New And Updated High Rise Building Safety Guidance

The Building Safety Act 2022 has seen significant changes to the regulatory environment, in particular for high-rise residential buildings. This has seen the introduction of new roles such as accountable persons and principle accountable persons, with new responsibilities such as registering buildings and maintaining a golden thread of building safety information, and new rights for residents.

 

Without official guidance, it can be difficult to understand and navigate the new requirements. As such, the Government regularly publishes and updates guidance on the new rules; much of this can be found on the Gov.uk website. There is also a separate Building Safety Campaign website, which highlights key issues and links back to the main guidance.

 

Some recent updates to this guidance include:

Accountable Persons

This section provides information about the roles of accountable and principle accountable persons and what they must do. Recent updates to the guidance include:

• information about competence requirements both for accountable and principle accountable persons and anyone appointed to support them
• information about how to serve a contravention notice if it appears a resident is causing a building safety risk
• information about how an appointed person can enter a residence

 

Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Systems

A new section was first created at the end of January 2024. This includes information about the systems required to report building safety incidents and risks when a building is occupied, when building work is carried out on existing buildings, and during the construction of new buildings.

 

Mandatory Occurrence Notices and Reports

Another new section that supports the sections above includes information about the reports and notices about safety incidents and risks that must be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator when a building is occupied, when building work is carried out on existing buildings, and during the construction of new buildings.

 

The Golden Thread

A more recent addition concerns the building information that accountable and principal accountable persons must keep when a building is occupied and the information that clients, principal designers, and principal contractors must keep when building work is carried out.

 

Registering a High-Rise Building

This section is used by principal accountable persons, or those acting on their behalf, to register a building with the Building Safety Regulator. Recent updates include enabling the service to be used to notify the regulator if a building safety case report has been prepared.

 

Checking the Building Register

A new facility that allows residents to use the building’s postcode to check whether it has been registered and find out what information the Building Safety Regulator holds.

 

Complaints About Building Safety

A new section explains how residents can raise complaints about building safety with accountable and principal accountable persons, how a complaint should be dealt with, and when a complaint can be referred to the Building Safety Regulator.

 

As new regulations and guidance are regularly updated as deadlines approach and people develop a better understanding of what is required, this article summarises some of the recent additions and updates; however, further updates are likely. Regularly checking the Gov.UK website can help you stay up-to-date with future developments.

 

A Building Regulation sub-section can be found here. Going to the Guidance and Regulations section and sorting the guidance by “Updated (Latest)” should help you find the latest additions.

 

If you have any questions or would like support with managing issues at your workplace, please speak to your usual contact or get in touch using the form below.