2023: A key year for Building Safety!
Last year, Just Housing Group covered the build up and then assent of the Building Safety Act and its progression through to Royal Assent. As I said at the time, this Act represents a huge challenge for all Registered Providers (RPs) – and 2023 is the year when this transformative change must begin to be actioned .
The Building Safety Regulator is headed up by Peter Baker, Chief Inspector of Buildings.
Alongside the formation of this new organisation, key dates, and processes, have quickly become clear. Here is my summary of what is happening and when …
January 2023
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 is now in place . It requires residential buildings to have specific actions undertaken by the responsible person to mitigate fire risk. All RPs must have this in place now.
April 2023
Start to record all high-risk buildings (HRB) for submission to the Regulator. This means any residential building over 18m high with more than two occupied dwellings.
To assist with the understanding of what building detail is required the Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information) (England) Regulations 2023, will become legislation. Currently going through Parliament.
May – September 2023
No date has been set but more details on safety assessments for technical and competency will be published to assist RPs complete their Building Safety obligations. A good source of information is the HSE Building Safety ebulletin site. You can subscribe here
October 2023
Conclude the registration of high-risk buildings to the Regulator – all HRBs must be registered by this date.
Part of the improvements and registering of competency on Building Control Approval (Gateway 2) Building control and inspectors will need to apply for registration.
April 2024
The Regulator will begin reporting assessments of HRBs , includingSafety Cases. The likely route will be to report/review weak submissions first, possibly producing a table of outcomes for publication.
October 2024
As part of the goal to increase the general competency of Accountable people, a register will be administered by the Regulator. This Register of safety approvers closes this month.
In other news … ongoing work registered providers should be aware of …
· All Registered Providers should have completed the data structure and collected condition and programme data for the Golden Thread - one source of digital asset intelligence.
· RPs must begin the process of identifying their Accountable Person and Building Safety Manager (see PAS8673 and Flex8670v3).
· A detailed plan for implementing the Building Safety Act requirements
· Developing the structure for the Building Safety Cases.
· Developing a process and procedures including the reporting path and content to the Regulator.
· The Gove changes mean that service charges and resident consultation need to be underway , especially if you have leasehold high-risk buildings. Three committees for resident consultation, industry competence and technical advisory have been set up in the interim to assist the Regulator.
· The Fire Safety Act 2021,amended the Regulatory Reform Order 2005, and clarifies the responsibility of managers to minimise fire risk to the occupants of multioccupancy buildings.
· Inclusion of service charges for safety costs and their recovery in place.
· Remediation orders on construction products not meeting standards have come into force.