It’s been three months since the secondary legislation of the Building Safety Act came into effect in full (with the initial regulations coming into force on 1 October 2023).
To mark this milestone, RLB and leading digital information platform, Operance, brought stakeholders from across the building safety ecosystem together round a table to discuss the impact of the legislation, the sector’s readiness, and the key challenges and opportunities ahead.
Key reflections
- The industry is pivoting, adapting to the changes of the Building Safety legislation, but it will take time to truly understand the impact of the changes.
- Clarity is still required around the Golden Thread of information management with no real definition about what good looks like – an opportunity for the industry to set.
- Although there are small cultural shifts happening, the requirement for building safety to be integrated across all the design and build process, with early engagement from all, is still to be fully realised.
- Responsibility for building safety needs to sit with all the key stakeholders, and collaboration will be key to success.
Was the industry ready?
The introduction of the Building Safety Act’s secondary legislation in October came as little surprise to the industry, yet according to a survey conducted by RLB and Operance ahead of the roundtable, one in four in the industry felt they were still completely unprepared for the resulting changes.
Did the group find this result startling? In general, the feeling from the participants backed the survey results. The roundtable consensus was that while the industry was pivoting and prepared for the application of the legislative changes concerning higher-risk buildings, the depth of the legislation was still reverberating across the industry. Over 1,000 registered building inspectors have left the industry and there was the recognition that a myriad of stakeholders from those in local authority building control teams through to architects and contractors were struggling to adjust to the changes.
“Everything’s changed, but nothing’s changed. Everyone says the Act is a new thing coming into the industry. It’s not. It’s a new way of doing what you did.”
David Jones, Director of Education & Training at ICM, Head of Compliance and Competence at NAADUK and Chair of Construction Industry Council London & South-East Region.
The challenge of the Golden Thread
The conversation turned to the ‘Golden Thread’ of information, a key requirement of the legislation that ensures a collective approach to gathering information for each building. Panellists noted the significant challenges in generating and managing the information required due to a lack of a joined-up system-thinking on safety across the building life cycle. There was also an acknowledgement that the golden thread was still being interpreted in very differing ways and education of what information was needed was still essential.
With information management and the impacts on cost and programme two of the key challenges that the survey identified as resulting from the Building Safety Act, the question was posed to how the industry would address these challenges.
There was recognition that there was a balance at play – on the one hand the Building Safety Regulator was promoting a ‘Be Curious’ strategy, on the other hand, there was a lack of specific guidance on required information. And an acknowledgement that the charge per hour to review all the information resulted in a cost implication. It was felt the industry wouldn’t be able to truly realise how much information was needed, and the cost of this information gathering, until the process has been in practice for a while.
“I think there are still some uncertainties around how much it’s going to cost to go through a gateway, how long it’s going to take because the regulation hasn’t really been tested yet. I think really the solution is to go in with your eyes open and be prepared.”
Samantha Mepham, National Head of Health & Safety Services, RLB
Yet for much of the industry, particularly when it came to legacy buildings, there is a dearth of information available. However, there was recognition that there were ways around getting this information – digital twins, point clouds and the like, but again at a cost– operational cost, procurement cost, contract cost and resource cost.
Competency: Understanding or availability of resource?
Competency checking within the supply chain has been standard practice for some time, particularly across Tier 1 contractors. However, the challenge now was defining what competent means, and what good looks like. It was acknowledged that it will take a few years into the legislation to realise the boundaries and responsibilities that come with it.
“Competency once you go into it in finer detail is still quite a grey area.”
Scott Pilgrim, Chief Product Office, Operance
The question of how we educate ourselves that building safety is integral to the whole life cycle of projects will be the ultimate cultural shift. Getting teams to understand and manage this process and engage key building safety stakeholders, including the contractor and the end user, early in the process is still a challenge.
Is digital an enabler of cultural shift?
The roundtable explored whether digital solutions could facilitate the culture shift needed. Although digital platforms would help that cultural shift, the biggest challenge was seen as resource – whether that was skilled workforce or investment. Larger organisations with more resource were being more proactive in training teams and implementing digital processes where some smaller consultants, who don’t have rapid model capability, were being excluded from the procurement process as a result.
With the new legislation making it a criminal offence to operate incompetently, the issue of how digitally enabled is the industry came into conversation.
“There is an elephant in the room – research shows that 58% of the industry is digitally illiterate in two of the 20 basic digital skills.”
David Jones, Director of Education & Training at ICM, Head of Compliance and Competence at NAADUK and Chair of Construction Industry Council London & South-East Region.
Compliance: still just a tick box?
This led to conversations around whether the industry was really responding to the cultural shift of integrating building safety or whether compliance was still seen as a tick box exercise. Although everyone agreed a cultural shift is what was needed, there are still some in the industry trying to find workarounds, working in silos to undertake building safety their way.
It was also noted that the cultural shift is not going to just be about the understanding that building control is paramount but understanding the legal responsibility of every level of the regulations and gateways and not trying to shift risk or responsibility further down the path of a project. Educating everyone involved to understand how far their responsibility goes is vital. So that there will be small cultural shifts at every part of the process.
“The biggest change is the collaborative culture of it. Building safety is not a project, it is a mission.”
Paul Beeston, Head of Industry & Service Insight, RLB
We are not setting the bar too high
So, are the competences required in the new legalisation too high a bar? asked the chair RLB’s Paul Beeston. There was a resounding No to this suggestion and agreement that the legislation was the right thing to implement and that ultimately it will lead to the “right people, behaving in the right way, at the right time.” And the Golden Thread, if implemented correctly, should provide “information at the right time, in the right place.”
“It has caused upheaval, but we think it is the right thing for construction.”
Chris Tongue, Director, C80 Group
Positive outcomes of the BSA
Drawing the roundtable to an end, the Chair asked all the participants for one sentence to describe the most important positive outcomes that they hoped the Building Safety Act will have achieved.
Collaboration and a break-up of the silos without a blame culture, an increase in the safety of buildings, heightened perceived value of those working in compliance, and that without safety you can’t have quality were some of the key outcomes that were on the wish list as a result of the Building Safety Act. As well as digitally upskilling the workforce and education across all the industry of the importance of building safety
“We are at the beginning of a journey on which we will learn from each other. We know the best approach is to collaborate as an industry, and at Wates we are more than happy to share our own experience and to collaborate with our peers in the pursuit of best possible practice.”
Sun-mee Ban, Principal Design Manager, Wates Residential
A final word from Gary McCormick at Sovereign Network summed up the overall sentiment in the room, the present state of play and the ambition of the panel for the future:
“I want the Act to be in people’s hearts and if not their hearts, their minds at least because currently it isn’t.”
Gary McCormick, Sovereign Network
Chaired by RLB’s Head of Industry & Service Insight, Paul Beeston, we want to thank the following for their participation and insights in the discussion
- Samantha Mepham, National Head of Health & Safety Services, RLB UK
- Scott Pilgram, Chief Product Officer, Operance
- Gary McCormick, Business Analyst, Sovereign Network Group
- David Jones, Director of Education & Training at ICM, Head of Compliance and Competence at NAADUK and Chair of Construction Industry Council London & South-East Region. Management & Head of Compliance and Competence at NAADUK
- Sun-mee Ban, Principal Design Manager, Wates Residential
- Chris Tongue, Director, C80 Group.
Watch the round table discussion
Listen to industry experts while they discuss the impact of the legislation, the sector’s readiness, and the key challenges and opportunities ahead. Please fill out the form below to gain access to the recording.
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