April 2024 – a new dawn for building safety in occupation

News

April 2024 is a milestone for building safety – many of the rules already in force, will start to be enforced by the Building Safety Regulator, and for others, the transition period will be coming to an end on 6 April.

In Mid-January, the publication of The Building Safety Act 2022 (Commencement No. 6) Regulations 2024 (legislation.gov.uk) announced the entering into force of a large part of the requirements, including some key requirements for the occupation phase such as:

• requirements about the registration of occupied higher-risk buildings and obtaining and displaying a building assessment certificate for such a building;
• duties around assessing and managing building safety risks, the safety case report and its provision to the regulator;
• duties to report certain safety information, keeping prescribed information and documents for higher-risk buildings and for sharing that information and documents with various interested parties;
• requirements in relation to a resident engagement strategy for a higher-risk building, requests by residents for further information or documents about their building, and the complaints procedures to be operated by the principal accountable person and the building safety regulator (“the regulator”).

Many of the Part 4 requirements are contained within two key Regulations:

• The Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2024 No. 41 As previously reported, the regulation aims to improve how critical and relevant data is used and maintained to manage building safety risks. FMs, who can only be accountable persons in exceptional circumstance, are however extremely likely to be responsible to maintain the golden thread so the accountable person can demonstrate they meet their duties.  
• The Higher-Risk Buildings (Management of Safety Risks etc) (England) Regulations 2023 No. 907 the regulation includes amongst others the information and documents that need to be included in the building assessment certificate, what information needs to be included in the safety case report, the prescribed principles of the management of buildings safety risks and the keeping of information and documents. This regulation also contains the key regulations around the competence requirements for both individuals and organisations.

So, from April, we will start to see the Regulator invite organisations to apply for a building assessment certificate, which means that safety case reports will start having to be submitted as well.

Also of importance for FMs carrying out works in buildings under the building regulations in England are the Building (Registered Building Control Approvers etc) (England) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/110), which come into force on 6 April 2024. The scope of the building regs cover all buildings, in addition to an enhanced regime for higher-risk buildings.

The regulations set out the procedures that apply when a registered building control approver supervises their work under the building regulations.

From 6 April, the role of the approved inspector under the building regulations (previously managed by the Construction Industry Council Approved Inspectors Register (CICAIR)) will be replaced by that of the registered building control approver (except in relation to some transitional projects). These new regulations effectively perform the same function for a registered building control approver as the Building (Approved Inspectors etc) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2215) performed for an approved inspector. Much of the structures and content will be familiar for FMs engaging with this.

IWFM is committed to providing our members with the tools to help deliver against the Building Safety Act 2022 duties, for that purpose:  

• As a founding member of the Building Safety Alliance we continue to collaborate on a range of projects to enable our members to meet their Building Safety Act 2022 obligations. Several resources are due to be published, amongst them guidance on organisational capability and a master list of documents and other information sources currently used by industry, which can be used to identify the key data which needs to be specified for the Golden Thread Information Requirements.  

• We have recently published a guidance note which helps organisations to go on their digital maturity journey, in collaboration with Planon. This will be helpful for organisations trying to manage their data, information and operational management in a more digitally efficient manner.  
• We provide several courses which cover building safety and related topics, in addition to CPD webinars on topics such as the Building Safety Act 2022, competence requirements, safety management systems and structural safety.
• You can also find more information about Competence requirements for the new building safety regime One of the roles for FMs will be to support their accountable person with the correct assignment of duty holding roles, which have competence requirements (Principal Designers and Principal Contractors, which are distinct and different from the roles falling under the CDM Regulations, and carry different liabilities.)