Preparing a safety case report
Responsibilities of the principal accountable person for a high-rise residential building’s safety case report.
Applies to England
The purpose of a safety case report
As the principal accountable person (PAP) you must prepare and update the building’s safety case report.
The safety case report is a document that summarises the building’s safety case. It identifies the building’s safety risks and explains how the risks are being managed. Building safety risks are the risk of the spread of fire or structural failure in the high-rise residential building.
A high-rise residential building has at least:
- 7 storeys or is at least 18 metres high
- 2 residential units
The building must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator before people live there. These buildings are known as higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022.
When to prepare the report
From 1 October 2023 you should prepare a safety case report as soon as possible when:
- the building is already occupied or becomes occupied
- you become the PAP
Building assessment certificate
When BSR tells you to apply for your building assessment certificate you must submit a copy of your safety case report .
Your report must contain
Details of the accountable persons
Provide information about each accountable person, including their:
- name
- email address
- telephone number
- postal address in England or Wales
Responsible Persons
You should also provide the details of the Responsible Persons for the building, under the Fire Safety Order.
Who prepared the report
Provide the details of the individuals who prepared the report, such as:
- their names
- their job roles and the organisation they work for
- how their skills, knowledge and experience make them suitable for working on the report
- the parts of the report they are responsible for
Building description
Your report should include the building name, full postal address, and a photograph or map of where it is.
If your building is part of a wider development, describe it and any shared facilities briefly. Include a description of the nearby area including other buildings and transport routes.
If there is any missing building information, you should explain what action has been taken to find the missing information.
Risk assessments summary
Use the building risk assessments provided by each accountable person to put together:
- a description of the types of risk assessment techniques used throughout the building
- an overview of who did the assessment and their competence to do so
- the significant findings of the assessments
- a summary of any outstanding actions or recommendations and the plan to progress them
Managing risks summary
Use the information from each accountable person to provide a description of:
- the measures in place to prevent and mitigate building safety risks for the whole building
- how the measures work to prevent or mitigate risk
- assessments that have been done which have identified building safety risks and what changes need to be made to mitigate the risks
- conclusions from reports that have been done, for example, a structural inspection
Safety management system
Your safety case report should include a summary of the safety management systems in place for the whole building to manage building safety risks. This is essential to show how risks are being properly managed. To do this, use information from each accountable person about the management system they use in their parts of the building.
Planning for emergencies
In your safety case report describe the strategy for the building during an emergency. Explain why this approach has been chosen and how it works. For example, your building may be designed to support a stay put strategy and it works by relying on the controls in place, such as compartmentation.
If the strategy changes from what was originally intended, you should explain why and describe any additional measures in place to support the change.
Ongoing work and building improvement
While gathering information for your safety case report, you might find control measures that are missing or other issues, like ongoing building work, that affect the building’s safety.
Describe the work that needs to be done to resolve these issues, how it will be done and the timescale for completion. Describe any temporary measures that are in place to manage the risks in the meantime and the timescales to complete the work.
Updating your safety case report
You should update your safety case report, for example, when:
- improvement work is carried out to manage building safety risks
- work on the building impacts building safety risks
Tell BSR when you update your safety case report
You must tell BSR as soon as possible if you update your safety case report to include:
- new or increased building safety risks that have been identified
- further measures taken to manage risks
BSR will ask you for:
- the date the update to the safety case report was made
- a brief description of the update
- the reason for making the update
BSR may ask you to provide the updated safety case report. There is a charge you will need to pay if BSR decides to review the updated safety case report. This is set out in the BSR charging scheme on the HSE website.
Last updated 2 April 2024 + show all updates
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Information added about telling BSR if you've updated your safety case report.
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First published.