The recent NBS webinar The Building Safety Act: Revisited was chaired by Richard Waterhouse, Non-Executive Director of the British Board of Agrément (BBA). It brought together experts from architecture, construction, manufacturing, specification and the Building Control authority itself to discuss compliance with the building safety regime. As the industry adapts to new standards, the members of the panel provided their perspectives on current challenges, practical solutions and future opportunities.
Building Safety Act: progress and challenges
Neil Hope Collins, Operational Policy Lead at the Building Safety Regulator, started the discussion with valuable insights into the regulations. He also shared how the industry has reacted since the Building Safety Act came into force.
Neil explained that, worryingly, much confusion remains amongst construction professionals about how safety regulations and procedures apply to both regular and higher-risk building (HRB) projects. He emphasised the particular importance of reading and understanding the new Part 2A regulations, which introduce duty holder and competence requirements for all clients, designers and contractors, and apply to all building work.
“You are now responsible for planning, managing and monitoring not only your own work but the work of anybody who works for you. That's about taking reasonable steps to be assured that if you are paying someone to do a job for you, they can do the job you are paying them to.”
Neil also explained what the Building Control authority has been seeing in terms of approval applications for HRB work.
“Currently, 53% of applications are not valid. That means people just haven't given us what the law asks them to give us. Interestingly enough, of the applications that are valid, around 60% of those applications are being approved. So, of the valid applications, the majority are being approved.”
Of those applications that are not being approved, the reason is generally because not enough detail has been provided. In Neil’s words, “They haven't told us exactly what it is they're going to be building.”
Competence and collaboration
To discuss the implications for designers and product manufacturers, Richard turned to Mike Riley (Architect Director at BDP) and Olga Katsanova (Head of Technical at Hilti).
A recurring theme was the importance of competence and collaboration. Mike Riley discussed the cultural shift within design practices, and how BDP is creating a supportive environment for navigating the act and regulations:
“We’re actually putting a lot of investment into upskilling a core group of people, so that they can disseminate information across all of our design teams more effectively. We’ve called that the Building Safety Group, and that's what I'm leading in the practice.”
Mike explained that BDP aims to foster a ‘culture of curiosity’ in relation to the regulations. As well as reading articles and guidance, he encourages everyone in construction to save and read the regulations themselves, section by section. BDP is also extending this culture of education and support to its clients, consultants and collaborators.
“I think sharing not just internally but externally is really valuable, because actually it will generally make the industry better and safer. I think that's what everybody genuinely wants to achieve.”
Olga Katsanova, representing manufacturers, echoed the sentiment of collaboration to support competence. Manufacturers have to ensure their own competence and expertise in their products. However, they also have to make sure that the people specifying them are competent and have access to the right information.
“A lot of the competence requests that we get are much earlier in the design process. How should I specify the product? Where is the data? Are there any design tools available? Could you run a CPD or a training seminar with the design team?… For me, this has been the shift for us… Manufacturers have to step up and be prepared to support the industry much earlier in the design process, which I think is a very good thing.”
Mike and Olga both highlighted the benefits of early engagement with manufacturers. By collaborating during the design phase, projects can incorporate compliant and optimised solutions – reducing costly revisions later.
Evolving practices in construction
Alasdair Mealey, Technical Leader of Building Regulations Compliance at Laing O'Rourke, shared insights from the contractor’s perspective. Alasdair echoed the rest of the panel in identifying the industry’s understanding of the regulations – and what has and hasn’t changed since the Act – as one of the key challenges for contractors.
However, he was quick to point out that this challenge has helped to encourage a more collaborative industry culture, with greater discussion and sharing of knowledge:
“That discussion has been really welcome, actually, and the openness around it has been a huge positive. We've tried to facilitate as many discussions as we can with design partners… We need to share what is good, and we need to share what is bad as well, to help us all to collectively make the process as smooth as possible.”
Alasdair also explained how Laing O’Rourke has integrated building safety as a core function within its operations, in a similar way to health and safety protocols for contractors. The company is generally applying their process for HRBs to all building projects, because the approach provides a better record of decisions and compliance.
Specifications as the backbone of compliance
Throughout the discussion, the panel underscored the central role of specification and product information in achieving building safety.
Dr Steven Hamil, Innovation Director at NBS, emphasised how critical the accurate, accessible product information provided by NBS Source is to meeting regulatory demands, but also explained how specification platform NBS Chorus has been developed to support compliance:
“We've done a lot of work again in our specification system on tightening up change-management tools, tracking the publication history, and really clearly showing what the revisions are when revisions need to be made. Those are the sort of tools that people need to provide a clear audit trail. You can see how those changes have taken place, when they took place, even down to who made those changes as well.”
This proactive approach aligns with ‘golden thread’ principles, ensuring that every decision is traceable and supports the building’s functional requirements throughout its life cycle.
As the discussion concluded, our panel emphasised the need for an industry-wide commitment to learning and innovation. For each speaker, the Building Safety Act and regulatory changes represent an opportunity to enhance collaboration, accountability and innovation.
It was also clear that success lies in embracing the Act’s principles early and holistically. At NBS, we’ll continue to support specifiers and manufacturers to do this, with cutting-edge tools, specification guidance, industry research and more.
You can now watch the full panel discussion on demand.
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