Blog: 27th October 2023 - Bevan Brittan, Corporate Partner

Six key changes under the Building Safety Act 2022 now in force

Does your authority manage buildings or get involved in their construction? If so, you need to be aware of a number of new requirements.

This month saw a key milestone in the life of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA). From 1 October 2023, if you will need to be aware of and comply with the following:

1. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) will now automatically become the building control body for higher-risk buildings. It will be responsible for, and able to recover its costs for:

• Assessing compliance with the Building Regulations (non-compliance is now a criminal offence)
• Implementing a new registration system and competency framework for building control approvers and registered building inspectors
• Providing building control approval via stop / go points; approving plans before construction work begins (Gateway 2), and approving completed buildings before occupation is permitted (Gateway 3)
• Maintaining a register of newly occupied higher-risk buildings.

Local authorities will however remain the building control body for other non-higher-risk buildings.

2. Existing duty holders under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 e.g. clients, contractors and designers will have additional duties to plan, manage and monitor their activities in relation to building regulations. These duties will apply to allof your building work, not just higher-risk buildings!
3. All existing occupied higher-risk buildings should now have been registered with the BSR. Be aware that failure to appropriately register, or to allow occupation of un-registered buildings, is a criminal offence that could result in a fine, imprisonment or both.
4. Principal Accountable Persons must now prepare a safety case report which identifies the building’s safety risks and explains how the risks are being managed. Don’t forget to update these when improvement work is carried out or work on the building impacts building safety risks.
5. The BSR will be carrying out checks to make sure that the people who are responsible for occupied high-rise residential buildings are managing building safety risks, complying with their duties under the new legislation, and keeping residents safe. This will be done through the Building Assessment Certificate process.
6. And finally, those responsible for a building must put in place and maintain a golden thread of information e.g. relevant information about how a building is constructed, the safety case, details of mandatory occurrence reporting and evidence of resident engagement.

These are some weighty duties and requirements that your local authority needs to get to grips with asap. Monitoring officers need it firmly on their radar.

Louise Mansfield

Legal Director

Bevan Brittan

louise.mansfield@bevanbrittan.com