Building Safety Act 2022

[edit] Purpose of the Act

The Building Safety Act 2022 is a legislative framework designed to enhance the safety of buildings, in particular high-rise and multi-occupancy residential buildings. It is a significant piece of legislation that arouse in response to the Independent review of the building regulations and fire safety, also known as the Hackitt review after its Chair Dame Judith Hackitt which was established after the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

The Building Safety Act was effective from April 2, with key provision from October 2023. Its purpose is to ensure that all buildings and in particular high-rise buildings are designed, constructed, and managed to be safe for occupants. The Act itself provides a legal framework regulations and guidance related to building safety including fire safety and structural integrity, which apply responsibilities to owners, managers, designers, contractors and developers in England and Wales.

Key aims of the Act and supporting regulation are to improve transparency and accountability of building safety, through clearer definition of the roles of what are known as Responsible Persons (RPs), their level of competency, their coordination and theor co-operation. To accurately record all fire safety information and processes throughout a building’s lifespan in what is known as the Golden thread of information and make this transparent and accessible. Finally to give powers to enforcement authorities to take action against and entities involved in the process that are non-compliant.

The Building Safety Act delivers protections for qualifying leaseholders from the costs associated with remediating historical building safety defects, and a toolkit of measures that will allow those responsible for building safety defects to be held to account. It also overhauls existing regulations, making clear how residential buildings should be constructed, maintained and made safe.

The Act creates three new bodies to provide oversight of the new regime:

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) will oversee the safety and performance of all buildings, with a particular focus on high-rise buildings. It will promote competence and organisational capability within the sector including for building control professionals and tradespeople.
The National Construction Products Regulator (NRCP) will oversee a more effective construction products regulatory regime and lead and co-ordinate market surveillance and enforcement. The new regulatory regime will start to apply once the necessary secondary legislation on the future regulatory regime has been approved by Parliament.
The New Homes Ombudsman Scheme will allow relevant owners of new-build homes to escalate complaints to a New Homes Ombudsman. Developers of new-build homes will be required by secondary legislation to become and remain a member of the New Homes Ombudsman Scheme and secondary legislation will also set out the enforcement framework and sanctions for breaching requirements.

The owners and managers of buildings, known as accountable persons, will need to demonstrate that they have effective, proportionate measures in place to manage building safety risks in the higher-risk buildings for which they are responsible. If they do not meet their obligations they may face criminal charges.

Residents in high-rise buildings will be able to raise building safety concerns with accountable persons who will have a duty to listen to them. If residents feel their concerns are being ignored, they can raise them with the Building Safety Regulator.

Principal Designer and Principal Contractor under the Act will be required to manage building safety risks, with clear lines of responsibility during design, construction and completion.

There is an list of articles providing additional information on the page: Building Safety Act related articles.

The Building Safety Bill 2019-20 was announced in the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019 following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Its intention was to put in place new and enhanced regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products, and to ensure residents have a stronger voice in the system.

It was expected that the Building Safety Bill would:

Create an enhanced safety framework for high-rise residential buildings, taking forward the recommendations of the Hackitt review.
Provide clearer accountability and stronger duties for those responsible for the safety of high-rise buildings, with clear competence requirements to maintain high standards.
Give residents a stronger voice in the system and ensure that they fully understand how they can contribute to maintaining safety in their buildings.
Strengthen enforcement and sanctions to deter non-compliance.
Develop a new, stronger and clearer framework to provide national oversight of construction products.
Develop a new system to oversee the whole built environment, with local enforcement agencies and national regulators.
Require that developers of new build homes belong to a New Homes Ombudsman.

In April 2022, the government announced a series of amendments to the Bill, this included scrapping the role of Building Safety Manager.

On 28 April 2022, the Bill received Royal Assent, becoming law as the Building Safety Act 2022.

This sets out a timetable of 12 to 18 months for different provisions of the Act.

Eddie Tuttle, Director of Policy, External Affairs and Research at CIOB said: "...concerns remain that some of the recent amendments, such as removing the duty to appoint a Building Safety Manager, will lead to a lack of clarity over the right competencies and training for those in the “accountable persons” role and potential inconsistency in the implementation of Building Safety management regimes."