis.

5.8. The Report also recommended building on the risk management principles set out in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to support the whole building approach. Under the Fire Safety Order, the Responsible Person must follow the principles of prevention set out in schedule 1, part 3 when implementing preventative and protective fire safety measures. As noted in the Report, this systemic approach, where prevention and mitigation measures are considered as a whole, will assist in the consideration of what is reasonably practicable and proportionate to do to improve building safety for the whole building.

5.9. Prevention principles are commonplace in health and safety law and elsewhere. They provide a framework, often referred to as a hierarchy of controls, to identify and implement practical and procedural measures to reduce risks and deliver safe outcomes.

5.10. Stakeholder feedback to the government’s Building a Safer Future consultation confirmed broad support for the introduction of the safety case approach for demonstrating the delivery of safely managed buildings by dutyholders.

5.11. Following the consultation, the Health and Safety Executive, as the Building Safety Regulator in shadow form, published an early messages paper setting out the key principles involved in a safety case regime. This has since been supplemented by a series of papers which provide further details of the safety case duties, including assessing and managing building safety risks and potential content for inclusion in a safety case report. This is aligned with the proposals set out below.

Outlining policy

Prescribed principles for managing building safety risks

5.12. Under the new regime, it is proposed that principal accountable persons and accountable persons must take all reasonable steps to ensure they have effective and proportionate measures in place to manage building safety risks. The objective is to ensure an incident involving building safety risks does not occur, and if one does that the impact of it is minimised.

5.13. Principal accountable persons and accountable persons under the revised regime will be required to ensure appropriate layers of protection are in place for life saving purposes – establishing a holistic system, with numerous preventative and protective barriers, which ensures all reasonable steps have been taken to manage building safety risks.

Hazard e.g. fire in flat

Safety Feature 1 e.g. compartment walls
Safety Feature 2 e.g. fire doors
Safety Feature 3 e.g. smoke alarm
Safety Feature 4 e.g. fire suppression system
Safety Feature 5 e.g. maintenance and testing plans

5.14. Ongoing effective arrangements for managing building safety risks should not be reliant on previously used, short-term, interim measures such as the use of a waking watch. There is no independently evaluated evidence on the efficacy of waking watch, and it has been misused to the financial disadvantage of leaseholders.

5.15. The Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) requires that principal accountable persons and accountable person(s) act in accordance with prescribed principles when meeting their duty to manage building safety risks.

5.16. Although ordered from the most to least effective, the principles should not be considered in isolation, many of them interact and are mutually supportive. For example, a safety feature which combats risks at source may provide collective safety and may need to be tested and maintained over time to remain effective. Relying on a single prevention or mitigation measure will not provide the multiple layers of protection necessary.

5.17. The principles described below are intended to reflect the realities of managing major fire and structural safety risks in high-rise residential buildings and support Dame Judith Hackitt’s clear steer that residents must have a greater voice in how the buildings they live in are managed.

5.18. The most effective means of ensuring safe outcomes is to avoid the occurrence of a building safety risk in the first instance, eliminating the hazard that might give rise to the risk occurring. The concept of avoiding risks does not mean that all the hazards are entirely eliminated, but that actions are taken to avoid risks wherever possible.

5.19. Any risk or hazard that cannot be avoided, can be evaluated and assessed. The Act requires the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of building safety risks. This will ensure the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) have, or can introduce additional, suitable and proportionate measures to remove, reduce or mitigate the identified risks. The duty on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to make an assessment of building safety risks is fundamental to having in place reasonable measures for managing them.

5.20. In the absence of the complete avoidance of building safety risks, control measures and barriers which combat risks at source, prevent the escalation of an incident, are generally most effective.

5.21. In the context of building safety risks in a high-rise residential building, measures which might be considered to combat the risks at source are likely to be built into the structure, fabric or skeleton of the building itself. They are likely to contain an incident, stopping it from spreading and preventing it from developing into a major incident, thereby providing collective protection across the building.

5.22. The Act creates an ongoing duty on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to ensure their safety arrangements are kept under review and maintained to remain effective. This systemic approach to delivering appropriate inspecting, testing and maintenance of the safety arrangements is often included as part of a wider safety management system.

5.23. A rounded safety management system will include policies, practices and procedures which ensure those with roles relating to the assessment and management of building safety risks have the necessary competence required to carry out the tasks assigned to them. Building safety risks cannot be effectively managed unless those involved in the delivery can be assured to possess the required skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours.

5.24. Safety features which provide collective safety for many, rather than protecting an individual, can offer major advantages when taking reasonable and proportionate steps to manage building safety risks. In the context of high-rise residential buildings, it is likely that most preventative and protective measures that are in place will be collective, i.e. in place across the whole building for the benefit of all residents or occupants in general. This does not prevent providing individual safety measures where appropriate.

5.25. Opportunities to improve safety can arise as a result of the development of new products, features or management techniques. Where such opportunities arise, a principal accountable person and/or accountable person should consider the safety benefits that they would gain by adapting to technological progress and adopting the new product or managerial approach, with a preference to introducing it, where it is proportionate to do so.

5.26. The advent of new technologies may present opportunities to replace more dangerous elements with non, or less, dangerous ones. This principle of substitution can involve weighing available options and, where reasonable to do so, selecting one which poses the least risk.

5.27. A central tenet of the new regime is to ensure residents have a greater voice on building safety decisions that impact them, and they have opportunities to express their views. The impact of decisions on residents, both financially and in terms of the disruption to their daily lives, is a critical factor to consider when ensuring proportionate steps are taken to manage building safety risks.

5.28. Closely linked to ensuring individuals are competent to carry out the tasks required of them, ensuring employees are given appropriate instructions and information is an important element of successful risk management activities.

Principles for managing building safety risks:

Avoid incidents involving building safety risks
Assess and evaluate building safety risks
Prioritise safety features which combat risks at source
Inspect, test and maintain safety features
Ensure risks are assessed and managed by people with the right skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours
Prioritise collective safety features
Adopt new technologies
Replace dangerous features for those that are less dangerous
Ensure residents’ voices are heard
Provide clear instructions and information to employees and contractors

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed principles that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) must follow when managing building safety risks?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Form and content of safety case reports, and notifications and submissions of safety case reports to the Building Safety Regulator

5.29. The purpose of a safety case report is for the principal accountable person, and any other accountable person for the building, to show that the hazards and risks have been identified, understood and that appropriate mitigation and management practices are being implemented on an ongoing basis. It is not seeking to demonstrate that the building is hazard or risk free.

5.30. The safety case regime for occupied high-rise residential buildings introduced by the Act requires a safety case report which demonstrates that the principal accountable person and relevant accountable person(s) are meeting duties to assess and manage building safety risks, and justifies the approach they are taking. The safety case report is supported by the wider safety case, which includes detailed information about the building, assessments of building safety risks and measures in place to manage those risks, all contained within the golden thread of information.

5.31. The primary purpose of the safety case is to provide the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) with assurance that building safety risks have been understood and assessed, and proportionate measures have been taken to manage them on an ongoing basis.

5.32. The submission of a safety case report to the Building Safety Regulator is a typical process of similar regulatory regimes. Under the new building safety regime, a safety case report will be required as part of the principal accountable person’s application for a building assessment certificate. However, the Building Safety Regulator will also have the power to request the submission of a safety case report separately to this (for example, during a refurbishment of the building).

5.33. The principal accountable person will be responsible for the production of a safety case report. Many buildings will have multiple accountable persons, each will be responsible for assessing and managing building safety risks in the parts of the building for which they are responsible, however, to ensure there is a single safety case report, the principal accountable person will be responsible for bringing the detail together. For buildings with 2 or more accountable persons, the principal accountable person is responsible for ensuring there is a single safety case report.

5.34. The exact content and level of detail included in the safety case report is a matter for the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to determine, taking into account the hazards, risk assessments, safety arrangements and further specifics of each individual high-rise residential building. It is not appropriate to produce a safety case report template to be filled out.

5.35. However, it is common practice that the report must meet minimum requirements for the content contained within. The proposed content required in safety case reports is set out below.

5.36. For a safety case report to meet its purpose, it must be contextual to the building in question. The context can be set through a description of the building itself. This may include the age and height of the building, the materials it has been constructed with (where such information is available), floorplans and the number of dwellings, services (including those for firefighting), the fire strategy in place, and the location and surroundings of the building.

5.37. Where certain information is not already held, principal accountable persons and accountable persons may need to undertake surveys or analysis to gather it. Information, either old or new, required to support the safety case report must be stored in the golden thread of information.

5.38. The Act places a clear duty on principal accountable persons and accountable persons to ensure they undertake suitable and sufficient risk assessments to identify the likely incidents involving building safety risks that could occur in the building. Consideration should be given to the likelihood of an incident and the events that might lead up to it. The safety case report should provide a summary of the assessments of building safety risks. Any risk assessments carried out to meet the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order will be relevant and may be referenced in the safety case report.

5.39. Having assessed and understood the risks, principal accountable persons and accountable persons must ensure they take all reasonable steps to prevent an incident involving building safety risks and limit the impact should such an incident occur. An overview of the steps taken to manage building safety risks should be included in safety case reports.

5.40. Principal accountable persons and accountable persons must be able to provide evidence of the safety measures that are in place, account for the decisions taken and be able to explain and evidence why they reached the conclusions they have reached.

5.41. For risk assessments to remain valid, and safety arrangements kept in good condition and full working order, principal accountable persons and accountable persons are required by the new regime to have systems, processes and policies in place which deliver the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of all the measures in place. This is to prevent an incident involving building safety risks materialising and to limit the impact should one occur.

5.42. The foundation for delivering this approach is to apply a safety management system. The safety case report should provide a summary of the relevant aspects of the safety management system, explaining why and how it contributes to keeping fire and structural risks controlled to tolerable levels. For example, the regular testing and maintenance of critical fire safety equipment, such as fire doors, lifts, fire-suppression systems and keeping escape routes clear. Some of these arrangements and the timing/frequency of when they are carried out, such as the testing of fire doors and fire-fighting lifts, may be required by other regulations, for example the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order.

5.43. Policies and procedures in the safety management system which relate to how changes are managed in a building may be of particular importance, for example when building work or other refurbishment projects are being carried out at a high-rise residential building.

5.44. The duties placed on principal accountable persons and accountable persons requires them to not only to take all reasonable steps to prevent an incident involving building safety risks occurring, but to also limit the consequences should one happen, acknowledging that such events, while rare, are possible.

5.45. Within the safety case report it is, therefore, necessary to explain the emergency arrangements and plans for the building. Emergency arrangements, which will build on the details of the building as set out in the safety case report, are likely to include links between the fire strategy and firefighting services for the building and their locations, particularly in relation to local emergency services, and information shared with local fire and rescue authorities to support emergency response preparations.

5.46. Emergency arrangements will need to consider the residents within the building. Residents must be provided with sufficient information to ensure they are aware of how they are expected to respond in certain scenarios – and this information should be provided as part of the principal accountable person’s Residents’ Engagement Strategy.

5.47. The safety case report should conclude with a definitive summary which demonstrates that all reasonable steps have been taken. It should show that the arrangements in place are proportionate and suitable and assure the reader that duties to assess and manage building safety risks have been, and will continue to be, met by principal accountable persons and accountable persons.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed content of the safety case report?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you have answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

5.48. A safety case report should be a written document, which takes the reader through a logical journey about the building, the assessment of building safety risks, and how those risks are being managed on an ongoing basis.

5.49. Safety case reports, and the information and evidence that supports them, must be kept up to date – they are not one-off exercises or only to be revisited when an application for a building assessment certificate is required.

5.50. Where there has been a change to the assessments made of building safety risks, or the steps taken to manage them, the safety case report must be revised to reflect the changes made. This is an ongoing process.

5.51. The safety case report will need to be stored in the golden thread and meet certain digital requirements. More detail is set out in the consultation section on golden thread contents and how the golden thread is stored and managed. The principal accountable person should notify the Building Safety Regulator electronically when they have produced or updated a safety case report. Where a safety case report has been updated, the notification provided by the principal accountable person should set out to the Building Safety Regulator why the revision has been made and include an overview of the main changes made to the report.

5.52. For an electronic notification to be made to the Building Safety Regulator regarding the completion, or update, of a safety case report, the principal accountable person must submit a completed notification form which will be available online, on the Building Safety Regulator’s website. The regulations will allow for this to be specified by direction.

5.53. Following the receipt of a notification, or at another time when the Building Safety Regulator requires the submission of a report, the Building Safety Regulator will make requests for and take receipt of safety case reports electronically. On receipt of a notification, the Building Safety Regulator will decide whether to request submission of the report based on the information provided.

Question: Do you have you any views on the format in which a safety case report must be produced, stored and submitted?

Question: Do you have any views on the way in which the Building Safety Regulator must be notified by the principal accountable person following the completion or update of a safety case report?

Question 8

6. 	Mandatory occurrence reporting

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

6.1. As part of the new regulatory regime, we are introducing a mandatory occurrence reporting requirement which will require specific people responsible for the safety of higher-risk buildings to capture and report certain fire and structural safety issues called ‘safety occurrences’ to the Building Safety Regulator.

6.2. Mandatory occurrence reporting will ensure that the Building Safety Regulator is able to capture any risks that could have a potential impact on fire and structural safety and assess the relevance of these risks to other buildings. It will also help drive intelligence-led enforcement, promote safety-conscious culture change, and improve safety standards and best practice across the built environment.

6.3. Under the proposed regime, mandatory occurrence reporting will be compulsory during the design, construction and occupation of higher-risk buildings. During design and construction^{[footnote 11]}, the Principal Designer and the Principal Contractor will be responsible for mandatory occurrence reporting. During occupation, the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will be responsible for mandatory occurrence reporting under section 87(1) of the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act). Failure to report an occurrence without a reasonable excuse will be a criminal offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine.

Background to proposals

6.4. Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (the Report) identified the importance of ensuring that there is a mandatory occurrence system for building safety. Her report recommended that a system of mandatory occurrence reporting, similar to that employed by the Civil Aviation Authority, should be set up for higher-risk buildings.

Outlining policy

6.5. Mandatory occurrence reporting will require the reporting of certain significant fire and structural safety issues (‘safety occurrences’) to the Building Safety Regulator.

6.6. The objective of the reporting system is to enable the Building Safety Regulator to understand significant fire and structural risks and assess whether there could potentially be an impact on the fire and structural safety of higher-risk buildings.

6.7. The proposed mandatory occurrence reporting regime, when higher-risk buildings are occupied, will place duties on the principal accountable person to:

Establish and operate an effective mandatory occurrence reporting system to enable accountable persons, residents and those managing or working on the building to report safety occurrences;

And place duties on the accountable person(s) to:

Report safety occurrences to the Building Safety Regulator in a specified way.

Establishing and operating a mandatory reporting system

6.8 Mandatory occurrence reporting places duties on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s). As set out in section 87(5) of the Act, the principal accountable person must establish and operate an effective mandatory occurrence reporting system which complies with prescribed requirements which will be set out in regulations.

6.9 We do not intend to be overly prescriptive in terms of how a reporting system should be implemented nor how it is operated or maintained. However, we propose that the principles of an effective reporting system should:

Be known to, understood by, and accessible to accountable persons;
Form an ongoing, integral, and regular part of the building safety risks management process;
Maintain a whole-of-building approach and be built to facilitate urgent reporting of safety occurrences;
Identify and capture safety occurrences; and,
Allow safety occurrences to be formally reported to the Building Safety Regulator as soon as is practicably possible and within the mandated time.

6.10 The mandatory occurrence reporting system should not be overly complex and can be integrated into established incident reporting systems. The system should facilitate the provision of adequate instruction and information about incidents or situations that must be inputted by, or on behalf of, the principal accountable person or the accountable person for the part of the building for which they are responsible so as to provide a holistic reporting system for the whole building reporting to the Building Safety Regulator.

6.11 The building should have a single mandatory occurrence reporting system, which aligns with the other duties under the occupation regime, forming the building’s safety management process. Where a higher-risk building has multiple accountable persons, the principal accountable person is responsible for ensuring the mandatory occurrence reporting system should be accessible to all the accountable person(s) to achieve a whole building approach.

