Category: Fire Safety

Following consultation, The National Fire Chiefs Council have announced updated guidance on simultaneous evacuation and have introduced a number of key changes.

The guidance sets out measures to support the immediate safety of residents, whilst fully accepting that the principle way to reduce risk is to urgently remediate the non-compliant external wall systems.

The updates to the May guidance are set out below:

  • Advises consultation with residents and leaseholders to explore cost/benefit options.
  • Emphasises the need to consider the installation of common fire alarms where measures are now, or are likely to be in place for the longer term.
  • Provides a clear distinction between waking watch and evacuation management as separate roles.
  • Emphasises that residents can carry out waking watches and/or evacuation management duties so long as they are appropriately trained.

This has significant impact on buildings which are operating a waking watch due to cladding issues.

Today (20th July 2020), the government has published a draft of its long awaited Building Safety Bill which introduces legislation changes that address the issues that contributed to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Following the fire, a review concluded that the whole system of building and managing high-rise homes needed reform so that the safety of residents became a greater priority.

The recommendations from this independent review, led by Dame Judith Hackitt, were accepted by government, and along with the existing Fire Safety Bill, will lay the foundations for what the government is reporting will provide the biggest improvements to building safety in nearly 40 years.

What does the Bill mean for industry?

It will make sure that those responsible for resident safety are accountable for any mistakes and must put them right. The Bill will also establish a new regulator that will enforce these new rules set out in the Bill, and will have three main functions:

1. Oversee the safety and standards of all buildings
2. Directly assure the safety of higher risk buildings
3. Improve the competence of people responsible for managing and overseeing building work

The Building Safety Bill presents a new, more stringent set of rules for high-rise residential buildings. These new rules, set out in the draft Bill, will contain clear guidance for who is responsible for managing the potential risks at the three stages of a building’s life cycle: design, construction and occupation. It will also set out what is required to move onto the next stage in this cycle, enabling transparency of vital information.

Once a new building that falls under the new rules reaches the occupation stage, it will need to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator and apply for a Building Assurance Certificate. The Accountable Person will then need to conduct and maintain a safety case risk assessment for the building and appoint a Building Safety Manager to oversee it day to day.

Additionally, those who are responsible for signing off buildings as safe to live in will also have to follow the new rules and will have to register with the regulator.

What happens next?

Now the draft Bill has been published, it will go through a period of consultation and scrutiny before it’s introduced to Parliament. It will be examined by a Parliamentary committee and the government will also seek feedback from stakeholders, including both industry and residents.

Although difficult to predict, we expect to see more detailed guidance from MHCLG on the role of the Building Safety Manager and details of the Building Safety Case over the next few months.

We’ll be posting more on the Bill both here on our website and on LinkedIn as soon as it’s available so be sure to follow us.

In our previous article on the government’s proposed post-Grenfell fire safety regime for multi-occupied residential buildings that are over 18 metres high, we looked at the role of the accountable person (AP), who will have overall responsibility for the safety of the building once it is occupied.

Among the most crucial duties placed on the AP is the appointment of a building safety manager (BSM) – a new position that is the subject of this article. The BSM will support the AP in fulfilling its duties to manage fire and structural risks and will have the day-to-day task of ensuring that the building is safely managed and maintained.

The AP must nominate either itself or a managing agent or contractor to act as the BSM, although it will in any case need to maintain overall control and supervision of the BSM and satisfy the Building Safety Regulator that the BSM meets the tests for registration. The government is clear, however, that the AP will not, “under any circumstances”, be able to delegate to the BSM responsibility for complying with the building safety certificate and the safety case, or any liability for failing to do so. The BSM will nevertheless be accountable for its performance in complying with the certificate, “unless it can show that failure to comply was the result of obstruction or negligence on the part of the AP”.

In deciding whether to register a BSM, the regulator will need to be satisfied that the BSM has the team, funding, experience, qualifications and competence (see below) to undertake the functions necessary to comply with the certificate. The regulator will consult other “responsible” bodies in reaching its decision – for example, local authorities or professional and trade bodies.

