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Legislation, Regulations & Guidance

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  • BSR Conference 2024: Content available to view online

    HSE’s second building safety conference, which took place in May in Birmingham was attended by over 1,400 industry leaders, regulators and resident representatives.

    The conference featured almost 40 sessions and panel discussions providing detailed information on a breadth of topics including:

    the building control application process for high-rise residential buildings
    ways of working for the building control profession
    more information on how to build a safety case and a resident engagement plan

    If you missed the opportunity to attend the BSR conference in May, you can watch back all of the key note speeches and sessions on HSE’s Youtube channel.

    Amongst the many topics covered, sessions include updates on : Building Control Assessment process, Resident Engagement, Building Control profession, the Golden Thread, and Planning Gateways.

    • Building Safety Regulator

  • Buildings Safety Regulator Publishes Safety Case Toolkit – Reasonable Steps & Practical Examples

    The BSR has today published a ‘Safety Case Toolkit’ guide which is accessible here.

    The information within the guide is aimed at accountable persons (defined under section 84 of the Building Safety  Act 2022) to assist them in preparing a safety case report. A safety case report must demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken to prevent building safety risks happening and reduce the seriousness if they do.

    • Building Safety Regulator
    • Safety Case & Report

  • New BSA Regulations laid on how registered building control approvers supervise works

    The government has made and laid before Parliament the Building (Registered Building Control Approvers etc) (England) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/110), which come into force on 6 April 2024, in England only. 

    The regulations set out the procedures that apply when a registered building control approver supervises work under the building regulations in England.

    From 6 April, the role of the approved inspector under the building regulations will be replaced by that of the registered building control approver (except in relation to some transitional projects).

    These new regulations effectively perform the same function for a registered building control approver as the Building (Approved Inspectors etc) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2215) performed for an approved inspector. As such, practitioners will recognise much of their structure and content.

     

    • Building Safety Act

  • New Guidance on Mandatory Occurrence Notices and Reports

    The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), under whose auspices the BSR operates, has now published three resources to assist with mandatory occurrence reporting (MOR). 

    The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced a stricter safety regime for higher-risk buildings (HRBs), encompassing work to an existing HRB, work to an existing building that coverts it into an HRB or the construction of an entirely new HRB.  Among other things, this requires the principal designer and principal contractor on an HRB construction project to operate a mandatory occurrence reporting system during the works and to report any "safety occurrence" to the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).

    A safety occurrence is an aspect of design or an incident or situation relating to the structural integrity or fire safety of an HRB that would be likely, unless remedied, to present the risk of a significant number of deaths, or serious injury to a significant number of people. Outside the construction phase, an accountable person or principal accountable person must submit a mandatory occurrence notice in relation to those parts of an HRB for which it is responsible.

    The new MOR system guidance resources can be accessed below: 

    • Building Safety Regulator
    • Mandatory Occurence Reporting

  • Seventh Commencement regulations laid to provide for the switch from approved inspectors to registered building control approvers

    The government has made the Building Safety Act 2022 (Commencement No 7 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/104), which come into force on 6 April 2024.

    The regulations will bring into force various provisions of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA 2022) that amend the Building Act 1984 (BA 1984) to:

    • Provide for the switch from approved inspectors to registered building control approvers under the building regulations regime in England 
    • Set out transitional provisions dealing with projects that are ongoing under the auspices of an approved inspector.

    The Welsh Government has separate powers to commence these aspects of the BSA 2022 for Wales.

    Industry will be unsurprised by the coming into force of these new regulations on 6 April 2024, which had already been publicised as the date by which approved inspectors would be replaced by registered building control approvers. It is also a significant date in relation to ongoing projects because it marks the deadline by which work must have "sufficiently progressed" in order to continue to benefit from the transitional arrangements that apply to building projects under the new building control regime.

    • Building Safety Act
    • Legislation, Regulations & Guidance
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