Insight from the Building Safety Regulator conference 2024

How did you feel at school when you got your weekly timetable and saw that you had a double-lesson in your favourite subject? It’s a while since I can remember the feeling, but it came back briefly this week.

I attended the second annual Building Safety Regulator conference this week. 

It was important that at least one member of the ALLRES team attended and as I wear multiple hats, leaseholder, director of a resident management company and co-founder of ALLRES; it seemed sensible that the task fell to me.

It was a well organised and well attended event, filling one of the main halls at Birmingham's NEC plus a break-out area – more on that later.

Who was the intended audience?

My sense was that there were three main segments being targeted: 

• Those involved in the construction process 
• A particular focus on the new Building Control bodies
• Those responsible for occupied buildings 

The pre-registration web-site was excellent, it offered easy access to the delegates registered to attend and that was very helpful if you were hoping to network with colleagues or contacts.

The agenda was published well in advance, with an opportunity to register for each elective session. 

Most of the sessions were delivered by HSE specialists. Parts of the presentations were a little repetitive, but that surely is the point. A few clear messages conveyed with regularity. The resources section of the conference website contains all of the presentational materials, so if you missed a session you can get a sense of the topic.

The most interesting session for me, held in the break-out area mentioned earlier, was a double period. The session was held under Chatham House rules, which means that I can’t talk about specific issues raised. I would estimate that there were less than 100 people in the session and perhaps 50% were RMC directors and 50% consultants or property managers.

Important take-aways for resident management company directors

From the perspective of a director of a resident management company, the session made clear some important principles:

• The directors of my RMC would 100% be classed as Accountable Persons under the Building Safety Act.
• That our responsibilities as Accountable Persons are as a corporate body, not with me as an individual (unless I do something dangerous, deliberately and with connivance).
• That we cannot delegate these legal responsibilities to our Property Manager/Managing Agent.
• That the scope of our responsibility cover risks associated with the spread of fire and structural failure.
• That the system is new and it is likely to take 5 years for the Building Safety Regulator to request a Building Safety Case Report for our development, so we have time to get things organised.

Managing the legal responsibilities as an RMC director

There was a lively discussion, based upon real scenarios about the benefits and drawbacks of involving consultants to build the Building Safety Case and report. The presenters from the HSE were at pains to stress that the first step that the RMC directors should is to:

Establish a management system, focussed on spread of fire and structural collapse. The management system must cover:

• Assess risks how / what may happen (see article x)
• Manage building safety risk (see article x1)
• Keep information (see article x2)
• Provide information(see article x3)
• Cooperate and coordinate with others (see article x4)

The management system should be straightforward to build with your Property Manager/Managing Agent. 

In a subsequent sessions it became clear that as of May 2024, the Building Safety Regulator had yet to issue the first Building Assessment Certificate, so anybody consultant that is trying to sell you a ‘Building Safety Case’ is currently over-selling.