The BSM’s specific functions will include:
ensuring that those employed to maintain, manage and check the building have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience;
maintaining information management systems to facilitate safe management of the building;
maintaining the building’s safety case so that risks are proactively identified and mitigating measures implemented and maintained;

• ensuring that building remediation is undertaken in order to meet the conditions of the building safety certificate;
• ensuring that fire risk assessments for the building are undertaken and reviewed regularly, and that recommendations are implemented in a timely fashion;
• reporting specified “mandatory occurrences” – for example the partial or total failure of emergency fire systems – to the Building Safety Regulator; and
• engaging residents about the safe management of their building, providing them with a route to escalate their concerns.

An industry-led group is developing competencies for the whole of the new regime, including for the BSM. The requirements will be formalised in a suite of national standards. Broadly, they will involve an “understanding of all aspects of building safety and the impact of construction works or in-use activities on the design intent throughout the life cycle, skills of interrogation and the ability to identify major hazards and minimise the risk to safety during operation”.

The government envisages that there might be circumstances in which “there is no one suitable, for the time being” to be the BSM or where the BSM is no longer suitable. In such cases, the Building Safety Regulator would, as a “last resort”, appoint an independent BSM, who would be answerable to the regulator (and not the AP). Concerned to “discourage this from being the default”, the government intends placing a new criminal offence on the AP of not submitting a valid application to register the building with the regulator.

Next: Engaging a building’s occupants.

In the third part of our series on the government’s proposed post-Grenfell fire safety regime for multi-occupied residential buildings in scope including those over 18 metres in height, we look at the proposal for a new dutyholder who will have overall responsibility for the safety of people in the building once it is occupied.

The new “accountable person” (AP) will be the entity or individual with control of the building. The government expects that, “in most cases”, it will be the building owner (ie the freeholder or head lessee) or a management company. The AP will be able to appoint professionals to help it carry out its duties, but it will not be allowed to delegate accountability. The AP may be an individual, partnership or corporate body but, if it is a legal entity rather than a person, its board will still have to name an individual as the AP.

As we saw in our last article, the new regime will have at it heart a “safety case”. The AP will be required to produce the safety case for the Building Safety Regulator, demonstrating that the fire and structural risks to occupants have been reduced to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable. The AP will have to ensure the building complies with any requirements that arise from the safety case and from the building safety certificate, review the safety case every five years (or more frequently if necessary), and have the competence to decide, in discussion with the regulator, about when and how to upgrade the precautions.

The AP must also ensure that a named building safety manager (BSM) is appointed for each building. Responsibility for ensuring that the BSM meets the competency requirements set by the Building Safety Regulator, and is registered with the regulator, also rests with the AP, as does ensuring that the BSM has access to the necessary funding and cooperation. We will examine the role of the BSM in our next article.

In addition, the AP must ensure that all buildings under its control are registered with the Building Safety Regulator. For new residential buildings, registration will be required before the regulator permits occupation. The government is proposing similar requirements for existing buildings, albeit with a transitional period.

The government is also considering placing a duty on the AP (and other dutyholders) to “promote” building safety and the safety of people in and around the building. This would require an AP to demonstrate that it is proactively managing (as a whole) the safety of their buildings, and “not simply taking a reactive approach or ticking boxes”.

It is important to note that the AP will not be able automatically to transfer its accountability under the building safety certificate to a third party, even if it is transferring its interest in the building itself. Instead, the third party would have to apply to the Building Safety Regulator to become the AP. If the regulator agrees that the third party meets the registration requirements, the regulator will transfer the certificate to the new AP, which then becomes additionally responsible for any liabilities of the previous AP that relate to the building.

Next: The building safety manager.

The government has proposed a new building safety regime for multi-occupied residential buildings that are over 18 metres in height. Underpinning the regime would be a requirement for a safety case that the Building Safety Regulator must approve before issuing a building safety certificate.

Duty holders will have to consider the effectiveness of how they manage fire and structural risks throughout a building’s lifecycle (planning, construction, completion, occupation, maintenance, refurbishment, and demolition). The duty, which will pass from the client during construction to an accountable person throughout occupation, is part of “the golden thread of building information” that the government hopes will enable “the person inheriting the risk to understand how the building operates, what layers of protection exist and what needs to be done”. (The accountable person will be the subject of our next briefing but, in short, will be the individual or body that has control of the building – in most cases, the freeholder or head lessee, or a management company.)

