The Building Safety Act – Are you meeting your legal responsibilities?

The Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) enforces stricter regulations and oversight across construction and related sectors.

The Act goes beyond CDM 2015 and the Building Regulations Act 2012, setting clear competency standards for construction.

The Building Safety Act 2022 represents a significant shift in construction safety and competency requirements. Compliance is no longer optional, it is a legal requirement. Ensuring that Principal Designers and Principal Contractors meet these standards will not only enhance safety but also drive professional excellence across the industry.

Key Elements of the BSA

Core objectives

• Ensuring compliance with Building Regulations while improving industry competence.
• Defining duty holder roles to enhance accountability in design and construction
• Requiring competent individuals to manage and monitor projects effectively.

New duty holders

• Principal Designer coordinates the design team to ensure compliance.
• Principal Contractor oversees construction, ensuring design changes are documented and compliant.

HSE expectation

The Principal Designer must be part of the design team, not an external consultant. Can be fulfilled by:

• Architects
• Engineers
• Surveyors

Relation to CDM 2015
The BSA mirrors CDM 2015 but remains a distinct framework.

• Principal Designer and Principal Contractor’s must demonstrate Skills, Knowledge, Experience, and Behaviours (SKEB) to perform effectively.
• Competency assessments should follow BSA, BS 8670, PAS 8671 (for BR PDs), and PAS 8672 (for BR PCs) before work begins.

• Appointing competent professionals.
• Allocating sufficient time for design and construction.

Competency requirements for Principal Contractors and Designers

Building Regulations Principal Contractors and Designers must prove their competence in key areas:

• Behavioural competence: Set out in BSI 8670, PAS 8672 (Principal contractors), and PAS 8671 (Principal Designers).
• Regulatory knowledge: Understanding of Building Safety Act 1984, Building Regulations 2010, Building Safety Act 2022, and CDM 2015.
• Design work management: The ability to plan, manage, monitor, and coordinate design activities effectively.
• Technical framework: Core safety criteria established in BSI 8670.

How can we help?

Competency assessment

To help clients establish minimum competency standards, PIB provide a 2-stage competency assessment process, for both Principal Contractors and Designers

• Stage 1: Duty holders will undergo interviews to assess their competency, face to face, virtually or hybrid.
• Stage 2: Organisations must demonstrate compliance with required standards on-site or office visit.
• Outcome: Comprehensive competency assessment report provided with a scoring matrix to demonstrate the individual company’s performance against the relevant standards.

CPD sessions

We can also offer CPD sessions which typically last 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on audience engagement and Q&A. They can be conducted face to face, virtually, or in a hybrid format. CPD certificates are provided upon completion.