The Building Safety Act: Our moral and professional duty

The construction industry has a unique opportunity to create real, lasting change to building safety that can become integrated into practices moving forward; however, at present, there is a real risk that this could instead be turned into a tick box exercise, falling short of the purpose of the legislation. If we do not act now, it will cause irreversible damage to the Act and to achieving its objectives.

Inconsistent approaches

Since the introduction of the Act, industry professionals have been tasked with two fundamental responsibilities:

• Translating the legislation into a practical, reliable delivery model that drives genuine compliance.
• Educating clients and project teams on their legal duties and providing practical guidance on how to discharge them

Very rarely does such a clear opportunity present itself for an entire industry to work together to drive improvements in building safety, and more importantly, ensure we prevent future tragedies.

Despite the gravity surrounding why this opportunity is available, there are stark differences in how organisations are approaching compliance, particularly around the Principal Designer / Building Regulations role. This inconsistency, coupled with a lack of detailed guidance from the Building Safety Regulator, has only increased the level of confusion amongst clients and project teams

There are two camps in terms of the approach to compliance, one being a proactive approach, designed to improve building safety and aligned with the spirit of the regulation, which involves investing in specialist teams, providing training, and developing robust management systems to comply with the Act.

Others have taken a different path, chasing high volumes of work without the necessary competence or capacity, offering unsustainably low fees to gain market share, or relying on overstretched individuals to deliver across multiple projects. This approach creates the danger of sending the wrong messages to clients, who will expect a cheap, box-ticking exercise for all projects going forward, setting a dangerous precedent that could cause irreversible damage to the success of the Act.

These approaches carry serious consequences.

Risk of low-impact compliance

On a practical level, clients and design teams are getting two very different experiences.

In a best-case scenario, firms are benefitting from a competent Principal Designer with sufficient time to spend on the project, who advises early on in the process, not just on the legal risks of non-compliance but also genuine project risks, such as programme delays, idle design teams, procurement issues, and supply chain disruption. These Principal Designers are integrated into the design team, working collaboratively to find solutions and drive continual improvement.

At the other end of the spectrum, other clients and project teams are barely seeing their Principal Designer, often because delivery is squeezed by unrealistic fees or resourcing models. The role becomes superficial and there is a lack of clear guidance and education to the client on what good looks like, which tends to lead the design team to revert to tick-box compliance. The client doesn’t know the difference until it’s too late. Over time, this can normalise a low-cost, low-impact model of compliance that risks diluting the purpose of the legislation entirely.

It also puts clients, contractors, and consultants at risk, and rest assured, the first wave of prosecutions will be deliberately severe.

What should be a proactive, safety-led process, in this case, risks becoming a reactive, box-ticking exercise with little long-term value. Once this mindset becomes the industry standard, continual improvement in building safety becomes difficult to achieve, which will be a collective failure.

A collaborative approach is needed to stop this from becoming in any way acceptable. The standards have been set high for a reason, and that must remain front of mind at all times.

Moving forward together

To lift building safety standards to a new level and ensure every step has been taken to avoid another tragedy, we must ensure our delivery and approach to translating the legislation into delivery have the correct level of resource and time emphasis on improving building safety. Ticking a box is not good enough; everyone involved in a project must know absolutely that the design, specification, and build is compliant and accurately delivered.

As industry professionals, we have a duty to educate and guide project teams, providing confidence and assurance through our advice and actions.

If we are stretched too thin or lack the required knowledge when advising clients, we risk damaging the industry and losing this unique opportunity to create real change.

Now is the time for the industry to come together, to raise the bar and set a new standard for building safety for generations to come. We must guide clients towards competent organisations, which reflect the spirit of the regulation and have the right people in place to support duty holders and deliver projects.

Lasting change

This is not about profit, this is about doing the right thing, having the right people in place, with sufficient time to provide support, to create positive, lasting change. The focus needs to remain clearly on quality, reliability and standards.

Principal Designers have a responsibility to promote best practice, drive improvement, and protect clients and project teams. Ensuring competent specialists are in place is essential.

Great projects are true to their brief, answering the question ‘what change do we want to create?’ Let’s make building safety a key element of that shared understanding. We need to act now to make sure that the human devastation that led to this vast industry change is honoured by getting this right - and deliver buildings that are safer for future generations.