Although there are risk assessment duties under the current Fire Safety Order 2005, the government accepts that the existing system lacks “a regulatory driver and mechanism”. Under the proposed regime, the regulator must be satisfied that the safety case has identified the fire and structural hazards and assessed the risks, and that an appropriate safety management system and mitigation is in place. The regulator will be able to require changes to and, if necessary reject, the safety case.

The safety case for a new building will need to include:
– a comprehensive description of the building and the preventive measures and protective systems;
– an understanding of the life-critical risks (for fire and structural safety) and evidence as to how they will be proactively and proportionally managed for safe occupation;
– mandatory occurrence reporting;
– evidence of emergency preparedness, continuous improvement and compliance with legislation, standards and policies;
and
– reference to documents such as a resident engagement strategy, a fire and emergency file, and structural or fire safety inspections.

The accountable person must review the safety case every five years (more frequently should there be reasons to do so). The review must demonstrate how fire and structural risks are managed on an ongoing basis given that safety critical measures will “naturally degrade over time”. The building safety regulator will consider the review as part of its renewal of the building safety registration certificate.

Although a safety case for new buildings will contain much of the information needed to manage a building once it is occupied, the government accepts that the production of a full safety case could be “more complex” for many existing building because the information might be limited, absent or difficult or expensive to obtain. The regulator will therefore be allowed to demand less information for an existing building, subject to a sufficient explanation from the accountable person and evidence of the mitigation that has been put in place.

The government accepts that the evidence in a safety case is “potentially vast”, but believes that the principles of existing management systems may form a reasonable basis for compiling a safety case. Such systems include the Health and Safety Executive’s Managing for health and safety (HSG65). An accountable person may also “think it proportionate to undertake an intrusive survey as a first step to build an accurate record to support the safety case”. This might involve destructive inspection and testing, such as a Type 4 fire risk assessment.
Next: the accountable person.

A new post-Grenfell Tower fire and building safety regime is beginning to take shape. It will represent a marked departure from the existing regime and introduce significant duties for those involved in the management of occupied residential buildings that are at least 18 metres high.

In a series of briefings, Tetra Consulting will explore each of the main elements of the proposed new regime, which is unlikely to change, regardless of which government is returned in the forthcoming General Election. Here, we provide a brief background and overview. In part 2, we will look at the proposed safety case requirement that the government describes as “a fundamental change in approach” and that underpins the “whole building” approach of the new regime.

We will then look at the new position of an “accountable person”, who will be responsible for complying with the safety case and other conditions set in a building safety certificate issued by a new “building safety regulator”. We will also discuss the role of the new “building safety manager”, who will support the accountable person. Thereafter, we will review plans to give the occupants of the buildings a far stronger voice with those responsible for the management of the buildings, and proposals to strengthen the enforcement of the new regime alongside tougher sanctions.

Following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017, in which 72 people lost their lives, the government set up a public inquiry. Chaired by a retired Court of Appeal judge, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the inquiry published the report on phase 1 of its work on 30 October 2019. This looked at what occurred on the night of the fire. Phase two, which will commence hearings in 2020, will focus on the “circumstances and causes” of the fire.

Alongside the public inquiry, the government commissioned an independent review of the Building Regulations and fire safety. This was led by Dame Judith Hackitt, a former chair of the Health and Safety Executive. The review’s final report was published in May 2018 and concluded that the regulatory system for higher-risk residential buildings was “not fit for purpose” and that overlaps between different pieces of legislation made it difficult to ensure sufficient oversight and responsibility for fire safety in the building as a whole.
The government accepted all 53 of Hackitt’s recommendations in December 2018, consulting on their implementation over summer 2019 in a document, Building a safer future: proposal for the reform of the building safety regulatory system, which proposed the new regime for residential buildings of 18 metres or more that this Tetra Consulting series is examining (BaSF, http://bit.ly/2M1CDW7).

The government is currently analysing the responses, alongside those to a parallel call for evidence on whether the principal legislation governing fire safety – the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 – remains fit for purpose given the changes proposed in BaSF.
Next: The new safety case regime.