6.12 When the principal accountable person or the accountable person becomes aware of a safety occurrence within the part of the building for which they are responsible^{[footnote 12]}, we intend to require that they notify the Building Safety Regulator of the safety occurrence through the reporting system established by the Building Safety Regulator. The principal accountable person will need to ensure that their mandatory occurrence reporting system facilitates the notification and monitoring of reports made to the Building Safety Regulator by themselves and accountable person(s).

6.13 In addition, residents and other persons may report incidences to the principal accountable person or accountable person(s) which may transpire to be a reportable safety occurrence. These will need to be reported in turn by the accountable person through the mandatory occurrence reporting system.

6.14 An effective system needs to facilitate the identification of a safety occurrence i.e. the occurrence meets the definition of a safety occurrence to be reported to the Building Safety Regulator and then to record and store the information that is submitted.

6.15 This information is to be stored as part of the golden thread for that particular building for a period of time. The minimum period of time is until the next building assessment is carried out by the Building Safety Regulator and longer if the incident remains relevant. Where the occurrence is no longer relevant after the subsequent assessment, the principal accountable person is under no obligation to retain a record as part of the golden thread.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposals for establishing and operating a mandatory occurrence system by the principal accountable person?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Circumstances for requiring mandatory reporting

6.16 Section 87(1) of the Act sets out that “an accountable person^{[footnote 13]} for an occupied higher-risk building must, in prescribed circumstances, give prescribed information to the regulator by the prescribed time and in the specified way.”

6.17 We propose that the circumstance in which a safety occurrence^{[footnote 14]} is reportable is when that circumstance meets the following criteria:

an incident or situation relating to the structural integrity or spread of fire of a higher-risk building that meets the risk condition
the “risk condition” is use of the building without the incident or situation being remedied, that would be likely to present a risk of a significant number of deaths, or serious injury, to a significant number of people.

6.18 The Building Safety Regulator will produce guidance detailing examples of incidents and situations which should be reported; however, this will not be a definitive list. The principal accountable person or accountable person(s) will need to use their own judgement to determine whether an occurrence meets the proposed criteria for the circumstances in which an incident should be reported.

6.19 We understand that this prescribed circumstance for reporting leaves some room for interpretation, and this is intentional. The intention of mandatory occurrence reporting is to drive a proactive safety and reporting culture, and to capture serious incidences which may be indicative of a larger systemic issue with a building’s safety or across industry.

6.20 The definition of safety occurrence should be considered alongside the types of occurrences which will be detailed in guidance. Examples of these include unauthorised work or activity; discovery of structural defects or fire safety defects; and, a fire which breaches compartmentation. An incident may fall into these categories, however, if they do not meet the risk condition detailed above – then they are not reportable under mandatory occurrence reporting.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed circumstance in which a safety occurrence is reportable?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the definition of a safety occurrence?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Mandatory occurrence reporting to the Building Safety Regulator

6.21 The Building Safety Regulator will implement a reporting procedure to facilitate the submission of information relating to mandatory occurrence reporting by the principal accountable person and accountable person(s). This is likely to be carried out via an online digital solution specified in the regulations.

6.22 We propose that the required information for mandatory occurrence reporting that must be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator is:

The date and time of the safety occurrence;
The address of the building at which the safety occurrence happened;
Name and contact details of the principal accountable person or the accountable person making the report; and,
The details of the safety occurrence (including the nature of the risk).

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed information that should be reported to the Building Safety Regulator?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

6.23 Given the serious nature of the incidences which fall under mandatory occurrence reporting, it is imperative that reports are made and submitted without delay. This is to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator is able to take any immediate action necessary, be that the sharing of useful safety information with industry and/or further investigation or enforcement measures.

6.24 Where the principal accountable person or an accountable person becomes aware of a safety occurrence, we intend to require that they notify the Building Safety Regulator of the safety occurrence as soon as reasonably practicable and provide the Building Safety Regulator with a written report containing required information (detailed above) within 10 calendar days of becoming aware of the occurrence.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that safety occurrences should be reported to the Building Safety Regulator within 10 calendar days?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

6.25 The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) that, without reasonable excuse, fails to meet the requirements as proposed above, i.e. failure to report when there is a safety occurrence, failure to submit all the required information or failure to meet the deadline, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine.

Question 9

7. 	Residents voice

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

7.1. Residents and leaseholders should be safe and feel safe in their homes. We are introducing a set of specific residents’ voice requirements that will ensure all residents are informed about building safety, are engaged in discussions about how to keep their building safe (including their own responsibilities) and are empowered to challenge unsafe or unreasonable decisions. These proposals set out the detail of how secondary legislation under the residents’ voice sections (89, 91 to 94 and 96) of the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) will operate.

7.2. The residents’ voice proposals have been informed by residents, including through the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities’ Residents’ Voice Advisory Group and the Health and Safety Executive’s Interim Residents Panel.

7.3. Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (the Report) found that residents did not have a strong enough voice in the management of their buildings. It found that residents often:

did not have the chance to offer views and participate in making decisions about the management of safety in their building;
lacked access to key building safety information; and,
struggled to get complaints addressed, even when relating to building safety.

7.4. The residents’ voice consultation areas are:

Providing residents with building safety information - All residents will be kept informed about the safety of their building and will receive building safety information. They will also be able to request further information from the accountable person who is responsible for the part of the building which they live in.
The residents’ engagement strategy - The principal accountable person must establish a residents’ engagement strategy, which promotes the participation of all residents in decisions about their building’s safety and sets out how and when residents will be consulted.
Complaints - The principal accountable person must establish and operate a system for the investigation of relevant complaints. Where a complainant believes their safety concerns have not been adequately resolved, they will have the right to escalate their complaint to the Building Safety Regulator.
Contravention notices - Residents also have a role to play in keeping their buildings safe. The Act places safety-related obligations on residents to help them to play their part. Where they fall short of their obligations, the accountable person can pursue compliance through the County Courts.

7.5. The cost of complying with requirements can be passed on to residents through the service charge. It is therefore vital that we get the balance right so these requirements reflect the needs of residents, ensuring they are safe and have their voices heard, without introducing unnecessary and costly burdens on accountable person(s). More information can be found in the economic annex to the consultation.

Providing residents with building safety information

Background to proposals

7.6. In the Report, Dame Judith Hackitt noted the importance of ensuring that residents of higher-risk buildings were able to understand the safety systems in place in their building. Residents therefore need access to a wide range of information about their building.

7.7. Under the Act, the principal accountable person - or if there are multiple accountable persons the relevant accountable person for the part of the higher-risk building which the resident lives in (the relevant accountable person) will be responsible for ensuring that any resident or owner of a flat who is 16 years or older is provided with the information they need to participate in decision making related to their building’s safety and to comply with their obligations. Residents will receive certain information about their building’s safety when a building becomes occupied. Residents will also be able to request further information either from the principal accountable person or from their relevant accountable person (if there are multiple accountable persons), unless, for example this would contravene data protection legislation. When requesting information, we are proposing that residents who are vulnerable can appoint an advocate to make a request on their behalf.

Outlining policy

Information the principal accountable person or relevant accountable person will provide to residents

7.8. We propose that under section 89 of the Act each accountable person will be responsible for providing residents in their part of the building with certain information. They will provide this information when the building is first occupied, when a new resident moves in, or when the information becomes out of date. The accountable person must provide this information as soon as reasonably practicable. Some information, such as contact details for the accountable person, will also need to be displayed prominently in the building.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the instances in which the accountable person will be required to provide residents with information?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

7.9. We are proposing that the relevant accountable person must provide residents with the following information:

Measures to reduce the risk of fire and ensure the structural integrity of the building – this will include, for example, a summary of the most recent fire risk assessment, a summary of the measures in place to mitigate the potential spread of fire and any building structural safety risks, information on how residents can reduce the risk of fire, report a safety issue and help the accountable person manage building safety risks^{[footnote 15]};
Contact information for building safety matters and a short explanation of their role – this will include, for example, the accountable person providing the information for the principal accountable person and any accountable person and the Responsible Person under the Fire Safety Order; and,
Information about residents’ rights – for example a copy of the residents’ engagement strategy, the principal accountable person’s complaints policy, and a list of the further information residents can request.

7.10. This information must be stored in the golden thread of information. The golden thread part of the consultation sets out more detail on the information that has to be stored in the golden thread.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed types of information residents should always receive?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: Are there any specific documents or information you think should be included or excluded from the information residents receive automatically?

Yes
No
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Requests for further information

7.11. Under section 92 of the Act, residents of a higher-risk building will also be able to request further building safety information that is relevant to their building. The principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person is responsible for providing residents in their part of the building with information. They must respond to a request for further information ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ after the request has been received. More detail about the information the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) has to retain about their building to enable the safe management of the building is set out in the consultation section on the contents of the golden thread.

7.12. Where a resident believes that the principal accountable person or an accountable person is not adequately fulfilling their duty to provide further information, they will be able to raise a complaint under the complaints policy and escalate this to the Building Safety Regulator if necessary. More detail is set out in the consultation section on the complaints process.

7.13. We are proposing that residents have the right to request the following information:

Measures to reduce the risk of fire and ensure the structural integrity of the building

a) current and previous relevant fire risk assessments for the higher-risk building;

b) the current safety case report, and previous relevant safety case reports;

c) any other information that forms part of the information and evidence compiled by the principal accountable person or accountable person(s) as required to underpin the safety case report;

d) details as to how building safety assets in the higher-risk building are managed, the reasonable details of, and the schedule for, any planned maintenance and repairs of the building and fire safety features;

e) the outcome of any building safety inspection checks for the higher-risk building that have been undertaken;

f) the fire safety strategy for the higher-risk building;

g) copies of structural assessments of the higher-risk building;

h) planned and historical changes to the building which are relevant to building safety risks;

i) a risk register of fire hazards for the building and how they are being managed;

j) any information required to be provided to the resident as part of the initial provision of information;

k) all other building safety information that the principal accountable person or accountable person(s) reasonably considers should be provided to residents on request so that:

- (i) residents are able to play an active role in building safety decisions as part of the residents’ engagement strategy;

- (ii) residents are able to play an active role in the safety of their higher-risk building; and,

- (iii) residents are able to fully understand the building safety features of, and building safety measures in place for, the higher-risk building in which they live;

Information pertaining to residents’ rights

l) previous residents’ engagement strategies for the building;

m) in higher-risk buildings where there is more than one accountable person, the principal accountable person must be clearly identified; and

n) the records of the results of the periodic review by the principal accountable person of the appropriateness of the methods of promoting participation under the residents’ engagement strategy.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed lists of further information that residents can request?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

If disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you propose and how it would support residents in understanding the safety of their building.

How the information must be provided

7.14. We propose that the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person provides information to residents in a format that allows residents to clearly understand the information without specialist knowledge.

7.15. Where residents have expressed their preference for information in a particular format the accountable person should take these preferences into account, including providing the information in an accessible format when required, as far as it is reasonable to do so.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with how information will need to be provided to residents?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that residents should be able to request information in an accessible form?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Exemptions

7.16. As set out above, the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will provide residents with certain information when a building becomes occupied or when a new resident moves in. This information must be provided unless it contravenes data protection legislation.

7.17. Where further information is requested, the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will not have to provide this information where they reasonably believe:

The information may have an adverse impact on the security of the building, the residents, or other buildings in the vicinity or the local area; and
The information may have an adverse impact on individual residents through the release of personal information about them.

7.18. The principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will also need to consider whether information may infringe intellectual property rights or a legally-binding obligation of commercial confidentiality. The principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person may still have to provide this information even if providing this information may infringe intellectual property rights or commercial confidentiality, if the information would aid residents’ understanding of the safety of their building. If the information can be redacted in such a way as to protect intellectual property rights and commercial confidentiality and still aid residents’ understanding of the safety of their building, then it may be acceptable to redact the information.

7.19. However, if the information cannot be redacted in such a way, then the presumption will be that the information should be shared in a unredacted form where the information will aid resident’s understanding of the safety of their building.

7.20. The government has the power to provide in regulations that the duty to give information to residents can override obligations of commercial confidentiality.

7.21. The principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will also not have to provide information where it does not exist or has been deleted in accordance with data protection requirements or deleted in line with the golden thread of information requirements. More detail on this is set out in the consultation section on the golden thread contents.

Question: Do these exemptions strike the right balance between making sure residents can access information and the need to protect sensitive information?

Yes
No
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed approach to the intellectual property and commercial confidentiality exemptions?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

The residents’ engagement strategy

Background to proposals

7.22. In the Report, Dame Judith Hackitt found that although many building owners, building managers and landlords consulted residents on proposed changes, this was not true across the sector as a whole. Dame Judith Hackitt shared residents’ frustrations about their lack of involvement in important matters of building safety, concluding that resident involvement and engagement should be at the heart of the new regime.

7.23. Under the new regime, the principal accountable person must ensure that they have a residents’ engagement strategy. This strategy must set out:

what information will be provided to residents about decisions relating to building management;
what they will consult residents on;
what aspects of a decision residents will have a say in;
how they will consult residents; and,
how they will review the appropriateness of the strategy.

7.24. The residents’ engagement strategy must be prepared as soon as reasonably practicable after the building becomes occupied (by 2 households or more), or after the appointment of the principal accountable person, whichever is later. The strategy must be consulted on in prescribed circumstances.

7.25. The principal accountable person must provide a written copy of the principal accountable person’s residents’ engagement strategy to every resident who is 16 and over whom they are aware. If there are multiple accountable person(s) then each accountable person is responsible for providing the residents’ engagement strategy to residents in the area they are responsible for.

Outlining policy

Providing the residents’ engagement strategy

7.26. We propose that the principal accountable person:

must consider what format the residents’ engagement strategy should be provided in that allows residents to clearly understand the content and aims of the strategy and promotes resident participation in building safety decisions, for example via email, posting hard copies etc;
will be required to provide a copy of the residents’ engagement strategy to any other accountable persons in the building, in a format that they can share with their residents; and,
must store the residents’ engagement strategy in the golden thread of information.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that it should be up to the principal accountable person to decide how to provide residents with a copy of the residents’ engagement strategy?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: If you think there should be specific requirements about how the residents’ engagement strategy is provided to residents, set these out below.

The content of the residents’ engagement strategy

7.27. It is important that residents are informed and asked about decisions that matter to them. The residents’ engagement strategy must promote participation in the making of building safety decisions. These are decisions made by the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) about the management of the building in connection with their duties. The principal accountable person will need to consider when they inform residents about a building safety matter and what decisions they will seek residents’ views on, taking into account whether that decision will impact residents.

7.28. We propose that the residents’ engagement strategy requires the principal accountable person to inform residents about the following building safety decisions as a minimum:

A decision to undertake works related to building safety where the associated costs would increase rent or service charge levels, for example, works that require a section 20 notice under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985; and,
Appointment of contractors who are carrying out building safety works.

7.29. We propose that the residents’ engagement strategy requires the principal accountable person to consult residents about the following aspects of a building safety decision:

Quality and value for money options;
The times at and days (for example weekend working) on which building safety work can take place; and,
How potential disruptions to residents from building safety works could be mitigated, including their approach to carrying out emergency works.

7.30. Where works are required to commence on an emergency basis, and it would be unreasonable to consult, the principal accountable person will not be expected to consult on these issues but would be expected to work with residents as far as possible on managing disruptions.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed minimum requirements for when residents should be provided with building safety information?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed minimum requirements for the aspects of a decision residents should be consulted on?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Methods of engaging with residents

7.31. We propose that it is for the principal accountable person, working with accountable persons, to establish how best to seek views from the residents of a higher-risk building. We believe accountable persons will be best placed to understand the specific requirements of the residents in the building, and to be able to adapt their engagement to meet the requirements of their residents.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with allowing accountable persons to decide how best to seek residents’ views?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

If you disagree - explain your reasoning. Include any particular methods of engagement that should be used.

