The Building Safety Act 2022 came into force this week (28th June 2022) as one of the main regulatory steps introduced to improve safety in the construction industry after the Grenfell disaster.
The Act will give more protection to leaseholders who were potentially seeing bills for covering costs of removing unsafe cladding from their building sent their way. Freeholders – those who own the building – will be required to fund essential repairs and many homebuilders have already agreed to fix life-critical fire-safety defects on buildings over 11 metres where they have been involved in refurbishments as far back as 30 years.
The Government will also provide indemnity for building risk safety assessors to “restore a proportionate, common-sense approach” to building safety.
A National Regulator for Construction Products will implement stronger standards on construction manufacturers in the UK. Part of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, this new regulator will conduct vital market surveillance to spot and remove unsafe materials faster, as well as confront poor practice by taking action against those that break the rules.
A new Building Safety Regulator – overseen by the Health & Safety Executive – will enforce a new, more stringent regulatory regime on the safety and performance of high-rise buildings in scope, in England. It will also consult and respond to safety concerns raised by residents through a new Residents’ Panel.
As part of the Building Safety Regulator’s role, an Industry Competence Committee will be formed to consider the outcomes of the 11 occupational groups established as part of the industry’s response to Grenfell. Working Group 2 for Installers is one of these in which the JIB have been working to help raise the bar on occupational standards.
WG2’s objective is to develop a competence framework for those involved in the installation and maintenance of fire safety and other safety critical systems for higher-risk buildings. They produced these five recommendations: