The Latest on the Building Safety Bill – And What It Means

We have written before on the Building Safety Bill that is currently making its way through Parliament, and discussed what its various aspects may mean for the construction sector. 

Generally, of course, it means that new regulations will be on the statute book – and a new focus on safety will be placed upon all businesses which build things. But a Bill is only final when it becomes an Act of Parliament. Until then, its contents can be changed – and so it’s worth keeping an eye on every stage of its progress.

It seemed a good time for an update, then. Since we last wrote, some elements of the proposed Bill have firmed up, and others have been newly introduced. The Bill continues, of course, to focus on high-rise buildings, and especially ones designed for residential use. But of course its strictures will have impacts across the sector on projects of all kinds.

The Bill in particular places new requirements on firms during the design and construction phases of a project. The responsibility for fulfilling these requirements, however, remains somewhat vague: in current legislation, it is rather vaguely situated with whoever is carrying out the work; the current Bill looks set to introduce more specific duties, but currently there is little detail on where these might sit.

Crucially, though, the dutyholder will be an identified and sufficiently qualified individual – likely a different one at various project stages. They will need to join a national register and be routinely assessed to ensure that they are operating at the appropriate level of capability. This all represents big change.

Oversight for all this will be undertaken by the Health & Safety Executive, which will be empowered as the regulator by the Bill. It is increasingly likely that they will also procure services from Approved Inspectors, in order to ensure that proper expertise is involved in their new role in issuing the relevant certificates for each project. 

It has also become likely that the HSE will establish a multidisciplinary team to review new building projects, incorporating representatives of the fire service, building control and environmental health. How these bodies will work together rather than separately, however, is yet to be made clear.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the Bill will require new projects to obtain approval before work starts on site – a change in practice for England and Wales. This is likely to have a big impact on how firms undertaken design and build work in terms of staging their projects.

There is much that remains unanswered about the Bill as currently drafted, then – not least how the enhanced role of Approved Inspectors can itself be subject to the oversight necessary to prevent regional variation in how the new regulations are applied. This level of detail has yet to be published – and in some cases even arrived at – and makes the Bill’s impact difficult yet to understand.

The good news is that solutions like Under Construction are flexible and configurable, and already offer fantastic solutions for the identification, documentation and resolution of on-site issues. Under Construction ensures seamless communication between head office and on-site workers, prioritising and streamlining safety across a company. Whatever the eventual shape of the Bill, this approach to embedding safety as part of workflows will be invaluable.