Delivering the Golden Thread. CLC guidance for dutyholders and accountable persons

1 CLC introduction to the guidance
2 Introduction from Dame Judith Hackitt
3 Scope of the guidance
4 Contents
5 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] CLC introduction to the guidance

In August 2024, the Building Safety workstream of the Construction Leadership Council published guidance on the golden thread of information requirements for higher-risk buildings. This guidance will support dutyholders and accountable persons to deliver a golden thread for their building. This publication supports the huge amount of work happening across industry to deliver the higher-risk regime and to enable the delivery of robust information to support safer buildings.

The guidance has been developed by an industry working group with experience from across the sector in the design, construction and management of management of higher-risk buildings. The guidance sets out the golden thread information that dutyholders and accountable persons will need to generate, keep, maintain and handover during design, through construction, handover and completion of the building and into occupation.

The purpose of the golden thread of information is to give the right people the right information at the right time. It is the information that allows someone to understand a building and the steps needed to keep both the building and people safe, now and in the future.

The guidance makes clear that the golden thread should not be something new. At its heart, the golden thread is good information and good information management. Most importantly the golden thread is something that should be used. The people responsible for a higher-risk building (the dutyholders and accountable persons) should embrace the golden thread – as it is their information, for their use, to ensure their building is safe and to assure their residents that their building is safe.

The full Golden Thread Guidance is available here. A Summary of the guidance is also available, and can be downloaded here.

As the new regime develops, this guidance will almost certainly need to develop with it. The CLC would like to invite constructive feedback on this guidance to support this process.

[edit] Introduction from Dame Judith Hackitt

In the initial pages of 'Delivering the Golden Thread. CLC guidance for dutyholders and accountable persons' Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng outlines the importance of the document in completing missing details, and better understanding of the thread on information, much needed for the industry.

'The new regulatory system requires those responsible for these buildings to use the “golden thread” to inform the safe operation and occupation of the building and to enable them to identify, mitigate and manage risks to the safety of those who live in the building. The primary mechanism for doing this is the safety case report for the building, but that report can only be developed if the golden thread information is intact, accurate, up to date and readily available as a working system to those who operate the building.'

'There has been much debate about the content and level of detail required in the golden thread as the legislation has been developed, but at its core it is the information that those responsible need to assure themselves and reassure residents and the regulator that they understand and are effectively managing the building so that it is safe for those who live in it and visit it.'

'This guidance sets out in much more detail what the golden thread is and how it may be developed during design, through construction, handover and completion of the building and into occupation. It seeks to set out the clear purpose of the golden thread, which is first and foremost intended to rebuild and then retain trust in the safety of our higher-risk building stock. I would encourage everyone involved to remember that purpose. It is not intended to be a list of things to do for no real purpose, nor is it intended to be a repository for every detail of a building. It is intended to provide a means to demonstrate to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in higher- risk buildings that their home is safe and is being kept safe by those responsible for their safety.'

'The guidance has been developed by an industry working group with broad experience of the development and
delivery of information and the delivery and management of higher-risk buildings. As the new regime develops and the first safety case reports are assessed, the guidance will almost certainly need to develop with it. The authors of this guidance have been open that this is work in progress, and mechanisms to provide constructive feedback are provided. As we seek to rebuild trust in the safety of our higher-risk building stock, I would encourage you to use the guidance intelligently and to provide feedback so that those buildings become progressively safer for all who live in, work in and visit them.' Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng

[edit] Scope of the guidance

The guidance covers the content of the golden thread throughout the lifecycle of a HRB – i.e. what golden thread information dutyholders and accountable persons need to create, obtain, update, maintain and share. The document aims to covers:

It is applicable for:

any HRB once it is occupied;
any building work to create a new HRB (either by building new or changing the use of an existing building); and
any building work to an existing HRB.

And is relevant for:

clients;
principal designers (PD);
principal contractors (PC);
designers;
contractors;
principal accountable persons (PAPs); and
accountable persons (APs).

It will also be useful for those people responsible for HRBs which were under construction before 1st October 2023 or covered by the transitional arrangements in building control.