Consulting on the residents’ engagement strategy

7.32 To ensure the residents’ engagement strategy takes account of the views of residents in the higher-risk building we propose that the principal accountable person must consult residents and any other accountable person(s) on their residents’ engagement strategy when it is first prepared and when a new principal accountable person is appointed. We also propose that a consultation must take place following any material amendments being made to the residents’ engagement strategy.

7.33 For new buildings that are being occupied for the first time, it will be for the principal accountable person to consider how to conduct this consultation, taking into account the need to consult promptly while allowing the majority of residents to share their views. We would encourage multiple staged consultations on the residents’ engagement strategy where appropriate, for example, if the building is occupied in stages.

7.34 When consulting on the residents’ engagement strategy, the principal accountable person must consider what period of time is reasonable for this consultation, but that this consultation period should be no shorter than 3 weeks. In addition, we propose to require that in buildings where there is more than one accountable person (i.e. there is a principal accountable person and at least one other accountable person) the principal accountable person must consult with other accountable person(s) in the building on the residents’ engagement strategy.

7.35 The principal accountable person will need to review the strategy and decide whether to make any changes following a consultation.

7.36 It will be up to the principal accountable person to establish what methods of, and arrangements for, consultation are appropriate and reasonable for the residents of the building, the nature of the building and matters being consulted on. We would expect the principal accountable person to set out how they will consult residents and owners on building safety decisions within the residents’ engagement strategy itself. The residents and owners will have the opportunity to comment on this when consulted on the residents’ engagement strategy.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed approach to when the residents’ engagement strategy should be consulted on and with who?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the minimum period for consultation?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

If you disagree, what period would you propose instead and why?

Keeping the residents’ engagement strategy under review

7.37 It is important for the principal accountable person to keep the residents’ engagement strategy under review to make sure it is working for residents in the higher-risk building. We propose that the principal accountable person should be required to review their residents’ engagement strategy periodically, after the residents’ engagement strategy has been consulted on and where they consider it appropriate to do so.

7.38 We propose that the period of review should take place, as a minimum, every 2 years and following a consultation on the residents’ engagement strategy under section 91(1)(c) of the Act; or more frequently where the principal accountable person considers a review necessary and/ or appropriate.

7.39 This review will look at the appropriateness of the methods used to promote participation from residents.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the minimum timeframe for reviewing the residents’ engagement strategy and the further instances where a review will be required?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question: Are there other specific circumstances that should require a review of the residents’ engagement strategy?

Yes
No
Don’t know

If yes, what circumstances should require the residents’ engagement strategy to be reviewed? Explain your reasoning.

Complaints

Background to proposals

7.40 In the Report, Dame Judith Hackitt found that residents did not always know how to raise building safety issues. In some cases, even where issues were raised, residents were not confident that they would be addressed.

7.41 The review was clear that those responsible for a building’s safety should be the first port of call for building safety issues but that there must be a clear route of escalation to an independent body, the Building Safety Regulator, which can make sure residents’ issues are being heard and addressed.

7.42 The Act sets out the requirement for each higher-risk building to operate a building safety complaints system. It also requires the Building Safety Regulator to have a complaints system. The Building Safety Regulator’s complaints system will act as a route of escalation for the complaints which have not been addressed through the individual higher-risk building’s complaints system.

Outlining policy

Making a complaint about building safety issues

7.43 A relevant complaint is defined in the Act as a complaint relating to:

a ‘building safety risk’ - a risk to the safety of people in or about the building arising from either the spread of fire or structural failure; and
the performance by an accountable person with regard to their duties.

7.44 Under the new regime, we propose that there will be no restriction on who can make a relevant complaint providing that it meets the definition of a ‘relevant complaint’ set out here. This would mean, for example, a contractor working in the building who identifies a building safety issue could raise a concern.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach that anyone can make a relevant complaint?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

The complaints policy

7.45 To make sure complainants know how to raise a building safety issue and how their concern will be addressed, the principal accountable person will need to operate a complaints policy.

7.46 Many buildings already have effective policies for raising complaints. Where there are already effective processes for dealing with complaints and providing they meet the minimum requirements below, existing systems can be used for dealing with relevant building safety complaints.

7.47 We propose that as a minimum a complaints policy must include:

How to make a complaint and the definition of a ‘relevant complaint’;
The stages of the complaint process and the potential outcomes;
How a complainant can challenge the decisions about a complaint and comment on any findings during an investigation;
The expected timeframes for handling and investigating a complaint and service standards a complainant can expect; and,
The complainants right to escalate a complaint to the Building Safety Regulator and how a complaint may be escalated.

7.48 The complaints policy will be part of the information the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person has to provide to residents and be available on request. It therefore must conform with the requirements under those regulations.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the minimum requirements for a complaints policy as set out above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

How to make a complaint

7.49 To ensure that redress is accessible, we propose that the principal accountable person must incorporate and set out suitable mechanisms through which building safety complaints can be made. The specific method(s) will be left to the principal accountable person and building safety complaints could be incorporated into an existing complaints system.

7.50 The principal accountable person will be required to set out how to make a complaint in their complaints policy which will be provided to residents as part of the information the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person is required to provide. The principal accountable person will also be required to prominently display instructions on how to make a building safety complaint in the common parts of the building.

7.51 Where a complainant specifies a preferred method of communication, the principal accountable person must consider whether it is reasonable to communicate using the complainant’s preferred method.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the requirement to have suitable mechanisms for receiving potential complaints and to consider a complainant’s communication preference?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Explain your reasoning. If you disagree, set out any further requirements you believe are necessary below.

Question: Do you agree with the requirement to display how to make a complaint in the common parts of the building?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Remedies

7.52 We propose that where a complaint is relevant and there is an issue, the principal accountable person, working with the relevant accountable person must:

set out the steps that will be taken to rectify the issue;
set out when they expect it will be rectified; and,
communicate this to the complainant as soon as reasonably practicable.

7.53 When an issue has been rectified, the principal accountable person, working with the relevant accountable person or Responsible Person must communicate this to the complainant as soon as reasonably practicable. This may include working with other parties to remedy a situation, for example a Responsible Person acting under the Fire Safety Order.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the requirements to communicate clearly with complainants when rectifying a relevant complaint?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

The principle of escalation

7.54 We propose that the complaints system should include the ability for the complainant to challenge the response to their complaint, and for the principal accountable person to respond to this challenge.

7.55 Where the complainant is not content with the response to the challenge, then the complainant may escalate their complaint to the Building Safety Regulator. This balances the need to put the onus on those responsible for the building’s safety with ensuring complainants have proper access to redress.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with this approach to escalating a complaint to the Building Safety Regulator?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Handling a complaint

7.56 To allow for different complaints and processes, we are not proposing complaints must be handled in a specific timeframe. In handling a complaint, the principal accountable person must make clear when a response to a complaint can be expected and when the complainant can expect issues to be put right.

7.57 We will require that building safety complaints must be handled in a timely manner, taking into account the particulars of that complaint, for example, a more complex complaint may take longer to resolve.

7.58 It will be for the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to properly assess an appropriate timeframe to investigate and put issues right. Ultimately the arbiter of whether a relevant complaint has been handled in a timely manner will be the Building Safety Regulator.

7.59 Where building safety risks are considered as part of existing systems for handling complaints or issues, the principal accountable person will need to have an effective and appropriate prioritisation process that takes account the level of risk posed by the issue raised.

7.60 Where a complaint is considered to be not relevant, i.e. not a building safety complaint, then we would expect principal accountable persons and accountable person(s) to work appropriately with their counterparts, for example Responsible Persons, to ensure that issues are resolved appropriately, though they will not come under the requirements here.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach of requiring the principal accountable person to respond to building safety complaints in a timely manner and appropriately prioritise them, rather than within a fixed timeframe?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

If you disagree, explain why and set out what timeframe you think would be appropriate.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the principal accountable person should have to keep complainants regularly informed of the steps they are taking to resolve a complaint and whether any progress has been made, including reasoning for any delays?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

7.61 We propose that a record of the complaint must be stored in the golden thread of information. The principal accountable person must record, as a minimum:

contact details for the complainant;
the date the complaint was raised;
whether it is a first complaint on the issue or part of a series of complaints or related complaints;
a summary of the complaint itself including reasoning for it being a ‘relevant complaint’ or not and any timeframes or prioritisation given;
whether the response to the complaint was challenged and the details of that challenge or challenges;
the date it was acknowledged;
the date and summary of the initial response;
the date and detail of any interim responses and any and all correspondence with the complainant; and,
the date and detail of any final response, including any involvement of the Building Safety Regulator.

7.62 The principal accountable person must ensure that they review this information to ensure that they are only retaining relevant information. More detail on this is set out in the consultation section on the contents of the golden thread.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with these requirements on how a complaint should be stored?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Contravention notices

Background to proposals

7.63 In the Report, Dame Judith Hackitt recognised that residents have an important role to play in making sure their building is safe. It recommended that residents were provided with clear information on how to keep their building safe and that residents should meet their obligations to ensure their own safety and that of others.

7.64 The Act places 3 obligations on residents to support the work of the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) in keeping the building safe. Residents must:

not act in a way that creates a significant risk of a spreading fire or structural failure;
not interfere with a relevant safety item e.g. sprinklers, smoke and fire alarm systems; and,
comply with a request by the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person for information reasonably required to allow the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person to assess and manage building safety risks.

7.65 We anticipate that the majority of residents will already be fulfilling these obligations. The combination of better information and improved engagement by the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will help ensure that all residents understand the important role they can play in keeping their home and the building they live in safe.

Outlining policy

7.66 Where a resident is not complying with their obligations, the relevant accountable person can issue a contravention notice. The relevant accountable person is the accountable person for the part of the higher-risk building which the resident lives in. If a resident does not comply with a contravention notice, it can be escalated to the courts who will be able to determine whether it should be enforced. In many cases where issues are identified, the accountable person will be able to resolve the issues by speaking to residents directly rather than by using a contravention notice.

7.67 If the relevant accountable person decides to issue a contravention notice, then the notice must specify the alleged contravention, the actions the resident should take and a reasonable time to take those steps. It must also set out the steps the relevant accountable person may take if the notice is not complied with.

Issuing a notice

7.68 We propose that when a contravention notice is issued, the relevant accountable person must comply with the following requirements:

it must be in writing and served through an appropriate mechanism and that it is understandable to the resident in question, including taking account of any accessibility requirements;
the accountable person must provide a copy of the notice to the resident in question’s landlord (where the accountable person is not their landlord);
refer to any relevant previous communication with the resident relating to the alleged contravention;
when specifying potential escalation steps, the notice must signpost any relevant guidance issued by the Building Safety Regulator on contravention notices; and,
it must include the accountable persons contact details.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the requirements for issuing a contravention notice?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Recording information

7.69 We propose that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) must all maintain a record of the contravention notices that they have served, and any relevant information connected with their use of contravention notices in the golden thread of information. The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) must ensure that they review this information to ensure that they are only retaining relevant information as required by the golden thread requirements. Retaining this information in the golden thread of information will be an important part of ensuring that these powers are not misused and that the Building Safety Regulator can request a copy of this information if a complaint is raised.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the accountable person must maintain a record of the contravention notices that they have served, and any relevant information in line with the principles of the golden thread?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above.

Question 10

8. 	The contents of the golden thread

Accepted Answer

Summary

8.1. The golden thread is a key part of the new, more stringent building safety regime. Having a golden thread of accurate and up to date information will enable the people responsible for a building to manage it in a way that ensures the safety of residents and those working in the building or in the surrounding area.

8.2. This chapter focuses on the contents of the golden thread for occupied buildings. This means the information and documents to be stored in the golden thread. The next chapter focuses on how the information in the golden thread is managed and stored. There is a separate consultation on the golden thread in design, construction and refurbishment in the consultation on the proposed changes to building regulations.

Background to proposals

8.3. Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (the Report) recommended a golden thread of information. The government agreed to these recommendations and through the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) mandated that all higher-risk buildings in scope of the more stringent regime have a golden thread in place.

8.4. The golden thread will enable the right people at the right time to have information they need to support building safety. Managing this information is a key part of the golden thread to ensure that people can trust that the information is accurate and up to date. It also means that the people who need the information to ensure that a building is safe can access and share this information as required.

Outlining policy

Relevant and proportionate

8.5. Section 88 of the Act sets out that the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) must keep prescribed information and copies of prescribed documents. Where they do not hold prescribed information or a copy of a prescribed document, they must obtain it except where it is not practicable to do so. The Act also sets out that as far as possible they should keep such information up to date.

8.6. This chapter sets out the information and copy documentation we propose to prescribe should be stored in the golden thread. All the information within the golden thread should be the information and documents required to identify, manage and mitigate building safety risks (i.e. the spread of fire and structural failure).

8.7. It is equally important to ensure that only relevant content is retained in the golden thread. This is essential as otherwise the golden thread could quickly become unmanageable - having too much irrelevant information and/or documentation could undermine the purpose of the golden thread as it could make it difficult to find relevant information.

8.8. This is why throughout this chapter we set out the information and/or copy documents the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) need to store in their golden thread. However, this is only to be kept to the extent that this information remains relevant to supporting the safety of the building.

8.9. For instance, a principal accountable person may commission a fire risk assessment. After ten years the building is thoroughly refurbished and there are extensive changes made throughout the building. A new comprehensive fire risk assessment is undertaken. The old fire risk assessment would only need to be kept in the golden thread if there was a continuing need for it – i.e. that the information is relevant to the ongoing safety of the building. In this case there is no need to retain the old fire risk assessment and it, therefore, does not need to be kept in the golden thread and can be deleted. The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) should explain their criteria or rationale for information being deleted.

8.10. The Building Safety Regulator intends to provide guidance to help the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) identify the information/copy documentation that is relevant and should be retained in the golden thread. It is important to note that information may not always remain relevant and that it is important information and documents in the golden thread are regularly reviewed.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that only information relevant to building safety risks should be stored in the golden thread?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the information in the golden thread should be regularly reviewed to ensure it remains proportionate and relevant?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Do you have any other comments on how to ensure the golden thread is relevant and proportionate?

Responsibility

8.11. We expect that the principal accountable person will always retain overall responsibility for the golden thread. However, if there are multiple accountable persons – then the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) are individually responsible for keeping information about the part of the building which they are responsible for in the golden thread. Each accountable person will need to ensure that this information is up to date.

8.12. We also propose that if there are multiple accountable persons it will be the responsibility of the principal accountable person to ensure all accountable person(s) can access and use the golden thread. We propose that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) should retain this information in the golden thread, in line with the requirements set out in the section on relevance and proportionality. This means this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety. We would expect a large part of the information would remain relevant until it is superseded by further maintenance and refurbishment work. Each accountable person is responsible for ensuring the information in the golden thread related to the part of the building for which they are responsible is accurate and up to date.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach outlined above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

8.13 We propose that for buildings which have been built under the new building control regime (the gateways process), the client should handover some of the information developed through the new building control regime to the principal accountable person. This information will be stored in the golden thread and should be handed over at the building handover stage. More detail on the information developed through the new building control regime can be found in the consultation on the proposed changes to the building regulations.

8.14. We propose that for a new building the information in the golden thread that the client should handover to the principal accountable person is:

the information required to be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator in a completion certificate application (the prescribed documents). The application will include the following:
- i. Plans of the completed building work
- ii. Construction Control Plan
- iii. Change Control Plan
- iv. Design and Build Approach Document
- v. Fire and Emergency File
- vi. Compliance declarations
the relevant information/evidence required to support the prescribed documents
completion certificate issued by the Building Safety Regulator under the building regulations.
any further information that is relevant to the ongoing safety of the building and is not covered by the material above – this could include documents/information required to be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator at building control approval stage, and information required through the statutory change control process during the construction phase. We would expect that most information would be covered in the bullets above.

8.15. We propose that once the information is handed over, the principal accountable person is responsible for storing this information in the golden thread.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the proposed information from the design and construction stage should be handed over to the principal accountable person, and that this information should be stored in the golden thread as long as it remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.16 As set out in the consultation sections on registration and certification all occupied higher-risk buildings will need to be registered and to apply, when directed, for a building assessment certificate. We propose that the principal accountable person should store in the golden thread the information/documentation required for registration and for the application for a building assessment certificate.

8.17 As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider this is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This means this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the information/documentation provided at the registration and as part of the building assessment certificate application should be stored in the golden thread as long as it remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.18 The requirements and content of mandatory occurrence reports is set out in the consultation section on mandatory occurrence reporting. We propose that the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) store mandatory occurrence reports in the golden thread. 

8.19 As set out in section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider this is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This means that this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the mandatory occurrence reports are stored in the golden thread as long as the reports remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.20 The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 will make it a legal requirement from 23 January 2023 for all high-rise residential buildings in England to have a secure information box installed on the premises. High-rise residential buildings are defined as a building at least 18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys containing 2 or more sets of domestic premises.

8.21 The information in the secure information box is the information deemed necessary for the use of the emergency services in an emergency. More information about the secure information box is set out in this factsheet.

8.22 These regulations will require the Responsible Person to install a suitable secure information box in or on their high-rise building. They will also be required to provide in the box:

Their UK contact details;
The UK contact details of any other person who has the facilities to and is permitted to access the building as the Responsible Person considers appropriate;
- Copies of the building’s floor plans – which identify key fire-fighting equipment; and,
- A single page block plan - which identifies key fire-fighting equipment.

8.23 We propose that a copy of this information should also be stored in the golden thread and that it will be the responsibility of the principal accountable person to ensure it is stored. The Responsible Person will be required to keep the information in the box up to date and we propose to require that the principal accountable person has to ensure the information in the golden thread reflects the information in the box, so that it is always up to date. Having the information in the golden thread will also enable it to be submitted to the fire service electronically for use in an emergency.

8.24 As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider this is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This information should therefore be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that information deemed necessary for use by emergency services in an emergency, as stored by the Responsible Person in the information box, is stored in the golden thread?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.25 Under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, the Responsible Person will be required to prepare a report of the design and materials of external walls and to share this information with the Fire and Rescue Service. We propose that a copy of this information should be stored in the golden thread and that it will be the responsibility of the principal accountable person to ensure this takes place. The Responsible Person will be required to keep the information up to date and we propose to require that the principal accountable person has to ensure the information in the golden thread reflects this so that it is always up to date. Having the information in the golden thread will enable it to be submitted to the fire service electronically and this information will support the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) in the development of the safety case report.

8.26 As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider this is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This means this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that information the Responsible Person is required to collect on wall systems is stored in the golden thread as long as the information remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.27 The consultation section on residents’ voice sets out details of the residents’ engagement strategy, complaints process, contravention notices and the information to be provided to residents. It is important that the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) have access to this information, as working with residents is an essential part of ensuring building safety. We propose that the following information should be stored in the golden thread:

Residents’ engagement strategy;
Record of complaints;
Record of contravention notices issued and any relevant information connected with their use of contravention notices; and
Information provided automatically to residents.

8.28 The principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) must ensure that they review this information to ensure that they are only retaining relevant information as required by the golden thread principles. As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider this is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This means this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the information set out above should be stored in the golden thread as long as the reports remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.29 The consultation section on the safety case sets out the information the safety case report should cover. We propose that the safety case report is stored in the golden thread.

8.30 The safety case report will be supported by the evidence and information that are detailed in the sections above (e.g. information provided through the new building control regime, the residents engagement strategy etc). However, there is other information/evidence that underpins the safety case report, but which may not be included in these documents. We propose that this other information is also stored in the golden thread. This does not mean that only the following information/evidence is required to support the safety case report. As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we propose that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) should regularly review the golden thread to ensure the information remains relevant to building safety. This means that this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

8.31 We propose that the following information should be stored in the golden thread:

plans of the building as it currently is;
as built plans of the building if these are available and/or relevant to building safety;
full and current fire risk assessments;
other relevant fire risk assessments (i.e. previous fire risk assessments, if they are available, should be stored if they are relevant);
details of preventive and protective measures for spread of fire and structural safety risks and information on the management and maintenance of these preventative and protective measures;
fire strategy for the building;
fire evacuation and management plan (if separate from the fire strategy);
design intent if this is available. We are aware that for many existing buildings this is not possible but if the original design intent of the building can be identified then this should be stored in the golden thread if it is relevant to building safety;
structural surveys/risk assessments/ reports if available, or assurance that a full structural survey is not necessary;
details of whether the building has had a change of use together with the previous use;
details of the building’s construction – this could include the primary load bearing system (for example, pre-cast planks on a steel frame), the stability system (for example, concrete stair core(s), building façade material etc.
details of when the building was built and relevant design codes or standards applying to that construction; and
safety management system for the building. This should include but is not restricted to:
- the planned maintenance and repairs schedules relevant to managing building safety risks,
- outcome of building safety inspection checks, and
- how assets and systems that are relevant to building safety risks are managed. Assets and systems could include: smoke extraction fans; lifts (in particular firefighting lifts); any pressure systems on site; energy sources and storage (natural gas, hydrogen, solid state batteries, PV cells); self-closing fire barriers. The Building Safety Regulator intends to provide more detailed examples of assets and systems in guidance.

8.32 As set out in the section on relevance and proportionality in the golden thread, we consider retaining this information is subject to the overriding requirement around relevance. This means that this information should be retained for as long as it remains relevant to identifying, assessing and managing building safety.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the safety case report and safety case information set out in the list above should be stored in the golden thread as long as it remains relevant to building safety?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.33 The consultation on the proposed changes to building regulations sets out more detail on the requirements of the new, more stringent regime around building work in higher-risk buildings. This includes requirements around the information required to be stored in the golden thread.

8.34 As set out in this consultation, we propose to allow notifiable building work in a higher-risk building to be carried out through building control application to the Building Safety Regulator, a competent person scheme or through third-party certification.  

8.35 We intend to require that if someone (other than the principal accountable person or an accountable person) intends to have building work carried out in a higher-risk building, they will have to notify the accountable person who is responsible for that part of the building (the relevant accountable person). The relevant accountable person will need to consider whether the building work will impact on the building safety risks and how they are managed.  We propose that the relevant accountable person will be able to request further information from the person who has commissioned the building work. The level of information requested will depend on the nature of the building work.  We propose that if a refurbishment is carried out through a building control application, the information and prescribed documents required in the individual building control approval application for that particular refurbishment project should be stored in the golden thread. We consider that this should include the necessary information relevant to building safety. It will be for the relevant accountable person to ensure that this information is stored in the golden thread. The relevant accountable person though will be able to request further information from the person who has commissioned the building work. The level of information requested will depend on the nature of the building work. 

8.36 We propose that where work is carried out through a competent person scheme or third-party certification, it would be for the relevant accountable person to decide what information to request and store in the golden thread. Decisions on what information should be stored should depend on what the relevant accountable person considers to be relevant to ensuring building safety.   So, for instance, the relevant accountable person could request a copy of the certificate (for building work done through a competent person scheme) from the resident and could store this in the golden thread. It would depend on what information the relevant accountable person considers to be relevant to ensuring building safety.  

8.37 When the building work is complete, we propose that the relevant accountable person should ensure the golden thread is updated to reflect this and would include a copy of any completion certificate.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the information about building work in a higher-risk building to be stored in the golden thread?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

8.38 The requirements for the key building information are set out in key building information consultation section. We propose that the key building information is stored in the golden thread.

8.39 The key building information is specifically produced for the use of the Building Safety Regulator to support their data analysis. It therefore has a different and distinct purpose to the rest of the information that is stored in the golden thread. We propose that the principal accountable person only keeps a copy of the most up to date key building information. The principal accountable person does not need to retain records of previous versions of the key building information in the golden thread.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the key building information should be stored in the golden thread?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question 11

9. 	How the golden thread is stored and managed - golden thread principles

Accepted Answer

Summary 

9.1 The golden thread is a key part of the more stringent building safety regime. Having a golden thread of accessible and transferrable information will ensure that the right people have the right information at the right time to manage the building safely.

9.2 This chapter focuses on how the golden thread is stored and managed (the golden thread principles) to enable people to access, share and manage the information for occupied buildings. There is a separate consultation on the proposed changes to the building regulations that sets out proposals on the golden thread in design, construction and refurbishment.

9.3 The Building Regulations Advisory Committee golden thread working group previously published a report setting on the golden thread principles. This consultation sets out more details on our proposals on how we intend to turn these principles into regulations.

Background to proposals   

9.4 In the Report, Dame Judith Hackitt called for a golden thread of information.  The government supported these recommendations and through the Act has mandated that all higher-risk buildings in scope of the new, more stringent regime have a golden thread in place. The golden thread will enable the right people at the right time to have information they need to support building safety. Managing the information is a key part of the golden thread to ensure that people can trust that the information is accurate and up to date and can access and share this information as required. 

9.5 The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will need to decide how to meet the golden thread requirements and what software/digital systems they wish to use. All accountable persons have an ongoing responsibility to ensure that the golden thread meets the requirements as set out in this chapter.

Outlining policy

Definition of digital

9.6 To ensure that the principal accountable person and accountable persons(s) have information that is accessible, can be quickly updated and handed over, the golden thread has to be digital. However, we do not want to restrict innovation and hinder industry by setting a definition of digital in regulations that could become quickly outdated.

9.7 In practise, people and organisations may choose to implement the golden thread through very different digital systems. Some parts of the sector are already leading the way in exploring how to best deliver the golden thread. There are also many specialised software systems that are already in use. We also do not want to burden the sector by imposing requirements that would mean people have to invest in new digital systems when their existing systems are able to support building safety.

9.8 As a comparison we have considered the Computer Misuse Act 1990 which purposefully did not provide a definition of a computer because rapid changes in technology would mean any definition would soon become out of date. The definition was left to the courts. We propose to adopt a similar approach with the golden thread. We propose to require that the golden thread should be digital and that by digital we mean that information and data is stored and can be transferred electronically. This is a purposefully broad definition. The Building Safety Regulator intends to set out, in guidance, some best practise and examples of implementing the golden thread. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposal to require that the golden thread should be digital and that by digital we mean information and data is stored and can be transferred electronically?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree please set out the changes you would like to see, including how you would define digital.

Accurate

9.9 Section 88 of the Act sets out that the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) need to keep prescribed information and copy documentation. As set out in the consultation section on golden thread contents we plan to set out the prescribed information and copy documentation that should be kept in the golden thread. Section 88 also sets out that this information needs to be kept up to date as far as possible.

9.10 We also propose to require that this prescribed information needs to be accurate and valid at the point it was created. Some information will always have to be accurate and reflect the building at the present point in time. This means that some information will need to be continually updated. For instance, it will be important to always have an accurate understanding of whether the fire suppressant measures in a building are functioning correctly.

9.11 Some information will only need to be accurate at the point in time it was created, and this information will not need to be kept updated. For instance, the information submitted at the application for building control approval is accurate at the time it was produced. However, as the building is constructed the information will be updated. This does not mean that the prescribed documents submitted at building control application are themselves updated. These documents remain the same and need to be retained in the golden thread. This is because it is important for the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) to be able to review the building as designed and the changes that were made through construction.

9.12 We, therefore, expect the golden thread to comprise both:

information and documents that reflect the building at the present moment in time and are kept continuously updated to ensure that they remain accurate; and,   
information/documents that accurately reflects the building at a point in time (a ‘snapshot’) in the past. Older information/documents should only be kept if they are relevant to either complying with applicable building regulations or managing building safety as this relates to relevance and proportionality.

9.13 As set out in the consultation section on relevance and proportionality of the golden thread, all information in the golden thread should only be retained if it is relevant to ensuring the safety of the building.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed requirements for keeping information and documents in the golden thread accurate and valid?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Single source of truth and ensuring information can be shared and transferred with other people 

9.14 We propose that the golden thread should operate as a single point of truth that is accessible by those who require access. This means that all relevant people working on the building can access the same information even though they are working on different systems/software/platforms. 

9.15 The benefits of operating as a single source of truth is that people can update the information/documents and other people can see these changes (in a timely manner). This avoids duplication of information and potential for error as it avoids the problem of having documents to be emailed between different companies and therefore creating multiple versions of the same document.

9.16 This means that the golden thread needs to be interoperable - the information in the golden thread needs to be able to be exchanged and used on different software systems whilst retaining its structured format and ensuring that no information is lost or distorted. In practice this means the information should be able to be shared and accessed by people who may use different software. For instance, designers and contractors involved in the design and construction process usually use different software systems and platforms to facilities and asset managers. However, the information and documents in the golden thread needs to be accessed and used by all these people. In addition, given the lifecycle of buildings it is likely that in the future the golden thread information will need to be transferred to systems that have not been developed yet but will be in use decades in the future. 

9.17 In practice this means that people will be able to update the information/documents and that others can see these changes (in a timely manner). This will avoid duplication of information and the potential for error through the creation of multiple versions of the same document.

9.18 This approach aligns with the broad requirements of the International Standard ISO 19650 series and the guidance produced by the UK BIM Framework. These standards and guidance define digital information management principles in the built environment and are already used within certain parts of the sector. 

9.19 We do not want to require particular software and technical solutions which would rapidly become outdated. Instead, we plan to require that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) have to ensure that their golden thread meets the ‘principles of transferability’. This means that the information/documents in the golden thread need to be able to be transferred throughout the lifecycle of the building, and they should be able to be transferred without being altered or corrupted.

9.20 We propose that to meet the principles of transferability, the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will need to ensure that the following elements are in place: 

an information management process – which should set out the process or steps that enables all those who need to provide, access or modify information to do so;
all relevant persons (i.e., people who need to use the information) understand these processes and their responsibilities around information and documents (i.e. what they are responsible for creating, commenting on, contributing to, clearing, verifying, archiving); and are clear on the process for developing documents/information (i.e., processes around creating, sharing, contributing, clearing, verifying and archiving documents); 
a digital solution which enables the information management process to work so that the information in the golden thread can be shared, accessed and updated by people using different software platforms and based in different organisations. This means the digital solutions may be different for different organisations; and
a transfer plan which sets out how information/documents will be transferred throughout the building lifecycle. This is needed because the digital solutions used for designing a building will not usually be the same as those used when managing a building. It is also possible that when a management company changes, there will be a change in the software or platform used.

9.21 It would not be reasonable to mandate that people use the same systems throughout the building lifecycle – as people have already invested in software systems, and certain systems are more appropriate for different phases. Instead, we consider there needs to be a clearly understood process for how information will be transferred. We consider that the transfer plan should set out clearly how the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) are meeting the requirements to ensure that the golden thread information can be transferred. We propose that transfer plan should set out how:

data/information in the golden thread will retain its structured format (i.e. the information should retain fidelity with its original format – it should not be changed or lose anything by being transferred); and
data/information remains accessible, for example, that any files containing data/information are still accessible and useable following transfer.

9.22 The principal accountable person will need to keep the transfer plan updated. The Building Safety Regulator intends to provide further guidance, including on, for example, how information could be transferred between different digital solution using for instance different types of exchange solution.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with proposed requirements that the golden thread operates as an interoperable single point of truth?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please set out what changes you would like to see, including how you would enable the transfer of information.

Secure 

9.23 The golden thread has to be secure from unauthorised internal and external access.  This means that the golden thread has to have sufficient protocols in place to control access to maintain the security of the building/ local area/residents, and to protect personal information. Having a secure system means the principal accountable person, accountable person(s) and those working for them can use and store sensitive information in the golden thread. This is important so that a separate standalone system for sensitive information is not needed, and the golden thread operates as a single system. 

9.24 A secure system means being protected against external access (e.g. hacking) and against untoward internal access, with security mechanism and protocols. For example, the system should enable staff members to only have access to parts of the golden thread that they require. This can be done through having information stored on different but integrated systems or different security level classifications.   

9.25 We propose to require that the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) do as much as is reasonably practicable to ensure the golden thread is secure and personal data is protected. 

9.26 The government has published extensive guidance on digital security and ensuring compliance with GDPR (as set out below). We are going to consider whether any additional guidance is required.   

