Managing Building Safety

The Building Safety Regulator 

The Building Safety Act names the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as the new Building Safety Regulator (BSR). It also introduces new duties relating to fire and structural safety. The new duties, and BSR's services, are gradually becoming operational. The pages on HSE's website explain what they are doing to set up BSR, and what you can do to prepare for your new duties.

Building Control

In October 2023, the BSR became the building control authority for all higher-risk buildings (HRBs) in England. This means that clients and designers can no longer choose their own building control body for HRBs in England. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed guidance to help navigate the new building control approval process for higher-risk buildings, which can be found here.

Transitional arrangements in building control

BSR established transitional arrangements to allow HRB projects that commenced under the previous building control regime to continue with those arrangements rather than transferring to the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).

To take advantage of transitional arrangements, projects must have established building control arrangements before 1 October 2023, and had to make substantial progress before 6 April 2024. Where no application or initial notice was made for building work prior to 1 October 2023, the HRB work is automatically subject to the new higher-risk framework and will be overseen by BSR. Further information on transitional arrangements can be found here and on page 9 of the HSE guidance.

Manage a building control application for a higher-risk building

Use this service to apply for and manage building control applications for HRBs in England.

This Building Control Explainer is a useful resource of FAQs to help guide the process and understanding of the BSR as the BSA.

Should you need to withdraw your application, you can use the BSR's contact form.

Additional guidance is available to support clients - or individuals authorised to act on their behalf - to submit and manage building control applications to the BSR. This guidance covers higher-risk building work or building work to existing HRBs, and includes information on the documents required to support an application. Guidance can be found here.

Register as a building inspector

As of April 2024, building control inspectors appointed to undertake any type of building control work in England must be registered with the BSR. To complete the registration process, inspectors are required to demonstrate competence in their work and compliance with the Building Safety Act 2022, as well as existing building regulations. More information can be found here.

Register your business as a building control approver

All private sector businesses that want to do building control work under the Building Act 1984 (as amended) must apply to register with BSR as a building control approver (RBCA). More information can be found here.

Register a higher-risk building

As of 1 October 2023, all HRBs in England must be registered with the BSR. It is now a criminal offence to have not completed the registration process for all existing in-scope buildings in England. If you are the principal accountable person for a building, or the principal accountable person has authorised you to act for them, you can apply to register a HRB here.

Following the 1 October deadline for registering, BSR is working to ensure all incomplete, duplicate or erroneous applications are either completed or removed. Those who had started applications but not submitted them are being contacted directly and offered assistance to help solve any issues they may still be having.

The register of high-rise residential buildings can be found here.

Key Building Information

As part of the process to register HRBs in England, there is a requirement to supply Key Building Information (KBI) to the Building Safety Regulator. 

KBI is a set of information about each HRB needed to assess and properly manage the risks of fire spread or structural failure. It can be submitted at the same time as completing the application to register a building or at a later date. More information can be found here.

The Grenfell Inquiry Final Report : What does it mean for Architectural Technology professionals?

Following conclusion of the Grenfell Inquiry, CIAT has reviewed the Inquiry's Phase 2 Report and has prepared a short briefing which outlines the key recommendations for Architectural Technology professionals and considers what the implications of those recommendations might be. 

We stress that this is an evolving area, and CIAT will provide updates as further changes are announced and implemented. The briefing can be found here.

Questions about the briefing should be directed to [email protected]