Building Safety Regulator Innovation Unit BSR IU

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) Innovation Unit (IU) was established in August 2025 to address significant delays, a backlog of applications and mounting criticism of its performance both by applicants and the industry as well as government and committee level. The newly established unit a dedicated team within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) that focusses on accelerating the approval process for new-build applications for high-risk buildings. The aim is that by using a centralised, in-house multi-disciplinary team model and new processes, the Innovation Unit will process applications more efficiently, with results in september initially showing it meeting or exceeding a 12-week target.

The key functions and goals of the new unit are to: Expedite approvals, fast-tracking building control approval for new high-risk buildings. Address application backlogs, tackling the large volume of historic applications that had been processed under previous, less effective models. Improve efficiency, utilising a new operating model with dedicated, in-house teams and specialised suppliers to improve processing times. Demonstrate the new model, serving as a proof of concept for how directly managing and assessing applications internally can increase efficiency and help BSR manage its resources more precisely. Ensure building safety, unit must continue to ensure that high-quality, safe buildings are being approved, with a focus on meeting building regulations compliance.

At the beginning of October 2025 the BSR described the progress of the new unit stating that:

"The newly established Innovation Unit (IU), a dedicated centralised resource is now managing 27 new build applications (6,192 housing units). The IU is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA) for processing applications.

Average working days for key milestones are also currently performing better than targets. A new batching process was also launched during September, acknowledging that the original Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) model was not effective for managing the volume of cases. This new pilot process scales capacity by bundling applications to specialised engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment. The first mixed-category bundle of 26 cases was dispatched on 30 September.

Aside from recent changes, BSR’s priority over the remainder of the year is resolving 91 historic new build applications (which contain around 22,000 new housing units) submitted under the previous model. BSR’s team is applying a bespoke plan to address individual ‘blockers’ within these cases, projecting the majority of historic cases will be closed by 31 December, with a final three expected to close in January 2026."

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