Question: Do you agree or disagree with proposed approach to ensuring the golden thread is secure and personal data is protected?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Accessibility 

9.27 The golden thread needs to be accessible and navigable, so that people can easily find the right information at the right time. This means that the information needs to be stored in a structured way and managed so people can easily find, update and extract the right information. We do not want to set out prescriptive requirements on how people should structure and organise their information as we consider this would be burdensome and disproportionate. We are keen not to impose a ‘one size fits all’ solution on the sector. 

9.28 We, therefore, propose to require that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) must keep information and/or a copy of any documentation in such a way as to ensure, so far as possible, that relevant persons are able to:

access the golden thread in a timely manner; 
navigate and find the relevant information within the golden thread; and 
access and use the information in a form appropriate for their needs.

9.29 We understand that relevant persons may alter through the lifecycle of a building and that different organisations may have different definitions for who is a relevant person. For instance, some organisations may require multiple people to have access to and update the golden thread, whereas others may nominate a single data manager.

9.30 We consider setting a high-level requirement in regulations will enable organisations to deliver an accessible and up to date golden thread that works for their organisation/building. The Building Safety Regulator intends to set out further detail on how to ensure systems are accessible in guidance. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree with proposed approach to ensure the golden thread is accessible?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Understandable and consistent 

9.31 The information in the golden thread needs to be understandable and consistent to the people who need to use the information. If people cannot understand the information, then they cannot effectively use the golden thread. We are proposing to require that the language and information in the golden thread is consistent for the building and appropriate for the people who need to use it. People who input information in the golden thread need to be mindful that this information needs to be understood and used by others. 

9.32 We do not want to mandate in detail any specific data dictionaries or data standards, as we consider that would be too prescriptive and burdensome.   The Building Safety Regulator intends to set out more detail on the language and consistency of the golden thread in guidance.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the requirement that the language and information in the golden thread is consistent for the building and appropriate for the people who need to use it?   

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach not to mandate that the golden thread needs to comply with a particular British standard (BSI) or international standard (ISO) or data dictionary?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Accountability 

9.33 The golden thread is part of how the new, more stringent regime is driving greater accountability within the sector. The proposal is that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will have to meet the ‘principles of accountability’. This means they need to ensure the golden thread include records of who has approved the information within the golden thread, and who has changed or approved changes to it.

9.34 We propose that in order to meet these ‘principles of accountability’ the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) needs to ensure: 

That there is a record in the golden thread of who inputs information/documents into the golden thread (this could be done automatically as the system records when documents are uploaded), or that the information management strategy makes clear who (this could be a role/s or team/s rather than a named person) is responsible for doing so.
That the golden thread records when information/documents are changed/updated, or that the information management strategy sets how this will be recorded.
That the information management system sets out whether all, or only significant changes are recorded, and the rationale for this.
That the information management strategy sets out responsibilities for approving changes when they are made.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach for ensuring accountability?  

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Question 12

10. 	Duties on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to provide information

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

10.1 The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will have to share information with various people and organisations at different points in the building lifecycle. This will include bodies such as the Building Safety Regulator, people such as the Responsible Person and residents of the building. It may also include organisations such as the Insolvency Service.

10.2 The aim is to ensure that people who need information about these buildings can access this information in a timely manner. This will also help support greater openness and transparency across the sector.

Background to proposals 

10.3 As set out in the Report, access to accurate and up to date information is essential to ensure a robust building safety system. The principal accountable person and accountable person(s) will be under a duty to share information from the golden thread with various people and organisations at different points in the building lifecycle.

Outlining policy 

10.4 Under section 109 of the Act, if a building has multiple accountable persons then the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) are each under the duty to cooperate and coordinate with each other to ensure the overall safety of the building.

10.5 In addition to the duty to cooperate we propose to regulate under section 89 of the Act, that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) should share relevant information with each other in order to fulfil their responsibilities to identify, mitigate and manage building safety risks.

10.6 We propose that information should be shared in a timely manner and in a format that the principal accountable person or accountable persons can use. By this we mean that the information should meet the golden thread requirements as set out in the consultation section on how the golden thread is managed and stored, as this would mean that the information would be accessible and transferable.

10.7 We propose that the only exception to this information sharing requirement would be for data protection purposes or for personal data.

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

10.8 The Fire Safety Order (FSO) defines the Responsible Person(s) who is responsible for the management of fire safety in the non-residential parts of the building. In some buildings the Responsible Person(s), will be the same person(s) as the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s). But in some buildings, they will be different people. Under section 109 of the Act, the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) are under a duty to cooperate with the Responsible Person(s). Under the Fire Safety Order the Responsible Person will also be under a duty to cooperate with the principal accountable person and accountable persons. This duty to cooperate means that the Responsible Person must enable the principal accountable person and accountable persons to meet their duties under the Act.

10.9 We intend to define the Responsible Person as a prescribed person under section 89 of the Act and propose that principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) should be required to share relevant building safety information with the Responsible Person(s). We propose that relevant information should be considered as information that is necessary for the Responsible Person(s) to effectively carry out their duties in relation to the non-residential parts of the building.

10.10 We propose that information should be shared in a timely manner and in a format that the Responsible Person(s) can access and use.

10.11 We propose that the only exception to this information sharing requirement would be for data protection purposes or for personal data.

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes you would make to support the safe management of the building

Information and copies of documents to be provided to residents

10.12 Residents will have to be automatically provided with certain information. The principal accountable person or the accountable person who is responsible for the part of the building in which the resident lives will have to provide this information. The information to be provided is set out in more detail in the consultation section on residents’ voice.

10.13 Under section 92 of the Act, residents of a higher-risk building will also be able to request further building safety information that is relevant to their building. Residents will be able to request this information from either the principal accountable person or the accountable person who is responsible for the part of the building in which the resident lives. The principal accountable person or relevant accountable person will be required to provide this information ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’ after the request has been received. More detail is set out on this in the consultation section on residents’ voice, including what happens if the accountable person does not have the information and/or copy documentation. The principal accountable person or relevant accountable person will only be able to refuse or partially refuse or redact information, if there are issues relating to:

data protection
privacy
security of the building, residents or local area
intellectual property
commercial confidentiality

10.14 The proposed changes to the building regulations consultation sets out more detail on the requirements of the new, more stringent regime with regard to building work.

10.15 In terms of information sharing, the client for the building work will need to have access to relevant information about the building. For building work carried out in an existing building, the principal accountable person or an accountable person may be the same person/entity as the client. However, in some instances another person may have commissioned the work (e.g. a resident), so the client would not be the principal accountable person or an accountable person. In these cases, we propose that the principal accountable person or accountable person(s) should provide the client with relevant information about the building as soon as is practicable. We consider relevant information to be information to support the client in their duty to ensure compliance with building regulations.

10.16 When the building work is complete, we propose that the principal accountable person or an accountable person(s) should ensure that the information in the golden thread is updated to reflect that the building work has been completed. This would need to include updated building information from the client.

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Informing the Building Safety Regulator if the principal accountable person or an accountable person becomes insolvent or of other receivership type scenarios

Corporate administration or insolvency

10.17 If the principal accountable person or an accountable person, whether a company or individual, enters into an insolvency process^{[footnote 16]} then we propose that there is a duty on them to inform the Building Safety Regulator as soon as reasonably practicable.

10.18 This requirement is to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator is aware that the principal accountable person or an accountable person is in financial difficulty to the extent that it could have an impact on their ability to meet the building safety obligations. This will enable the Building Safety Regulator to alter its compliance and enforcement approach and liaise with the officeholder^{[footnote 17]} as necessary.

10.19 Whilst some officeholders will notify interested parties of such proceedings, they are not legally required to do so in all cases. Whilst the Building Safety Regulator could carry out their own investigations, we consider it would be more effective to compel the principal accountable person or accountable person(s) to notify the Building Safety Regulator if they become insolvent. We are therefore, intending to compel principal accountable person or accountable person(s) to inform the Building Safety Regulator of any insolvency proceedings.

10.20 In the case of a social housing provider who is the principal accountable person or an accountable person entering into insolvency, there is a separate Housing Administration regime, whereby the Regulator of Social Housing can apply to the court for the appointment of an insolvency practitioner as ‘housing administrator’ who will then seek to ‘rescue’ the company or transfer the assets to another social housing provider. This will help to ensure that the building safety obligations continue to be met. However, we propose that a social housing provider that is the principal accountable person or an accountable person should still be required to inform the Building Safety Regulator if the organisation is insolvent (i.e. is entering into Housing Administration) to facilitate effective regulation by the Building Safety Regulator.

Law of Property Act receivers

10.21 A receiver can also be appointed under statutory provisions^{[footnote 18]} or pursuant to terms of a mortgage where the lender chooses to enforce a charge secured against a property. In this scenario the principal accountable person or the accountable person may not necessarily be insolvent but has failed to comply with the terms of the mortgage and the receiver has been appointed with a view to selling the property or collecting rental income to pay the debt.

10.22 In this scenario we also propose to place a duty on the principal accountable person or the accountable person to inform the Building Safety Regulator if such a receiver has been appointed to take control of the registered building.

Information to be provided to the Building Safety Regulator

10.23 In the scenarios detailed above, the principal accountable person or the accountable person will have a duty to provide the following:  

The type of insolvency proceedings;
The name and contact details of the appointed officeholder; and, 
Date of entry into insolvency proceedings.

10.24 The Building Safety Regulator will set out in guidance that officeholders will need to keep them updated as the proceedings progress (including where a liquidator or trustee intends to disclaim the building) and provide further information to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator is able to take appropriate regulatory action for the building.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposals detailed above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

10.25 We propose that when a contravention notice is issued to a resident the principal accountable person or accountable person who has issued the notice must provide a copy of the notice to the landlord of the resident in question (where the principal accountable person or accountable person is not their landlord). More detail on contravention notices is set out in the consultation section on residents’ voice.

Handing over information to the new principal accountable person or an accountable person

10.26 Under section 90 of the Act, if a principal accountable person or an accountable person change, the outgoing accountable person (or outgoing principal accountable person) will need to handover information (i.e. the information stored in the golden thread) to the new principal accountable person or accountable person. This is important as the new principal accountable person or accountable person will need to have up to date and accurate information so that they can ensure the building is managed safety.

10.27 The information needs to be accessible to the new principal accountable person or accountable person. The information that needs to be handed over to the new principal accountable person or accountable person is all the information and a copy of documentation stored in the golden thread as set out in the consultation section on golden thread contents. The information and documents in the golden thread need to be stored in a way that means it is accessible and interoperable (i.e. can be used and transferred digitally by people working on different software systems). More detail on this is set out in consultation section on how the golden thread is managed and stored. The principal accountable person or an accountable person will need ensure the golden thread meets these standards when the information is handed over. This will mean that the information retains its structured format and that the new principal accountable person and accountable person will be able to access the information.

10.28 The principal accountable person and the accountable person are defined in sections 72 and 73 of the Act. As per the definition in the Act, the principal accountable or accountable person may change when they: 

dispose of their legal estate in possession in any part of the common parts; or  
relinquish their relevant repairing obligation in relation to any part of the common parts.

10.29 As set out in section 90 the principal accountable person or the accountable person must handover the prescribed information (i.e. the golden thread) after the relevant time. The relevant time is when the principal accountable person or accountable person ceases to be responsible for all or any part of the building. We propose that such information must be handed over to the accountable person who will take over the responsibility for the part of the building that the outgoing accountable person is relinquishing responsibility as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant time. Although it would be good practice to start engagement and to share information before they leave the role, the legal duty is that the prescribed information must be handed over once they have left the role. This is because up to the point where they leave the role the accountable person and principal accountable person is responsible for the ensuring the golden thread is updated.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposals on handover of information to the new principal accountable person or accountable person?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the principal accountable person or accountable person must handover information over to the new principal accountable person or accountable person as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant time?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Informing the Building Safety Regulator about a change in the principal accountable person or accountable person(s)

10.30 Section 90 of the Act set out that the outgoing principal accountable person or accountable person(s) will have to give prescribed information to the Building Safety Regulator once they have left their role or part of their role (i.e. when they cease to be responsible for all or any part of the building). This is defined in the Act as the ‘relevant time’.

10.31 We propose that the outgoing principal accountable person or accountable person(s) must notify the Building Safety Regulator and provide the following information:

their name and the building (or part of a building) for which they were responsible;
the date that that they ceased to be responsible for all or any part of the building; and
the name, address and contact details of the person(s) who have taken responsibility for all or any part of the building (that is the new accountable person and if applicable, the new principal accountable person).

10.32 The Building Safety Regulator intends for this notification to be submitted electronically via the Building Safety Regulator’s website/portal. The Building Safety Regulator is developing their website/portal and the system that will be used to collect this information in electronic format. We propose that the regulations will make provision for the Building Safety Regulator to give a direction setting out the details on the format and submission process for providing the notification to the Building Safety Regulator.

10.33 It is important that this information is provided to the Building Safety Regulator in a timely manner, as the Building Safety Regulator needs to understand who is responsible for safety of the building. As set out in section 90 the outgoing principal accountable person or accountable person(s) will have to notify the Building Safety Regulator as soon as reasonably practicable after they leave the role. 

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed content that that the principal accountable person or accountable person must provide to the Building Safety Regulator after they leave their role?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made. 

Question 13

11. 	Enforcement

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

11.1. The government intends to bring forward regulations related to enforcement during the occupation of a higher-risk building. This will deal with:

the information that should be included on compliance notices;
who must be consulted before and after notices have been issued; and,
how notices can be withdrawn and amended.

Background to proposals

11.2. The Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) brings about the biggest change to the regulation of buildings for a generation. This Act provides for both a national Building Safety Regulator and strengthened enforcement powers to support the new building safety regime for higher-risk buildings.

11.3. The new regime places clear legal duties on those who build and manage buildings to manage the risks they create. This will create a culture where it pays to play by the rules.

11.4. The Building Safety Regulator will use a wide variety of methods to encourage and support the management of building safety risks in a sensible and proportionate way, ranging from the provision of advice to enforcement, including prosecution. Whilst the emphasis is on prevention, enforcement action taken will be in line with the Act and the regulators’ code and will be appropriate to the seriousness of the breach.

11.5. The Act introduces a stringent enforcement regime to target issues affecting the safety of occupied higher-risk buildings.

11.6. The enforcement tools will be used proportionately, enabling both minor concerns to be resolved through advice and strong action to require that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) make safe an occupied higher-risk building where a significant issue arises.

11.7. The Act sets out the following enforcement measures to be used for occupied higher-risk buildings:

Under section 99 of the Act, the Building Safety Regulator will be able to issue compliance notices to accountable persons. This will happen where they contravene, or appear likely to contravene, any of their statutory duties in part 4 of the Act, and its associated regulations.
Notices will require the issue to be rectified within a set date. Failure to comply with the notice, without reasonable excuse, will be a criminal offence. This carries a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine and/or 2 years in prison.
Where a principal accountable person or an accountable person’s non-compliance has or will lead to imminent danger to people in and around the building, the Building Safety Regulator can issue them with a specific compliance notice which is called an ‘urgent action notice’.
This will have a shorter period for rectifying the breach than a ‘compliance notice’ and lodging an appeal will not suspend the effect of the notice. Failure to comply with an urgent action notice will also be a criminal offence, with the same maximum penalties as breach of a compliance notice.

11.8. The government is going to set out in regulations:

the form and content of notices;
how they should be given; and,
how they can be amended and withdrawn.

Service and content of compliance notices

11.9. The enforcement regime across the full lifecycle of a building follows a consistent approach. The content and service of a compliance notice issued against the principal accountable person or an accountable person for an occupied higher-risk building will be similar to a notice issued during the design and build phase of a building.

11.10. There are some differences as notices during occupation are not designed to regulate construction work. More detail on the compliance notices during design and construction of a building is set out in the consultation on the proposed changes to building regulations. Compliance notices during occupation have been modelled on the improvement and prohibition notices set out in section 23 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

11.11. We propose that regulations should require compliance notices contain the following information:

The date the notice is issued to set out the period to appeal;
Name and description of the accountable person (i.e., whether individual or company);
The building or part of the building where the breach occurred;
A statement setting out the consequences of failing to comply with the notice - by which we mean that it is a criminal offence not to comply with a notice without a reasonable excuse;
A description of and details of the breach, making reference to the relevant requirement under part 4 of the Act or relevant regulations;
Details of the route of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal; and,
Where an urgent action notice is issued, the notice should clearly state that it is an urgent action notice and the consequences of that (i.e. that lodging an appeal will not suspend the effect of the notice).

