Building Safety Bill published with revisions to the Building Safety Manager role

News

The Government on Monday (5 July) introduced the landmark Building Safety Bill in Parliament - four years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy and three years after the publication of Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety.

The Bill will implement recommendations made in the Hackitt report which found that the regulatory system for high-rise and complex buildings was ‘not fit for purpose’. Central to the reforms is the creation of the Building Safety Regulator which will oversee safety throughout each stage of the lifecycle of buildings over 18 metres (or at least seven storeys) and assist and encourage the improvement of competence in the built environment industry.

Following pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee and a public consultation in 2020, several changes have been made to the Bill based on the Committee’s recommendations - including those relating to the new Building Safety Manager (BSM) role.

To address concerns regarding professional indemnity insurance, blurred lines of accountability between duty-holder roles, and the challenge of finding suitable candidates, the Government has decided to remove statutory duties from the BSM, while still introducing the BSM as a statutory role, to carry out such duties relating to the planning, managing, and monitoring of Part 4 functions as may be specified in the appointment. Responsibility and accountability for building safety duties will therefore lie solely on the Accountable Person who will be required to appoint a competent BSM to assist them.

To encourage industry to prepare now for the new BSM role, the Government has endorsed the BSM competence framework developed by Working Group 8 (for which IWFM provided the Secretariat) published in its final report Safer people, safer homes: Building Safety Management. The development of a BSI competence standard for the BSM role in a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 8673 is now being undertaken by a steering group of which IWFM is also a member. Once completed, in early 2022, the PAS will then become the formal competence framework for the BSM.

Given the complexity and technical nature of the 218-page bill, the Government expects the legislation to take at least nine months to pass through Parliament. The bulk of the changes, such as the requirements on duty-holders to have clear accountability and statutory responsibilities, should come into force 12 to 18 months after the Bill receives Royal Assent.

IWFM and members of our Life Safety Working Group will study the Bill and supporting documents - particularly the revised provisions on the BSM role and what this means for the profession- and will track its passage through Parliament, keeping members informed of the latest news and developments. We will also alert our members about the public consultation of the PAS 8673 on the BSM competence framework so that members can feed into its development, this is expected to take place sometime over the summer.

The Bill and its supporting documents can be found here.

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