Building Safety Conference 2024 - Construction Department's Top 10 Takeaways

Building on the success of our 2023 conference, this year we welcomed around 350 delegates to our Flagship Building Safety Conference which provided a refresher of some of the many building safety regime changes, insight into the new developments over the last 12 months and practical tips from a range of guest speakers.

The Building Safety Act 2022 ("BSA"), along with the considerable amount of secondary legislation produced under it, has made ground-breaking reform to assure the quality and compliance of higher-risk buildings and to put new systems in place so that resident safety is ensured.

Previously, our conference has focused on the “what” of the new legislation, such as: 

• What is an HRB? 
• What are the new dutyholder roles? 
• What is the new building control regime? and
• What is the Golden Thread?

Now that the BSA has been on the statute books for almost two and half years, and regulations bringing into effect changes such as the new building control and dutyholder regimes have been in place for around a year, our 2024 conference looked to examine the practical questions of “how”  to comply. Answering questions such as: 

• How to procure the construction of an HRB? 
• How to determine if you need to make a Gateway application and, if so, how to make it compliant with the requirements? 
• How to produce a compliant Safety Case Report? and
• How to comply with your duties as an Accountable Person?

Our Construction, Engineering and Procurement Team has produced a list of Top 10 Takeaways from the Team's sessions on the day:

1. It is important to properly understand how the definition of ‘building work’  is applied by the regulations (including any exemptions) to determine whether or not the Gateway building control process be required for your planned works. Significant delay and cost can be incurred, as well as the risk of potential enforcement proceedings, where this is misunderstood.
2. A rigorous and methodical approach must be taken to the design of buildings from the earliest stage of development, as well as during the course of construction. While this will front-load a lot of work early on during the project, it will need to be a necessary change in attitude to ensure competence and compliance throughout the project.
3. In order to have your Gateway 2 application accepted by the BSR, it must be compliant with the regulatory requirements. There should be significant emphasis on the narrative explaining why the design is compliant, why it is appropriate, and it must actively demonstrate how the dutyholders have performed their roles properly. Otherwise, it will be rejected, causing delay and increased costs to projects.
4. There has been confusion about the lengths to which Accountable Persons' must go to assess building safety risks. The BSA prescribes that it must be ‘suitable and sufficient’, but the scale will be reflective of the risk profile of the building. The BSR encourages proportionate, pragmatic approaches, focussing on realistic scenarios that actively demonstrate what has been done and what is planned for the future.
5. A Principal Accountable Person's Safety Case Report needs to be more than a “copy-paste” of the Safety Cases produced by the Accountable Persons in the building.  It must provide a succinct, easy to follow summary of the building safety risks, what systems are in place to manage them and any emergencies along with a credible demonstration of why these steps are reasonable in the circumstances.  
6. Collaboration is a core concept for the new building safety regime. There must be a focus on co-operation, co-ordination and communication between all parties on a project. This will assist all parties to achieve a holistically compliant building and product accurate, quality data to allow safe ongoing management.
7. Competency is a fundamental theme throughout the new building safety regime. There is no single mandated way to assess the competency of your designers and contractors, but Devonshires has produced a comprehensive set of questions to assist Clients take all reasonable steps necessary in the circumstances. 
8. Changes will need to be made to every from of contract in relation to the content, and likely also in overall structure. Drafting will need to take into account the building control approval process, the dutyholder regime, change control and the completion certificate process. These changes have also seen the rise of the “two-stage” PCSA route to procurement.
9. The rules governing public procurement are changing; the Procurement Act will go live on 24 February 2025. Any contract to be governed by the existing legislation must be awarded before this date, otherwise it must be competitively procured in accordance with the new Act.
10. The building safety landscape is continuing to evolve; following the Grenfell Phase 2 report there is likely further changes on the horizon. Therefore, it is important to remain at the forefront of the developments.

If you would like any more information about the topics discussed at our conference, have any follow up questions or require any assistance in relation to building safety matters, please refer to our Construction services menu for the appropriate contact.