11.12. Notices can specify the steps as to how to remedy the breach in question, but this will be at the discretion of the Building Safety Regulator. It will not be a requirement; they could just state in general terms that the contravention must be remedied.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed content of compliance notices detailed above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

11.13. We want the Building Safety Regulator to be able to withdraw notices at any time where they consider it appropriate, even where an appeal is pending. This will give the Building Safety Regulator the opportunity to avoid unnecessary legal hearings at the tribunal. For example, if a notice contains incorrect information or is disproportionate, the notice should be withdrawn, and the court proceedings dismissed.

11.14. We want the Building Safety Regulator to be able to amend and extend notices at any time where they consider it appropriate, except where an appeal is pending. This is because we do not want any amendment to overlap or interfere with tribunal proceedings. If the Building Safety Regulator wishes to amend or extend notices during appeal, they can either do so by agreement with the relevant accountable person or withdraw and issue a new notice.

11.15. The decision to issue, amend, extend or withdraw a notice will remain with the Building Safety Regulator. We do not want to prescribe any further requirements on requests for amendment, extension or withdrawal of notices. This is to allow for flexibility within the approach, and not tie the Building Safety Regulator and recipients to legally binding procedural timings

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the suggested approach for the amendment, extension and withdrawal of compliance notices?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question 14

12. 	Reviews and appeals

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

12.1. The government is committed to delivering swift access to justice. The reviews and appeals process is designed to be collaborative, fair and transparent. Where disputes arise over higher-risk building decisions, the first stage is informal discussion and mediation between the parties. Following that, in most cases, there is an internal review and appeals process provided by the Building Safety Regulator. If this cannot resolve matters, specified regulatory decisions are appealable to the First-tier Tribunal.

12.2. Additionally, in response to the new building safety regime, the First-tier Tribunal is establishing a specialist unit within the property chamber of the First-tier Tribunal to deal exclusively with building safety matters. The Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) aligns the appeals procedure for all building safety decisions in England to sit with the tribunal, and to accommodate the Building Safety Regulator’s position as a new building control authority and with oversight of building control authority in England.

Background to proposals

12.3. The government proposes to introduce regulations which set out which part 4 decisions are eligible for internal review by the Building Safety Regulator. The government also proposes to make regulations about procedural and administrative matters for further appeals to the tribunal. By tribunal we mean the First-tier Tribunal (property chamber).

Outlining policy

12.4. The regulations will use the powers in section 25 of the Act to prescribe what part 4 decisions are eligible for internal review by the Building Safety Regulator.

12.5. We are proposing that the following decisions are in scope for an internal review by the Building Safety Regulator:

a) not to register a building on an application under section 78(1);

b) to remove a building from the register under section 78(3);

c) to refuse an application for a building assessment certificate under section 81(3); and

d) to give a direction under section 83(2) in regard of a safety case requirement.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that these decisions described above should be eligible for an internal review by the Building Safety Regulator prior to being appealed to the tribunal?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

12.6. Under section 105, the government can create routes of appeal against decisions of the Building Safety Regulator made under regulations made under part 4 of the Act.

12.7. The government intends to create a route of appeal to the tribunal over a refusal to remove a building from the register on application from any accountable person for the building under section 78(3). We are proposing that an appeal may be made where the decision was based on an error of fact, wrong in law, or unreasonable.

12.8. Under section 106 of the Act, the Secretary of State has an additional power to provide in regulations for a suspension of the effect of a notice given or other thing done by the Building Safety Regulator during the appeal period at the tribunal. This does not apply to compliance notices for which the Act makes separate provision at section 103. Namely, unless the compliance notice is an urgent action notice it is automatically suspended on appeal.

12.9. For example, if the Building Safety Regulator decides to remove a building from the register because it appears that the building is not occupied under section 78(3), if the principal accountable person for the building appeals that decision under section 104, regulations may specify that the building remains on the register until the appeal decision is reached.

12.10. Similarly, if the Building Safety Regulator issues a direction in regard of an assessment of building safety risks under section 83(2) and it is appealed, section 104 allows the Secretary of State to make regulations that the Building Safety Regulator’s direction does not have any effect on the accountable person until the appeal is determined or withdrawn.

12.11. The government intends to make regulations so that the effect of decisions or directions is suspended where there is an appeal to the tribunal for decisions

a. to remove a building from the register under section 78(3), and

b. to give a direction under section 83(2) in regard of the assessment of building safety risks requirement.

12.12. These decisions do not deal with situations where there is an immediate risk of death and significant injury, so it is right that while there is appeal is process, the effect of the decision is suspended.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that there should be a suspensive effect as described above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

12.13. In terms of procedural arrangements, the government is also proposing:

That, for registration and certification (ie paragraphs 12.5 (a) and (c)), the principal accountable person or any accountable person for the building can seek an internal review by the Building Safety Regulator; and for safety case directions (ie paragraph 12.5 (d)), the principal accountable person or the accountable person who has received the direction can request a review;
That where the Building Safety Regulator removes a building from the register (ie paragraph 12.5 (b), and where a principal accountable person’s or an accountable person’s request to have a building removed from the register (ie paragraph 12.7) is refused, the accountable person can request an internal review.
That any notice seeking an internal review must be lodged within 21 calendar days of the original decision by the Building Safety Regulator;
That there is a proposed period of 28 calendar days in which the Building Safety Regulator must respond to any request for a review of a decision; and,
That if the Building Safety Regulator fails to respond to the applicant within 28 calendar days, the original decision is upheld (as in section 25(8)), but the applicant retains a right of appeal to the tribunal. Moreover, the deadline can be amended as agreed in writing.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the internal review process outlined above?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question 15

13. 	Key building information

Accepted Answer

Chapter summary

13.1. The government understands the importance of data and data analysis and how this can support better building safety. Data analysis enables greater knowledge of the characteristics of buildings and how these characteristics can inform building safety and building safety risks. It also enables understanding of trends and changes over time.

13.2. We propose to require the principal accountable person to provide the Building Safety Regulator with key building information about their building. The key building information will be high level information that will help the Building Safety Regulator to understand characteristics of all higher-risk buildings and to analyse and understand trends and risks across all buildings in scope.

13.3. The government is proposing that the principal accountable person will be required to submit the key building information to the Building Safety Regulator alongside but not as part of their application for registration. They will also have to provide updates whenever the key building information needs to be updated. The wider duties on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to provide information to the Building Safety Regulator and other persons (including residents) is set out in the consultation section on duties on the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to provide information.

Background to proposals

13.4. Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (the Report) set out that it is essential that there is improved monitoring of the performance of the built environment sector. Dame Judith Hackitt set out that this monitoring will be essential to ensuring that the new regulatory system delivers safe buildings whilst continuing to encourage innovation and productivity. In order to do this effectively, the Building Safety Regulator needs to collect relevant data.

13.5. The key building information will provide additional information to the Building Safety Regulator (alongside the information provided through the registration process). The registration information and the key building information will enable the Building Safety Regulator to fulfil their duty to advise government and to make informed decisions to guide the regulatory regime.

13.6. It is not intended to provide all the information necessary to understand and assess the safety of an individual building. That is separately required through the safety case report and approach. The consultation section on the safety case approach sets out more detail on this.

13.7. It should be noted that the key building information has a different and distinct purpose to the golden thread. During occupation, the golden thread of information is primarily for the use of the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) to support them in their task of managing building safety. Through the golden thread, the principal accountable person and the accountable person(s) can demonstrate to the Building Safety Regulator that they are actively managing building safety risks. The key building information is specifically produced for the use of the Building Safety Regulator to support their data analysis.

13.8. The key building information will help the Building Safety Regulator to understand characteristics of all buildings in scope of the new regime and to analyse and understand trends and risks across all buildings in scope. The key building information will also help the Building Safety Regulator with its task of prioritisation of buildings to call in for a building assessment certificate application.

13.9. We also intend that the Building Safety Regulator should publish the key building information (alongside the publication of the registration information), with the exception of data which poses a privacy, safety or security risk. This will support great openness and transparency in the sector as recommended by the Report. Key building information will also be accessible publicly to promote openness and transparency.

Outlining policy

What information is required in the key building information

13.10. We propose that the following information will be required as part of the key building information. It should be noted that the key building information is in addition and separate to the registration requirements, which are set out in the consultation section on registration. The key building information therefore should be seen as additional information to the registration requirements – and it does not duplicate information already requested as part of registration and it does not affect the registration application.

Principal accountable person or accountable person(s) name (if changed from registration)
Building work – the date the Building Safety Regulator issued a completion certificate for building work carried out in a higher-risk building under the requirements of the new safety regime (where applicable)
Declaration of a change of use within the building (where applicable)
External wall system material, insulation and percentage coverage
Type, material and percentage coverage of roof covering or roof system
Types and materials of external features
Energy supply to the building
Building frame material
The fire standard that applies to the building^{[footnote 19]}
The total number of staircases and the number that serve all floors
The evacuation strategy of the building (e.g. stay put, simultaneous evacuation)
A list of the fire and smoke control provisions and equipment within the building
Structural information of a building

13.11. We also propose that the Building Safety Regulator will record the date of registration of the higher-risk building through their digital submission platform, and that this information will be stored as part of the key building information.

13.12. As set out in the section on the golden thread contents, we are proposing that the key building information is stored in the golden thread. However, as the key building information is specifically produced for the use of the Building Safety Regulator to support their data analysis, we consider that the principal accountable person only keeps a copy of the most up to date key building information. The principal accountable person does not need to retain records of previous versions of the key building information in the golden thread.

Question: The key building information is to be provided to the Building Safety Regulator to enable oversight and analysis of the building industry. Do you agree or disagree with the information being required as part of the key building information?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Question: Please select any specific data requirements you believe should be changed.

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above and state what changes should be made.

Question: Please select any data requirements which you believe will require additional guidance or resource to provide.

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above and state what resource or guidance you consider will be needed?

Submission of information

13.13. Since we previously consulted on the key building information, we have changed our proposals so that the Building Safety Regulator will only require the key building information when the higher-risk building is occupied.

13.14. The principal accountable person will be required to submit the key building information at the following points in the lifecycle of a building:

At the same time as or following registration;
At the same time as a building assessment certificate application is made (where there have been changes to the information since registration
At the same time that an application for a completion certificate application is made, when building work has been carried out in an existing higher-risk building and this building work has resulted in a change to the key building information; and,
As soon as reasonably practicable following any changes to the key building information. This does not include when a accountable person(s) change(s), as the duty to inform the Building Safety Regulator sits with the relevant accountable person(s) and not with the principal accountable person.

13.15. The principal accountable person for an existing building will be required to register their building from 6 April 2023 and will therefore also be able to submit their key building information from that point.

13.16. It will only become an offence to breach the registration requirement from 1 October 2023. Following 1 October 2023, it will therefore be an offence for an occupied higher-risk building not to be registered, unless there is a reasonable excuse. More information is set out in the section on registration. From the 1 October 2023, the principal accountable person can choose to submit their key building information at the same time as their registration application or submit it within 28 calendar days of their registration application.

13.17. The principal accountable person for a new building which is partly or fully completed after the commencement of section 76 and 77 of the Act, can either submit their key building information alongside the registration application or submit it within 28 calendar days of their registration application. This includes buildings that are designed and constructed under the new building control regime for higher-risk buildings (i.e. the gateways process) and buildings that are part way through design and construction when the new building control regime comes into force. It also includes a change of use to residential.

13.18. The submission of the key building information does not impact the registration process which is a separate process. For instance, the Building Safety Regulator may be unsatisfied with a key building information submission as there is missing information – however this would not have any impact on the building registration.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the timescale for submitting the key building information for new unoccupied buildings?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the timescale and for submitting the key building information for existing buildings?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

13.19. When the principal accountable person applies for the building assessment certificate, they will need to confirm either that the key building information is still accurate, or they will have to provide relevant updates. They will need to provide the relevant updates alongside the application for the building assessment certificate. More detail is set out in the consultation section on the building assessment certificate.

Question: Do you agree or disagree that any relevant updates to the key building information must be provided alongside the building assessment certificate application?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made.

13.20. If there are any changes to a building, for instance if building work is carried out, that results in a change in the key building information, the principal accountable person will be required to update the key building information and inform the Building Safety Regulator of these changes. They should do this within 28 calendar days of the change.

13.21. As set out in the consultation on the proposed changes to the building regulations, controlled building work in an existing higher-risk building (refurbishment) can be carried out through building control application to the Building Safety Regulator, a competent person scheme or a third-party certification. If the key building information needs to be changed following the completion of work, it will be the responsibility of the principal accountable person to update the key building information and they will have to do this (and submit an updated version to the Building Safety Regulator) within 28 calendar days of the building work being completed.

13.22. Building work commissioned by residents within a dwelling should not change the key building information because of the nature of such work and the confinement to an individual dwelling. However, when a resident is carrying out notifiable building work (as defined in regulation 3 of the Building Regulations 2010), in line with requirements in their leases, we would expect for them to notify their landlord before submitting the building control approval application to the Building Safety Regulator. The requirement in leases will be notification to the landlord and in the majority of cases the landlord will be either the principal accountable person or an accountable person.

13.23. Should a resident not be required by their lease to inform their landlord before building work takes place, we would expect the good practice to be that the resident alerts the principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person before submitting their application to the Building Safety Regulator. This is set out in more detail in the consultation on the proposed changes to the building regulations and in the consultation section on residents’ voice.

13.24. The principal accountable person or the relevant accountable person will be able to request further information about the proposed building work and determine whether or not the building work has resulted in a change to the key building information. Should this work result in a change to the key building information, the principal accountable person should notify the Building Safety Regulator of such changes. The principal accountable person will have to do this within 28 calendar days of the building work being completed or within 28 calendar days of them becoming aware of the work (if they were not notified of the work).

Question: Do you agree or disagree that key building information must be updated by the principal accountable person within 28 calendar days of any change or within 28 calendar days of them becoming aware of the work?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you do not agree or neither agree nor disagree, please write the number of days you consider would be appropriate.

Format of the key building information

13.25. To enable the Building Safety Regulator to use the key building information for analysis and to be able to amalgamate the key building information with other sources, we propose that the key building information will need to be submitted in a specific format using an electronic system.

13.26. As the purpose of the key building information is to support analysis, most of the information in the key building information will be provided in the form of a yes/no, numerical, or an option list. Free text responses will be mainly used for the name of the previous accountable persons.

13.27. By using an electronic format to submit this information, the Building Safety Regulator reduces risks of lost paperwork and wasted resources in manually processing the data. It also enhances the process of transparency of the dataset, as key building information will be easier to publish electronically.

13.28. The intention is for the format to be accessible and easy to use. We do not intend to require the use of specific software in order to submit this information.

13.29. The Building Safety Regulator is developing a system that will be used to collect this information in electronic format. We propose that regulations will provide that the details on the way the data is provided to the Building Safety Regulator will be specified by a direction when the Building Safety Regulator’s data and registration platforms are developed.

13.30. The government has recognised the need to improve data standards. The Data Standards Authority was established in April 2020. It is led by the Cabinet Office in close partnership with the Office for National Statistics. The Data Standards Authority leads cross-government work on data standards to support the sharing and interoperability of data in government. Data standards are fundamental to improving how government shares, integrates and uses data. Data standards set a clear and common understanding of how the government must describe, record, store, manage and access data in consistent ways. The Building Safety Regulator intends to voluntarily follow the Government Data Standards with regard to the collection of the key building information. However further work on this will need to be done as the data and registration platforms are developed.

Openness and transparency

13.31. We propose that the Building Safety Regulator should publish the key building information (alongside the publication of the registration information). This will support great openness and transparency in the sector. In accordance with data protection requirements, data which poses a privacy, safety or security risk will not be published.

13.32. In addition to the key building information and the registration requirements the Building Safety Regulator will also publish the date of registration of each building.

