The long-awaited Building Safety Act finally received Royal Assent in England on 28th April, confirming much needed changes to the safety regime for high rise residential buildings. It will be complemented by the impending implementation of the Fire Safety Act, which received Royal Assent in 2021 and which amends the Fire Safety Order 2005 to ensure “responsible persons” are more clearly identified and that they record their fire risk assessment in full.
The new Act creates a new robust regulatory regime in higher-risk buildings, setting out clear duties and responsibilities on those who commission, design, construct and refurbish higher-risk buildings as well as those responsible for ensuring buildings are safely managed when occupied.
A new Building Safety Regulator is already in place and a new Office of Product Safety and Standards is being established. A firm timetable of when elements of the Act will be fully implemented along with the finer details of supporting secondary legislation and guidance is still to be determined.
The IFE's technical director, Dr Peter Wilkinson, has already been involved in the Interim Industry Competence Committee, Sub-Group for Capability and Capacity, with the aim of contributing to the Industry Competence Committee that will sit under the remit of the Building Safety Regulator alongside a new Building Advisory Committee and Resident's panel.
The overhaul of regulations around building and fire safety post-Grenfell has been a complex and at times controversial process. Renewing trust and confidence in the systems that failed the families at Grenfell has been critical. Making sure that those delivering the work from design through to delivery and management are suitably qualified and competent is a key part of the regulations, and rightly so.
The role of the Industry Competence Committee to assist and encourage the improvement of competence in the built environment industry is very welcome as are the new ‘gateways’ to ensure rigorous assessment of regulatory requirements to ensure building safety and regulatory compliance is considered at each stage of a building’s design and construction and mandatory reporting to the new building safety regulator of prescribed fire and structural safety occurrences.
The requirement to create, hold and maintain the golden thread of information is central to the future regime and will see mandatory registration of occupied high-rise buildings, building inspectors and building control approvers together with new requirements on duty holders to have clear accountability and statutory responsibilities as buildings are designed, constructed and refurbished.
There will be new duties on the accountable person to manage building safety risks in occupied high-rise buildings, including duties to engage with residents
This level of accountability is vitally important. Communities need to be confident that everything possible is being done to keep the buildings they live in as safe as possible, and it will help to eliminate blame culture by providing complete transparency when issues arise.
The requirement from January that Fire Risk Assessor on our register will also need to be registered with the Engineering Council are among the steps we have taken to reinforce professional competency in line with the new legislation.
We have also set out a clear roadmap to help those with responsibility for fire safety in high-rise buildings to build their knowledge. We recognise that there will be a diverse range of people involved with different skills sets and knowledge and we can offer a tailored journey to suit individuals whether they have very little or vast experience in the role from a fire safety perspective.
For the IFE, competency is about more than knowledge and qualifications, it is about maintaining the high levels of ethics and standards that drive advances in fire safety, life protection and innovation around the world.
As an international professional body, the Building Safety Act is just one driver for our commitment to create clear competency frameworks and accessible career development pathways for all at a time when establishing credentials in all aspects of fire safety is more important than ever.
For more information on becoming a member, visit www.ife.org.uk/Membership-and-Registration