The House of Lords’ Industry and Regulators Committee has issued a report titled "The Building Safety Regulator: Building a better regulator”, detailing the findings of their recent inquiry into the Regulator’s performance that took place over the Summer.

The report warned that “unacceptable” delays caused by the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) approval processes is leaving residents waiting for remediation of dangerous cladding in unsafe buildings and increasing costs for leaseholders, whilst welcoming the increased scrutiny has brought to the design, construction and management of buildings. It also stated that the delays mean the Government is in danger of missing its target to build 1.5 million homes by 2029.

Key findings

After hearing from a range of witnesses over the Summer, the Committee’s key findings were:

• The BSR has not given clear enough guidance on how applicants are supposed to demonstrate that their buildings are safe;

• Many applications are being rejected or delayed due to basic errors and applicants’ inability to evidence how they are considering elements of fire and structural safety, which reflects poorly on the construction industry;

• Many construction products do not have relevant product standards, leaving them entirely unregulated;

• Difficulties in local authority funding and the introduction of regulation have left an ageing workforce of building inspectors who are struggling to meet demand;

• Despite these skills shortages, smaller works such as bathroom renovations in high-rise buildings are being subject to the scrutiny of the BSR’s hard-pressed multidisciplinary teams.

As a result, the report is calling on:

• The BSR to give greater guidance to its multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) on how compliance with the Building Regulations should be evidenced and assessed to ensure greater consistency;

• The Government to remove smaller works from the BSR’s building control approval processes, or introduce a streamlined approval process for them;

• The BSR to allocate the same MDTs to similar buildings or projects built by the same organisation, which could improve efficiency and consistency;

• The Government to provide long-term funding for the training of new building and fire inspectors.

These findings will not come as a surprise to many of APS’s members. Since the appointment in July of Andy Roe as the new Chair of the BSR, many of the changes the report suggests are already being implemented. Applications are being bundled up and a new centralised “Innovation Unit” aim to positively impact the lead time to approval. Moves are also already under way to focus on major work in existing buildings only, so that the BSR focuses on where the greatest risks in refurbishment are. Future legislative proposals will remove many of the refurbishment applications from the current system.

In addition, the team has been strengthened considerably. While the BSR will also address the inconsistency amongst their MDTs through various routes, industry itself is also urged to ensure design teams are competent and adopt guidance notes issued by the CLC. A second tranche of guidance notes on staged applications and the process between gateway 2 and gateway 3 are due before Christmas.