13.33. The Report set out that it was important to improve transparency across the sector and that this was an intrinsic part of providing public reassurance on building safety. The government is committed to publishing open and accessible information, and this allows others to use this data.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposal on publishing the key building information excluding any data that is a privacy, safety or security risk?

Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Don’t know

Please provide an explanation for your answer to the question above. If you’ve answered disagree or neither agree nor disagree, please explain what changes should be made to support greater transparency but also protects privacy, safety and security?

Question 16

14. 	Update to Part 4 of the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment – Economic Annex

Accepted Answer

Introduction

1. This economic annex relates to the proposals set out in the consultation on the new safety regime for occupied higher-risk buildings.

2. As set out in the consultation, we intend to introduce secondary legislation to provide the procedural and administrative detail of the new regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings in occupation.

3. Through this consultation we are seeking views on our proposals for secondary legislation on:

Registration
Certification
Accountable person(s)
Safety case approach
Mandatory Occurrence Reporting
Residents’ voice and duties on residents
Golden thread
Duties on the accountable person(s) and the principal accountable person to share information
Appeals
Enforcement
Key building information

4. This economic annex provides qualitative and quantitative analytical updates for some of the areas being consulted on through this consultation. The areas which we have provided updates for include:

Registration
Certification
Safety case approach and safety case report
Residents’ voice

5. Where an area on which we are consulting has not been covered by this economic annex, it is because the estimates set out in the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment are still valid. Details on the current estimated impacts for these areas can be found in the published Building Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment here.

6. The estimated numbers in this economic annex relate to buildings in England only. The assessment is based on current assumptions, accurate at the time of publication. Our estimates are based on the policy as set out in the consultation document. However, it is possible these impacts may change with time as regulations are developed further and responses to this consultation are analysed and considered.

Registration and certification

Summary

7. This section provides an update to some of the information in the Registration and Certification section of the Building Safety Bill’s published Regulatory Impact Assessment^{[footnote 20]}. The majority of what is contained in the published Impact Assessment remains unchanged, however we have made some minor adjustments. We have also included estimated costs as progress in operationalising the policy since our last publications means we can now provide more accurate and up to date costings. We have also included the detail here to put the costs included below into context.

8. This assessment is based on current assumptions, accurate at the time of publication. However, it is possible these impacts may change as a result of feedback through this consultation, and further operationalisation of the policy, including through finalisation of the regulations. For all the following analysis, the appraisal period is 15 years, the present value year is 2023 and the price base year is 2019.

Costs to regulators

Registration

9. We estimate that over the 15-year appraisal period, the registration process will cost the regulator between £1.2 million and £1.7 million, with a central estimate of £1.4 million, in present value (PV) terms. This equates to equivalent annual cost (EAC) of roughly £0.1 million over the appraisal period.

10. All existing occupied buildings will have to be registered within 6 months of the new regime going live. New buildings will have to be registered before they are occupied. We expect the following information to be required to register a building:

Details of the principal accountable person for the building and any other accountable persons (including name, contact details and address) and if there are multiple accountable persons confirmation who is responsible for which part of the building;
Type of building owner (e.g., private landlord or local authority);
Building address;
The age band of the building and whether on construction it had relevant building control consent;
The number of storeys and height of the building;
The number of dwellings in the building;
A statement confirming that the information submitted is, to the best of the applicants’ knowledge, truthful and accurate.

11. We expect the Building Safety Regulator to spend roughly 15 minutes per application processing the above information that has been submitted by industry.

12. We also expect industry to have to notify the Building Safety Regulator if any core details of the building or accountable persons change. We expect this to take roughly 15 minutes of regulator processing time^{[footnote 21]}.

Certification

13. We estimate that over the 15-year appraisal period, the certification process will cost the Building Safety Regulator £231 million in PV terms. This equates to £19.4 million on an EAC basis.

14. All buildings in scope of the new regime will be required to undergo the Building Assessment Certification process. For existing occupied buildings, we assume that this will be phased over the first 5 years of the new regime. For the purposes of the analysis, we have assumed this phasing will be risk-based. We further expect that new buildings will be called for their Building Assessment Certificate within 6 months of occupation.

15. We expect the following information to be requested as part of the Building Assessment Certificate:

a copy of the latest safety case report for the building (unless it has already been given to the Building Safety Regulator);
a copy of the residents’ engagement strategy;
prescribed information about the mandatory reporting system in place;
statement made by the principal accountable person confirming that the appropriate accountable person has met requirements of their duties under section 89 and any regulations made to provide information to the Building Safety Regulator and other persons, including Key Building Information.

16. The Building Safety Regulator will review each of these components and we expect the Regulator to spend between 19 and 71 hours reviewing the information listed above (depending on the risk level and complexity of the building). Please note, that to avoid double counting, the Building Safety Regulator review of the above is costed in this section. Costs reported in other sections exclude the cost to the Building Safety Regulator to review the mandatory occurrence reporting framework, safety case and resident engagement strategy.

17. We also expect the Building Safety Regulator to undertake building inspections as part of the Building Assessment Certificate. In practice, this has not yet been operationalised, however for the purposes of the analysis we have assumed the time spent inspecting the building will be risk based. We assume that when the Building Safety Regulator decides to inspect a building, the building inspection can range from 1 to 30 hours per building.

18. The Building Safety Regulator will call buildings for re-assessment at least every 5 years. Exactly how this will function has not yet been operationalised, however, for the purpose of the analysis, we have assumed some buildings will be called for re-assessment more frequently. We expect that re-assessment will take between 75% and 90% of the time of the original certification process.

Costs to industry

Registration

19. We estimate that over the 15-year appraisal period, the registration process will cost industry between £2.7 million and £4.1 million, with a central estimate of £3.4 million, in present value (PV) terms. This equates to equivalent annual cost (EAC) of between £0.2 million and £0.3 million over the appraisal period.

20. We expect it to take the principal accountable person a total of 2.5 hours to gather and submit the information required at registration.

21. If there are changes to registration information and dependant on the level of information change, we would estimate it would likely take the principal accountable person 0.85 hours (roughly 50 minutes^{[footnote 22]}) to notify the Building Safety Regulator of the change.

Certification

22. We estimate that over the 15-year appraisal period, the certification process will cost industry between £0 million and £25.6 million, with a central estimate of £11.2 million, in PV terms. This equates to an EAC between £0 million and £2.1 million, with a central estimate of £0.9 million, over the appraisal period.

23. We expect most of the industry costs from the certification process to be attributable to the accountable person(s) accompanying Building Safety Regulator personnel on site visits. We expect the accountable person to spend an average of 2 additional hours each accompanying Building Safety Regulator personnel on site visits.

Table 1: Total cost^{[footnote 23]} of Registration and Certification

	NPV (Net Present Value)	EAC (Equivalent Annual Cost)
Registration: Industry	£3,400,000	£288,000
Registration: Regulator	£1,400,000	£121,000
Certification: Industry	£11,200,000	£938,000
Certification: Regulator	£231,000,000	£19,400,000

Safety case approach and safety case report

Summary

24. This section provides a short, qualitative update to some of the information in the Safety Case section of the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment^{[footnote 24]}. The majority of the published Impact Assessment remains current and accurate. However, regarding the actions required of accountable persons to meet the requirements of the policy intent, we have worked with external experts and stakeholders to provide more detailed modelling.

25. The following paragraphs set out the relevant context and subsequently explain how we have amended the assumptions.

In occupation – safety cases and the safety case report

26. All high-rise residential buildings in scope of Part 4 of the building safety act will be required to produce, and keep up to date, a safety case report. This report will be supported by the full safety case of information stored digitally within the golden thread.

27. The principal accountable person will be responsible for ensuring a single safety case report is in place for each building.

28. To produce a safety case report, accountable persons will need to gather information about their buildings, make assessments of building safety risks, and consider the measures in place to manage those risks – introducing additional measures where necessary. They must ensure their risk assessments remain valid and their safety arrangements are maintained so that they will work as expected when required.

29. It is assumed for new buildings, having passed through gateways, that the majority of information required to produce a safety case report will be in place and already stored in the golden thread.

30. Of the existing building stock, following the assumptions set out in the published Impact Assessment, we now have a greater understanding of the information already held (and therefore the gap in information that needs to be gathered).

31. Working with experts we estimated a 25% - 75% split for the existing stock^{[footnote 25]}, with 25% of the stock requiring detailed structural and fire assessments, and 75% only requiring detailed fire assessments.

32. Further to this we have introduced a new assumption that split out the newer stock. For new builds going through the design and construction process once Gateways 2 and 3 have been introduced, we have estimated a much smaller amount of time required to gather the evidence for the safety case (as most of the information required would be collected during the design and construction process via the Gateway requirements). As a final step we have also included another a similar assumption around new builds that were completed between 2020 and the introduction of Gateway 3, with the estimated time required for these buildings closer to that of the Gateway new builds, but with some additional time allowed.

33. The safety case approach requires the principal accountable person and other accountable persons to ensure their safety arrangements are tested and maintained so that they remain effective and would operate as intended if required. The implementation of an appropriate safety management system will oversee delivery of this approach. We have, therefore, removed any assumptions which in practice duplicated the safety management system requirements.

Residents’ voice

Summary

34. This section provides an update to some of the information in the residents’ voice section of the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment^{[footnote 26]}. Whilst the published Impact Assessment remains broadly unchanged, we have made some minor changes to the policy which resulted in us needing to adjust some of our underlying assumptions.

35. The policy changes we have made are:

modifying the complaints requirements so that the principal accountable person no longer has to report on the progress of their complaints and provide their categorisations by default to the Building Safety Regulator;
defining the sharing of information to residents into 2 parts, that which must be provided and that which must be provided upon request; this is a presentational change rather than a policy change; and
the residents’ engagement strategy is now able to be more flexible to residents’ preferences, ensuring that it does not lead to inappropriate engagement.

36. These changes are minor and result in slight adjustments to our analysis (mainly via assumption changes), but it is important they are reflected. We have, therefore, provided updates to the previous analysis to reflect the changes we have made.

Costs

37. The updated monetised analysis of the costs and benefits of residents’ voice policy is split into 3:

Providing residents with building safety information
The residents’ engagement strategy
The complaints process.

38. The tables in the following section present estimated costs for an example average building. It is important to note that costs will vary for most buildings. Time required and the associated cost is presented, wage rates are not included as these remain the same as in the published Impact Assessment.

39. This assessment is based on current assumptions, accurate at the time of publication. However, it is possible these impacts may change as a result of feedback through this consultation, and further operationalisation of the policy, including through finalisation of the regulations. For all the analysis in this document, the appraisal period is 15 years, the present value year is 2023 and the price base year is 2019.

40. The cells in the tables in this document that are shaded in light blue represent an assumption on the residents’ side, and as such do not have a cost attributed to them.

Providing residents with building safety information

Information the principal accountable person or relevant accountable person will provide to residents

41. Accountable persons must provide all residents with prescribed building safety information. We are consulting on a proposed list of the key building safety information this will include in regulations, for example contact information, evacuation protocols etc.

42. Information must be provided as soon as reasonably practicable after the building is first occupied or when a resident moves in, with the accountable person required to take reasonable steps to be aware of the residents they are responsible for.

43. We propose that regulations will require information to be provided to residents in a format that allows residents to clearly understand the information without specialist knowledge, and that it will be able to be provided in an accessible form when required.

The further provision of information on request

44. Residents can request prescribed building safety information and documents from their accountable person. We are consulting on a proposed list of the types of information this will include, but we expect it to be more detailed and technical. as the aim is to provide appropriate information to residents who want a more in depth understanding of how safety works in their building, and greater assurance them that their accountable person is fulfilling their building safety duties.

45. The information must be provided as soon as reasonably practicable, and we propose to set out in regulations that any reasonable extensions required (e.g. if redaction of part of a document is required before it can be disclosed) should be communicated to the requesting resident.

46. We are also proposing to include exemptions and reasons to redact for providing further information.

47. The level of information already provided to residents varies significantly across providers. We assume that there will be initial one-off costs to creating the automatic information and some of the information available on request. There will also be higher one-off costs when the information is initially shared with residents and then subsequently less costs for providing updated automatic information. We expect accountable persons will look proactively provide information and thereby reduce the burden of, for instance, individual requests.

Table 2: Providing residents with building safety information: assumptions and costs

	Frequency	Time (hours)	Cost
Preparing the information
Initial scope outlined	One off	1	£38
Defining information requirements	One off	6	£225
Initial material development	One off	28^{[footnote 27]}	£1,052
Disseminating the information
Initial material disseminated	One off	4.75	£178
Production and dissemination of material (initial)	One off	-	£250
Production and dissemination of material (yearly)	Annually	-	£100
New residents provided with material	Annually	4.75	£178
Updating the information
Material updated regularly	Once every 2 years	4.75 (average per year)	£178
Responding to requests
Responding to requests	Annually	6	£225

The residents’ engagement strategy

48. The principal accountable person must produce and implement a residents’ engagement strategy, which promotes the participation of all residents in decisions about their building’s safety and sets out how and when residents will be consulted and engaged. Under the Act the strategy must set out:

what information will be provided to residents
what they will consult residents on
what aspects of a decision residents will have a say in
how they will consult residents
how they will review the appropriateness of the strategy.

49. We are consulting on a number of underpinning regulations that set out more detailed requirements for the strategy.

50. Further to this, in order to fulfil their obligation, the principal accountable person and accountable persons must ensure they are providing the residents’ engagement strategy to their residents and ensure that it is accessible to residents. We are consulting on how copies of the strategy should be disseminated.

51. Principal accountable persons must ensure they consult on the strategy itself. We are consulting on the process and requirements for this, with the aim of ensuring that residents have a say in how and what they are consulted on.

52. The current practice of engagement appears to vary significantly between buildings. We assume that there will be one off set up costs to establishing the residents’ engagement strategy and then ongoing costs to carry out consultation and provide information under it, including reviewing and consulting on it where necessary.

Table 3: The residents’ engagement strategy: assumptions and costs

	Frequency	Time (hours)	Cost
Preparing the information
Setting up the strategy	One off	15	£564
Including recommendations from the regulator in yearly maintenance plan	Annually	3.75	£141
Disseminating the information
Setting up residents’ meetings: informing residents, planning activities and preparing materials	Annually	17.81	£669
Holding walk-in residents’ engagement meetings/events	Annually	16.88	£634
Create, maintain and distribute a summarised strategy that incorporates main concerns and yearly actions	Annually	1.88	£70
Production and dissemination of the strategy
Year 1 - all residents	One off	-	£250
Subsequent years - new residents only (or when the strategy is changed)	Annually	-	£100

Engagement during refurbishment

53. For every activity in this section (and the residents engagement strategy section above^{[footnote 28]}) the average time in hours was calculated as a blended average of a low and high estimate.

54. The high end in each instance was the estimated time for social housing providers to conduct the activities. Social housing providers are subject to greater regulation on engagement than private providers and are likely to engage with their residents on a wider range of topics and have more residents with a long-term interest in engaging with their building owner. The lower end of the cost estimate is based on private providers.

55. As mentioned previously, however, every building will be different, and costs will vary and often be unique to that building. The blended average was calculated using the proportioned split of private and social dwellings from the Building Safety Programme: monthly data release, seen below in table 3.

