Policy paper

Building Control Independent Panel report: government response

Published 20 May 2026

Applies to England

The Building Control Independent Panel (BCIP) was established in March 2025 to consider recommendations 22 and 23 on the future of building control. The Panel’s report has now been published, and this statement sets out the government’s initial response to its findings, principles and recommendations.

The government is grateful for the care, expertise and insight that the Chair and panel members have brought to this review. Government also recognises the commitment and professionalism of Registered Building Inspectors (RBIs) whose work plays a vital role in upholding building safety standards, often in challenging circumstances.

Key findings and implications

The government agrees with the Panel’s assessment of the current system for building control, where:

• there are skilled and committed professionals who are prevented from doing their jobs as effectively as they should because of how the system currently operates and whose concerns have not always been heard.
• there are longstanding structural challenges, including conflicts of interest, fragmentation, uneven expectations, capacity pressures, and inconsistent approaches to inspection, enforcement and data.
• significant reform has already been delivered across the wider building safety system since 2017. This includes establishing building control as a regulated profession; creating and operating the Building Safety Regulator as regulator of both the profession and Higher Risk Buildings; and progressing the transition towards a Single Construction Regulator. These reforms have shown real world progress, and any further change must build on this.
• building control is not being supported by an effective wider building safety system. Building control cannot and should not compensate for weaknesses elsewhere, and wider reform is required to ensure each part of the system fulfils its role effectively in delivering safe buildings and supporting growth.

The government is committed to supporting the building control profession to deliver vital public safety outcomes, whilst enabling timely housing delivery in line with our ambition to build 1.5 million new homes during this parliament and to deliver on the ambitions of the Warm Homes Plan. This is a vitally important workforce which is highly valued by government as the enablers of nationally important drive to provide safe, good quality new housing and other buildings. 

Our priority is to enable RBIs to operate as confident, independent regulators who are part of a system which provides proportionate oversight, clear processes and sufficient capacity. Future reform must be carefully phased and sequenced in partnership with the sector. This is critical to avoid disruption to existing arrangements, while preserving and growing capacity. We must ensure a resilient and stable system for the long term that delivers a strong, local regulatory service that protects the public and delivers high-quality buildings.

Key principles and recommendations

The Panel identifies 5 principles to guide reform, which the government accepts as the foundation for strengthening the building control system:

1. Independence in the public interest: regulatory decisions must be insulated from commercial incentives, whether building control is delivered in the public or private sector.
2. Consistency by design: similar work should receive similar oversight and enforcement wherever it occurs and whoever undertakes it.
3. Capability at scale: the model must sustain specialist competence, effective supervision and provide robust career pathways.
4. Transparency and data: a strong digital backbone, underpinned by clear data standards, interoperability and visible accountability.
5. Efficiency and resilience: fewer, stronger statutory bodies that can plan, prioritise and intervene early.

The Panel also sets out a series of recommendations to strengthen the current system and more fundamental recommendations for longer‑term reform, including:

• Near-term recommendations around improving and aligning statutory processes across LA BCAs and RBCAs, increasing workforce capacity, reforming building control charging regimes and improving transparency, data quality and performance oversight.
• Fundamental recommendations for longer-term reform including creating a single regulatory system with the removal of client selection of regulator, and the establishment of fewer, larger, publicly accountable building control bodies to take on the statutory functions currently with LAs.

The government commits to undertaking further analysis of these recommendations and, where required, consulting on the most effective and proportionate way forward. The remainder of this response therefore sets out the government’s initial approach, ahead of fuller proposals and detailed implementation options.

Initial approach

We are already taking, and will continue to take, a coherent set of actions that align with the Panel’s principles for reform, including:

Workforce and capacity: We recognise the workforce pressures identified by the Panel and consistently raised by the sector. That is why we have invested £55m over the next three years to build capacity and enable more skilled RBIs.

Sustainable funding: Current charging arrangements create challenges for local authorities’ ability to invest in their teams. Following consultation, we intend to introduce revised charging regulations to enable full cost recovery across a wider range of building control activities and functions.

Digitisation and data: Approaches to building control data capture are inconsistent and inefficient, with heavy reliance on paper, limiting transparency and effective oversight. We will shortly publish a Digital Building Control Roadmap, which will set out how we will work with the sector to improve efficiency, consistency, transparency and data sharing in the wider context of built environment data.

This work is supported by an initial £1 million for a local authority-led digital consortium involving LAs, RBCAs and the BSR. We will also consider whether legislative changes are required to support a consistent approach to building control registers, including requirements on data maintenance, processing and publication.

Process clarity and earlier certainty: We recognise concerns about inconsistent use of routes that result in insufficient oversight for some types of work. In April, the Government launched a consultation on reforms to plan submission and approval requirements, including limiting building notices and requiring fuller plans earlier, to improve consistency and certainty for regulators and developers.

Building professions strategy:  We have committed to publish a new strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations. This will build on the recommendations of the final Grenfell Tower Inquiry report, while going further to take a holistic view of the wider system governing how people work across the built environment sector. This will help ensure each part of the system effectively fulfils its role to support delivery of safe, high-performing and sustainable buildings. We are publishing a call for evidence on key barriers, opportunities and interdependencies, to inform the final scope of the Strategy.

Competent Person Schemes: The BSR has launched a review of Conditions of Authorisation for these Self‑Certification Schemes, and the Government will further review the operation of Self-Certification Schemes to identify potential improvements.

Building Safety Regulator: MHCLG and the Building Safety Regulator continue to strengthen regulatory processes, guidance and oversight. Work is also progressing to establish the future Single Construction Regulator (SCR), which will take on the responsibilities of the BSR through a carefully phased transition, alongside other existing and new functions.

Pathfinders: The government will invest £5 million of the announced £55 million workforce funding in a small number of pathfinder areas experiencing high housing growth, which have limited building control capacity. They will test new collaborative delivery models that support professional skills and career progression and deliver responsive local services with the resource to meet demand. Further details will be confirmed later this year, and findings will help inform future policy development and organisational design.

We look forward to working in partnership with the building control sector, the regulator and industry, as we take our next steps considering the Panel’s recommendations. It is time for government and the sector to look forward together to a safer future for all of our buildings using the invaluable work of Dame Judith Hackitt and the wider Panel as the compass to guide that work.