The Building Safety Act – what should the housing sector focus on?

As I mentioned in my last blog, part of the suite of changes coming out of the Building Safety Act, which came into law this week will be a requirement to have up-to-date safety information available, on site, to all who live in or use the building. It is this element of the Act that I believe the housing sector needs to focus on first urgently, not least as from April 2023 will be a requirement for the registration of High-Risk Buildings (HRB) and all remaining measures will come into force in October 2023.

This process raises a number of immediate questions, but perhaps the most central is this: “How to convey all required information to residents, building users, visitors and first responders, both accurately and accessibly?”

The principles are clear. The Safety Case must be accurate and provide all the information to the viewer to allow the correct reaction to any safety occurrence. If the procedure is clear and concise then the reaction should be the right one. If this is your organisation’s approach, you are on the road to having a process and system for a Building Safety Case for your HRB. Unfortunately, this is not the position for many social landlords. It is not a great situation to highlight, but it is one we need to face up to as a sector.

A key problem from talking to a few clients is that they are not clear on what the ‘right outcome’ looks like when putting the document together, and crucially, what the finished product should look like in the eyes of the resident.

In some senses, the new Act will clarify this uncertainty. It will require, by law, an approach that will succinctly identify all safety issues, their resultant risk, and how to mitigate the occurrence in the safest way possible for the occupant and asset. The data must be the best it can be to provide the quality necessary to allow the right assumptions and outcomes for landlords and their residents. Part of the data picture is the provision of compliance data that is up to date and meaningful.

A profile in Inside Housing (October 2021) talks to Peter Baker, the new Chief Inspector of Buildings (England), about how he has drawn upon his experience in the Health and Safety Executive in relation to industries where errors lead to catastrophe, such as the explosives and chemical industries, to highlight the step change that is needed in asset management. In my experience, most professionals thinking about risk in housing do not automatically go to full building collapse with multiple resident causalities, but this is, in effect, what has to be considered and mitigated. The consequences of such an event and how to deal with them, have to be systemised, with processes running various scenarios and monitoring the outcomes to identify weaknesses. These should then be corrected and processes run again until there are safety procedures to mitigate the initial risk and manage it if the event occurs, resulting in minimising loss and damage.

Each HRB will require a Safety Case, so if you have three high-rise blocks on the estate, each will need its own Safety Case. This may lead to a large amount of duplication, it is possible that  there may be a small design or occupancy difference that has a completely different scenario outcome. Therefore, the task for the Building Safety Manager (BSM) and Accountable Person (AP) is to have in place the initial evaluation process. This process must include competent personnel to identify, categorise and action the appropriate workflow then to develop the safety case into a safety process and procedure specifically for that block. It is thought the BSM will be the technical lead with the AP responsible for the Safety Case.

The final document that will be public facing, needs to be clear and understandable for all residents, managers, and first responders to act upon in an emergency. It also needs to be regularly updated, considering any changes to the structure, facilities, or occupants.

Finally, the process needs to be exposed to audit and scrutiny through the organisation’s governance with sign off by Members (i.e. local councillors) or the Board and reported to the HRB.

There remains much to do!

Tim Hayton

Strategic Asset Specialist