	Private	Social
Proportion	50%	50%

Table 5: Engagement during refurbishment: assumptions and costs

	Frequency	Time (hours)	Cost
Disseminating information
Informing residents of the strategy via leaflets, letters, etc	Annually	2.63	£99
Setting up residents’ meetings: informing residents, planning activities and preparing materials	3 meetings a year	30.94	£1,162
Holding walk-in residents’ engagement meetings/events	3 meetings a year	28.13	£1,057
Views and issues
Gather the views, issues and comments expressed at meetings, phone calls and website and establish a scale of urgency	3 meetings a year	2.25	£85
Reply to issues via phone calls/emails	3 meetings a year	4.5	£169
Updating the maintenance plan
The recommendation of the regulator becomes part of the yearly maintenance plan	Annually	0.5	£19

Building safety complaints

56. The principal accountable person must establish and operate a system for dealing with building safety complaints. This could be integrated into an existing complaints system. The Building Safety Regulator will act as a route of escalation for building safety complaints when they are not addressed. A relevant complaint is defined in the Act as a complaint relating to:

a ‘building safety risk’ - a risk to the safety of people in or about the building arising from either the spread of fire of structural failure
the performance by an accountable person in regard to their duties

57. Under the new regime, we are proposing that there will be no restriction on who can make a relevant complaint providing that it meets this definition of a ‘relevant complaint’. This would mean, for example, a contractor working in the building who identifies a building safety issue could raise a building safety complaint. We are consulting on this requirement and on the following further requirements:

There is a clear and accessible route to raise a building safety complaint
There is a complaints policy that sets out how it complies with the requirements on building safety complaints, the details of which can be found in the consultation document
The onus is on the appropriate accountable person to put issues right and that complainants are able to challenge their responses. Where this fails then the issue can be escalated to the Building Safety Regulator
Building safety complaints must be handled in a timely manner and appropriately prioritised, including expectations on the handling of the complaint itself
Relevant information pertaining to building safety complaints must be stored
Details of how to make a building safety complaint are displayed in the common parts of the building

Table 6: Building safety complaints: assumptions and costs

	Frequency	Time (hours)	Cost
Set up of internal complaints procedure
Set up reporting procedure	One off	15	£564
Issue raised
Complainant sends email/logs risk in app or website	Annually - per issue	0.25	-
Additional complainants log the same issue (via app/website)	Annually - per issue	0.08	-
Categorisation of issue (Category 1/2)
Issue assigned to case worker	Annually - per issue	0.25	£9
Contact with complainant made for more details where required about the reported hazard	Annually - per issue	0.5	£19
Resident sends photos/outline of hazard	Annually - per issue	0.5	-
Hazard categorised by the principal accountable person	Annually - per issue	1	£38
Issue formally logged (including categorisation of the severity of issue)	Annually - per issue	0.25	£9
Issues and complaints logged
Relevant information pertaining to the handling and investigations of complaints are logged	Annually - per issue	3	£119
Progress on issues
Relevant maintenance team contacted	Annually - per issue	0.25	£9
Maintenance team briefed	Annually - per issue	0.5	£19
Complainant provided with updates	Annually - per issue	0.25	£9
Complainant contacted to provide feedback	Annually - per issue	0.25	£9
Complainant provides feedback	Annually - per issue	0.25	-
Separate route of escalation provided to complainant if they are dissatisfied with the outcome	Annually - per issue	0.5	-

The counterfactual

58. In practice many buildings will already be doing some of the activities set out above. We cannot establish the counterfactual for each and every building, so we have estimated a flat percentage of buildings that we expect will be conducting some of these resident voice activities already. We have then netted off the counterfactual from the estimates for the total cost to industry (once the costs for individual buildings had been scaled up) as opposed to on a per building basis. Table 6 below presents the counterfactual assumptions used.

Table 7: The counterfactual

Policy Area	Counterfactual %
Information provided to residents	-45%
Engagement of residents	-25%
Accessing redress (complaints)	-20%

Total cost of residents’ voice

59. The table below presents the total cost of the residents’ voice programme to industry and the Building Safety Regulator. These are presented via net present value (the value of the costs over the appraisal period – 15 years – discounted so they are presented in current terms) and equivalent annual cost (indicative costing if the costs were averaged out across the appraisal period).

Table 8: Total cost^{[footnote 30]} of residents’ voice

	NPV (Net Present Value)	EAC (Equivalent Annual Cost)
Current Estimates: Industry	£469,800,000	£39,400,000
Current Estimates: Regulator	£1,400,000	£117,000
Published Impact Assessment: Industry	£570,400,000	£47,800,000
Published Impact Assessment: Regulator	£71,500,000^{[footnote 31]}	£6,000,000

Low and high scenarios (‘good’ and ‘bad’ buildings)

60. The figures in the section above are estimates for an average/typical building. These estimates represent a blended average of the Department estimates (with assistance from external expertise and consultants) to be approximately the extreme high and low scenarios for ‘bad’ and ‘good’ buildings – dependent on the effort, time and resources the accountable person and/or the principal accountable person put into the residents’ voice programme.

61. In practice, we expect the overwhelming majority of buildings to fall within these estimates, and the low and high scenarios presented in the Building Safety Bill’s Regulatory Impact Assessment, which multiplied the industry wide central scenario figure by an adjustment factor of 75% for the low scenario, and 150% for the high scenario.

62. We can use these adjustment factors to present some estimates of example costings for a building that will introduce a thorough residents voice programme with a high level of resource included - the ‘high’ scenario, together with a ‘low’ scenario. It is important to note that these estimates are entirely illustrative and are provided to indicate the scale of costs different building owners might incur.

Question 17

About this consultation

Accepted Answer

This consultation document and consultation process have been planned to adhere to the Consultation Principles issued by the Cabinet Office.

Representative groups are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond.

Information provided in response to this consultation may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and UK data protection legislation. In certain circumstances this may therefore include personal data when required by law.

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, as a public authority, the Department is bound by the information access regimes and may therefore be obliged to disclose all or some of the information you provide. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will at all times process your personal data in accordance with UK data protection legislation and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is included below.

Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested.

Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this document and respond.

Are you satisfied that this consultation has followed the Consultation Principles? If not or you have any other observations about how we can improve the process please contact us via the complaints procedure.

Question 18

Personal data

Accepted Answer

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are entitled to under UK data protection legislation.

Note that this section only refers to personal data (your name, contact details and any other information that relates to you or another identified or identifiable individual personally) not the content otherwise of your response to the consultation.

1. The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk or by writing to the following address:

Data Protection Officer
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

2. Why we are collecting your personal data

Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the consultation process, so that we can contact you regarding your response and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters.

We will collect your IP address if you complete a consultation online. We may use this to ensure that each person only completes a survey once. We will not use this data for any other purpose.

Sensitive types of personal data

Please do not share special category personal data or criminal offence data if we have not asked for this unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of your consultation response. By ‘special category personal data’, we mean information about a living individual’s:

race
ethnic origin
political opinions
religious or philosophical beliefs
trade union membership
genetics
biometrics
health (including disability-related information)
sex life; or
sexual orientation.

By ‘criminal offence data’, we mean information relating to a living individual’s criminal convictions or offences or related security measures.

3. Our legal basis for processing your personal data

The department has a statutory duty to consult on these regulations.

The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by DLUHC of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Section 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018 states that this will include processing of personal data that is necessary for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department i.e. in this case a consultation.

Where necessary for the purposes of this consultation, our lawful basis for the processing of any special category personal data or ‘criminal offence’ data (terms explained under ‘Sensitive Types of Data’) which you submit in response to this consultation is as follows. The relevant lawful basis for the processing of special category personal data is Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR (‘substantial public interest’), and Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘statutory etc and government purposes’). The relevant lawful basis in relation to personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences data is likewise provided by Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018.]

DLUHC will appoint the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Home Office as ‘data processors’. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Home Office will act on behalf of the Department and under our instruction, to help analyse the responses to this consultation. Where we do we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.

5. For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period

Your personal data will be held for 2 years from the closure of the consultation, unless we identify that its continued retention is unnecessary before that point

6. Your rights, e.g. access, rectification, restriction, objection

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right:

a. to see what data we have about you

b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record

c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete

d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances

e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO:

dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk

or

Knowledge and Information Access Team
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

7. Your personal data will not be sent overseas

8. Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making

9. Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system

We use a third-party system, Citizen Space, to collect consultation responses. In the first instance your personal data will be stored on their secure UK-based server. Your personal data will be transferred to our secure government IT system as soon as possible, and it will be stored there for 2 years before it is deleted.

For definition of occupied higher-risk building see sections 65 and 71 of the Act and regulations made under those sections. There is also a requirement that new build higher risk buildings must be registered before they become occupied. ↩
For avoidance of doubt the legal requirement to register the building cannot be transferred or delegated to an agent. If the principal accountable person appoints an agent to complete the application, if it not submitted in time it is the principal accountable person who commits the offence, not the agent. ↩
Copied to all other accountable persons for the building, as per proposed regulations. ↩
A copy of the notice of refusal must be given to all other accountable persons for the building, as per proposed regulations. ↩
Under section 104 of the Act any accountable person for the building can appeal the decision, not just the principal accountable person. ↩
A special measures order is an order made by the First-tier Tribunal, on application by the Building Safety Regulator, appointing a special measures manager for a building where the tribunal is satisfied there has been a serious failure, or multiple failures, by accountable persons to comply with duties under part 4 of the Act. (See section 102 of and Schedule 7 to the Act.) ↩
Such a requirement to be included in the strategic plan published under section 17 of the Act. ↩
Section 72 of the Act refers to the “relevant repairing obligation” in relation to anything if the person is required under a lease or by virtue of an enactment, to repair or maintain that thing. ↩
Sections 95 and 97 of the Act – Duties on resident and owners. ↩
Section 112 of the Act - Implied terms in leases and recovery of safety related costs. ↩
Consultation on implementing the new building control regime for higher-risk buildings and wider changes to the building regulations for all buildings. ↩
Regulations made under section 74 of the Act will define part of the building (including all of it) an accountable person is responsible for. ↩
Please note that a principal accountable person is an accountable person but that an accountable person is not necessarily a principal accountable person. Whilst the principal accountable person will have further duties as set out in part 4 of the Act, these will be in addition to the duties set out for accountable persons – for their part of the building. ↩
The following would be an example of a reportable occurrence. During the post tenancy inspection by the accountable person (who is also the landlord) they notice a vent in the wall that joins an apartment room to the void space outside the building exterior wall and the cladding on the outside of the building. On further investigation they discover that the vent was installed in response to resident complaints around lack of ventilation and build-up of moisture in the flat but was not appropriately recorded. The vent presents the risk of a significant number of deaths (risk condition) as the compartmentation could be negated and the fire potentially channelled through the vent, into the void and into other flats if fire breaks are lacking (spread of fire). ↩
When a resident is carrying out notifiable building work in line with requirements in their leases, we would expect for them to notify their landlord/ accountable person before submitting the building control approval application to the Building Safety Regulator. Should a resident not be required by their lease to inform their landlord before building work takes place, we would expect the good practice to be that the resident alerts the accountable person before submitting their application to the Building Safety Regulator. This approach should ensure that the application to the Building Safety Regulator is considered without delay. ↩
Insolvency means: moratorium, company voluntary arrangement, administration, liquidation, bankruptcy, individual voluntary arrangement - see Insolvency Act 1986. ↩
Insolvency officeholder means any liquidator, trustee in bankruptcy, receiver, administrative receiver or similar officer. ↩
Section 101(1)(iii); 103 and 109 of the Law of Property Act 1925. ↩
This variable asks for the fire safety design standard which was applied to the building at design and construction. The expectation is that buildings which have been through the gateway process will have this information but existing buildings will not. When the principal accountable person submits this information they are to select one of the following options (which are the standards in use): Approved Document B; CP3 - precautions against fire; BS7974 - Application of Fire Safety Engineering principles to design the building - code of practice; BS9991 - Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings; BS9999 - Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings; Other fire safety design standard. ↩
Building Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (PDF, 1.36MB). ↩
Wage rates have not been included as these remain the same as in the published impact assessment. ↩
This is the average of an estimated 10 minutes for existing buildings and 1.5 hours for new builds. ↩
Price base year - 2019, present value year – 2023, discount rate – 3.5%, appraisal period – 15 years. ↩
Building Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (PDF, 1.36MB). ↩
Independent of these assumptions we assume that 50% of existing buildings will require these additional detailed structural and/or fire assessments, as the other half (50%) will have conducted these under the counterfactual. ↩
Building Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (PDF, 1.36MB). ↩
28 hours is the estimate for existing buildings, for new builds the estimate is lower, with an average of 22.5 hours and a cost of £845. ↩
With the exception of ‘Setting up the strategy’, which was a simple flat estimate. ↩
Building Safety Programme: monthly data release, May 2022. ↩
Price base year - 2019, present value year – 2023, discount rate – 3.5%, appraisal period – 15 years. ↩
The difference between the regulator costs in the published impact assessment and this update is largely due to the removal of the requirement on the principal accountable person to engage and update the regulator on the progress of all complaints made through the principal accountable person’s complaints procedure. Removal of this requirement resulted in substantial cost savings. ↩

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Applies to England

Scope of the consultation

Topic of this consultation:

Scope of this consultation:

Geographical scope:

Impact assessment:

Basic information

Body/bodies responsible for the consultation:

Duration:

Enquiries:

Ways to respond:

1. Introduction

Development of these proposals

Timetable for implementation

2. Registration

Chapter summary

Background to proposals

Registration of all occupied higher-risk buildings

Timescale and process for registration

Question: Do you agree or disagree that 6 months is sufficient time for the principal accountable person to provide the information to register their building?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that an agent may act for the principal accountable person in connection with the application?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the required information is sufficient to identify the building and whether it is within scope of part 4 of the Act, and identify the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) (if there are multiple accountable persons) for the building?

Changes to registration information

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the principal accountable person should notify the Building Safety Regulator of any changes to registration information?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the Building Safety Regulator should be notified within 14 calendar days, excluding Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday in England and Wales, of the change occurring?

Question: Do you envisage any difficulties with the requirement to provide a physical address in England and Wales for general communication and the service of notices?

Buildings built under the new regime

Question: Do you agree or disagree that for buildings built under the new regime, the principal accountable person must provide the unique reference number for the completion certificate?

Buildings that will be subject to transitional arrangements

Question: Do you agree or disagree that for buildings for which construction has started before the new regime comes into effect and which are subject to transitional arrangements, the principal accountable person must provide the appropriate certificate to the regulator?

Existing buildings

Question: Do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

3. Building Assessment Certificate

Chapter summary

Background to proposals

Application for Building Assessment Certificate

Question: Do you agree or disagree that 6 months is the appropriate time scale for calling in (i.e. issuing a direction) applications for a building assessment certificate following occupation of a registered new build building?

Prescribed information to accompany an application for a building assessment certificate

Question: Do you agree or disagree how the detail about the mandatory occurrence reporting system should be given in connection with the application?

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed requirements for the provision of prescribed information for application for a building assessment certificate?

Issue or refusal to issue a building assessment certificate

Notices under section 81 - content and requirement for copies to be served on all other accountable persons for the building

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this information must be included in a notice refusing to issue a building assessment certificate?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that copy notices issued by the Building Safety Regulator under sections 81(3) or (4) should be provided to all accountable persons for the building?

Display and content of certain information about accountable persons and the building assessment certificate

Question: Do you agree or disagree that the Building Safety Regulator must plan to conduct an assessment at least once in every 5 years?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this is the right information to be included in a building assessment certificate?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that this is the right level of information which needs to be included in a displayed notice?

4. Accountable Persons

Chapter summary

Background to proposals

Part of a building for which the accountable person is responsible

Proposal

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the approach set out above?

5. Principles for managing building safety risks and the safety case report

Chapter summary

Background to proposals

Outlining policy

Prescribed principles for managing building safety risks

Hazard e.g. fire in flat

Principles for managing building safety risks:

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed principles that the principal accountable person and accountable person(s) must follow when managing building safety risks?

Form and content of safety case reports, and notifications and submissions of safety case reports to the Building Safety Regulator

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed content of the safety case report?

Question: Do you have you any views on the format in which a safety case report must be produced, stored and submitted?

Question: Do you have any views on the way in which the Building Safety Regulator must be notified by the principal accountable person following the completion or update of a safety case report?

Question: Do you have any further observations you would like to share?

6. Mandatory occurrence reporting

Chapter summary

Background to proposals

Outlining policy

Establishing and operating a mandatory reporting system

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposals for establishing and operating a mandatory occurrence system by the principal accountable person?

Circumstances for requiring mandatory reporting

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed circumstance in which a safety occurrence is reportable?

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the definition of a safety occurrence?

Mandatory occurrence reporting to the Building Safety Regulator

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed information that should be reported to the Building Safety Regulator?

Question: Do you agree or disagree that safety occurrences should be reported to the Building Safety Regulator within 10 calendar days?