Whilst the Building Safety Act 2022 (the Act) received Royal Assent in April, there is still a significant amount of procedural and administrative detail to be provided through secondary legislation and guidance.
To this end, there are currently four open consultations which have been published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE):
- Consultation on implementing the new building control regime for higher-risk buildings and wider changes to the building regulations for all buildings (closes 12 October 2022): this consultation focuses on the changes that will be made to the Building Regulations to implement the new building safety reforms. It seeks views on the new dutyholder and competence requirements for all building work, additional duties for those working on higher-risk buildings, the gateways regime and the new proposed regime for higher-risk buildings. You can find the consultation here.
- Consultation on the in-occupation regime for occupied higher-risk buildings (closes 12 October 2022): this consultation covers policy proposals for the in-occupation phase for buildings in scope of the new regime and seeks views on various aspects of this, including registration of all occupied higher-risk buildings, the role of the accountable person(s) and the principal accountable person, the safety case approach, mandatory occurrence reporting, resident engagement, the golden thread and key building information. You can find the consultation here.
- HSE Consultation: The Building Safety (Fees and Charges) Regulations 202[3] and charging scheme (closes 7 October 2022): this consultation sets out the Building Safety Regulator’s (the Regulator) proposals for the Building Safety (fees and charges) regulations and an underpinning charging scheme. The Act gives the Regulator appropriate powers to recover the costs incurred in the fulfilment of its relevant statutory functions and the proposed regulations and charging scheme enable the Regulator to charge fees and recover charges for performing the relevant (chargeable) functions. You can find the consultation here.
- HSE Consultation: Building Safety Operational Standards Rules (closes 12 October 2022): this consultation covers the proposed operational standards rules (known as OSRs), which apply to all building control functions delivered by local authorities and registered building control approvers in England (excluding buildings or works in the higher-risk building regime or covered by a Regulator's notice). You can find the consultation here.
Once these consultations have concluded, we expect that the Government will publish further secondary legislation and guidance to finalise the details of these elements of the new regime. For further details on the Act, please see our Essential Guide.
