Building Safety Act 2022

The Building Safety Bill 2019-20 was announced in the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019 following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Its intention was to put in place new and enhanced regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products, and to ensure residents have a stronger voice in the system.

It was expected that the main elements would:

• Create an enhanced safety framework for high-rise residential buildings, taking forward the recommendations of the Hackitt review.
• Provide clearer accountability and stronger duties for those responsible for the safety of high-rise buildings, with clear competence requirements to maintain high standards.
• Give residents a stronger voice in the system and ensure that they fully understand how they can contribute to maintaining safety in their buildings.
• Strengthen enforcement and sanctions to deter non-compliance.
• Develop a new, stronger and clearer framework to provide national oversight of construction products.
• Develop a new system to oversee the whole built environment, with local enforcement agencies and national regulators.
• Require that developers of new build homes belong to a New Homes Ombudsman.

The draft Building Safety Bill was published on 20 July 2020. Ref https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-building-safety-bill

A ‘final’ version of the Bill was published on 5 July 2021. Ref https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-regulator-at-heart-of-building-safety-overhaul

In April 2022, the government announced a series of amendments to the Bill, this included scrapping the role of Building Safety Manager.

On 28 April 2022, the Bill received Royal Assent, becoming law as the Building Safety Act 2022.

However, many of the provisions set out in the Act will not come into force immediately as secondary legislation is required. A transition plan has been published at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/999356/Timeline_for_Transition_Plan.pdf.

This sets out a timetable of 12 to 18 months for different provisions of the Act.

Eddie Tuttle, Director of Policy, External Affairs and Research at CIOB said: "...concerns remain that some of the recent amendments, such as removing the duty to appoint a Building Safety Manager, will lead to a lack of clarity over the right competencies and training for those in the “accountable persons” role and potential inconsistency in the implementation of Building Safety management regimes."

The Building Safety Act is available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/contents/enacted

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