FIA Guide to the UK Fire Safety Industry Legislation Feature
will need to be registered with the
Building Safety Regulator and an
application made for a Building
Assurance Certificate. The ‘Accountable
Person’ must conduct and maintain a
safety case risk assessment for the
building and, further, appoint a building
safety manager to oversee it day-to-day
The building safety manager will
support the ‘Accountable Person’ (ie the
entity or person with ultimate
responsibility for the building under the
new legislation) in the day-to-day
management of the building to ensure
compliance with – and adherence to –
safety standards at all times. They will
also communicate to the landlord’s
Board details of any work that has taken
place on the building, ensuring that the
structure is meeting the regulator’s
requirements. Just as crucially, they’ll
communicate with the building’s
residents such that they have a complete
picture of safety where they live.
The role has a very broad remit. As
such, and in practice, it’s more likely to
be fulfilled by a team or an organisation
rather than a single individual.
Framework specification
A new Government-sponsored PAS is
under production to specify a
framework, setting out the skills,
knowledge, experience and behaviours
that will be required of building safety
managers. It’s intended for use by such
managers, be they single individuals or
nominated individuals. It’s also expected
to be of use to organisations that will
assess the competence and commitment
of building safety managers (including
professional bodies, trade bodies and
those who regulate by statute or facilitate
voluntary self-regulation), national
accreditation authorities, Government
agencies, employers (including those
organisations who end up taking on the
role) and insurers.
The PAS also intends to provide
guidance on the assessment of such
managers. This guidance is for use by
individuals seeking to assess their
existing skills, knowledge, experience
and behavioural traits against the
competence requirements set out in the
PAS itself as well as individuals or
organisations seeking to assess whether
individuals are competent to take on the
role relative to the grade required for the
complexity of the building set to come
under their control.
It's anticipated that this guidance can
be used to assure stakeholders that
building safety managers are assessed by
common and directly comparable
methodology and processes alike.
The Building Safety Bill aims to
ensure there are clearly identified people
responsible for safety during the design,
build and occupation of a high-rise
residential building. The Bill aims to do
this through:
• establishing the aforementioned
Building Safety Regulator to hold to
account those who break the rules
and are not properly managing
building safety risks, including taking
enforcement action where needed
• giving residents more routes to raise
concerns about safety and
mechanisms to ensure their concerns
will be heard and taken seriously
• extending rights to compensation for
sub-standard workmanship and
unacceptable defects
• driving the culture change that’s
necessary across the industry in order
to enable the design and construction
of high-quality and safe homes in the
years ahead
For fire safety measures to improve
and make buildings safer, it’s crucial that
new legislation is not just brought into
law, but it must also be overseen to
ensure that people are in compliance. It’s
clear that the Government is aware of
this assertion, with some amendments
being brought into regulations rather
than guidance documents. The clear
goal is to render the UK’s built
environment a much safer one. •
Will Lloyd is Technical Manager at the
Fire Industry Association
(www.fia.uk.com)
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