MGR Fire and Facilities Consultants Ltd

Category: Building Safety

  • Robert Jenrick MP – The new Secretary of State for Housing’s speech on building safety

    Robert Jenrick MP – The new Secretary of State for Housing’s speech on building safety

    In July 2019, Robert Jenrick MP was appointed Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. During September he delivered a speech updating the House on the government’s progress on building safety.

    In the interest of improving fire safety regulations for high-rise residential buildings, Mr Jenrick and his team are looking at reducing the building height at which sprinklers are required to 18 metres (currently 30 metres). This will increase the number of buildings with sprinklers massively. In addition, they’re looking into improved signage and evacuation alert systems to support effective firefighting.

    The “Building a Safer Future” consultation was completed in July 2019, and draft legislation is expected early in the New Year. Robert Jenrick believes in the need to establish a new building safety regulator to oversee the new regime for buildings.

    However, in the interim a temporary legislator has been set up during autumn 2019 in conjunction with the Health and Safety Executive prior to new legislation.

    In order to increase the speed at which existing buildings across the country can be inspected for building safety, it is intended to create a new protection board. Mr Jenrick expects all high-rise buildings to have been inspected by the time the new building safety regime is in place. This should happen no later than 2021. Residents of these buildings should be informed of the results quickly and any changes and improvements acted upon as soon as possible.

    New building safety funding is being provided

    In addition to the new requirements, £4 million of funding will be provided to ensure improved inspections for high-rise buildings not clad in aluminium composite materials (ACM). An additional £10 million will be provided to help local authorities improve their inspection capabilities and support the work of the aforementioned protection board.

    ACM clad buildings owned by the private sector will be eligible for funding to remove/replace cladding materials with owners now able to formally submit applications for funding (deadline December 2019). Any building owners not taking action during the autumn will face serious consequences if they cannot show exceptional reasons for their inaction. Mr Jenrick will support local authorities in their efforts to enforce this. In his view, “failure to act, particularly now that the funding is provided by the taxpayer, would be frankly disgraceful”.

    The overall tone of the speech being that people’s safety in their homes must be paramount and no one should feel unsafe in their homes.

    You can read the whole speech here.

    How MGR Consultants can help with building safety

    We can advise and guide on all building safety related issues and provide physical solutions where required. Please contact us for a complimentary 30-minute telephone consultation by emailing [email protected] or call us at 0116 260 8630 or 0782 444 2159. You can also leave a message on our Contact Page.

  • Government is urged to prioritise building safety

    Government is urged to prioritise building safety

    Two years after the Grenfell disaster just over a quarter of high-risk high-rise residential buildings have been remediated (42 out of 158). London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton is urging the government to prioritise urgent action as thousands of residents are still living in buildings cladded with flammable materials.

    At present, ‘waking watches’ are put in place in buildings with flammable cladding. These are 24/7 watchmen whose job it is to be alert for any compromise in safety. They are, of course, necessary at present but mustn’t be seen as a long-term alternative to remediation work.

    In addition to removing flammable cladding from existing buildings, installing sprinkler systems into high-rise residential buildings should be commonplace. Unfortunately, developers often ignore the advice of fire and rescue services and choose not to install them in new developments.

    Following on from Dame Judith Hackitt’s review and the ensuing government consultation in June/July 2019, the government is now urged to put legislation in place to make high-rise residential buildings safer to live in.

    Local officials are approaching government to improve building safety

    Throughout this year (2019) open letters have been sent to the government in this respect. The deputy mayor for fire and resilience of London, Fiona Twycross (May 2019), the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (July 2019) as well as leading council figures from around England (March 2019) have urged the government to implement stricter fire regulations.

    These considerations should, of course, not only apply to high-rise residential buildings but any other buildings where vulnerable people are housed such as care homes, schools and sheltered accommodations. In his letter, Sadiq Khan talks about “a specific policy that requires all development proposals to achieve the highest standards of fire safety and it encourages the use of automatic fire suppression systems, such as sprinklers”.

    We live in times of austerity and budget cuts are commonplace but that should not come at the expense of saving lives. People have a right to feel safe in their own homes. This means that spending money on removing dangerous building materials, retrofitting existing buildings with sprinkler systems and ensuring their installation in new builds needs to go to the top of the priority list.

    This blog post is based on the article “LFB urges government to prioritise building safety” by Fire & Security Matters.

    How MGR Consultants can help

    We can advise and guide on all building safety related issues and provide physical solutions where required. Please contact us for a complimentary 30-minute telephone consultation by emailing [email protected] or call us at 0116 260 8630 or 0782 444 2159. You can also leave a message on our Contact Page.

  • An important new role: the Building Safety Regulator

    An important new role: the Building Safety Regulator

    One of the suggestions of the “Building a Safer Future” consultation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is the installation of a Building Safety Regulator. In this article we discuss this new role as well as the importance of the Safety Case.

    The role of the Building Safety Regulator

    The main role of the building safety regulator is to oversee the enforcement of the new, more stringent building safety regulatory regime for buildings within scope. Another function is to oversee the competence of professionals and trades working on buildings as well as building safety and the wider regulatory system as a whole.

    The idea is to achieve this by reinforcement of operating standards and provision of professional guidance, proactive intervention and monitoring as well as enforcement actions in case of non-compliance.

    The intention is that the building safety regulator and dutyholders work towards the same goal: ensuring safety of residents.

    Here are some examples of how this could be achieved:

    • Maintaining a register of all buildings in scope and who the dutyholder(s) are for those buildings
    • Ensuring an effective system is in place for inspecting buildings and building safety information to ensure that dutyholders are complying with the regime throughout the lifetime of the building (using gateways, safety cases and other mechanisms)
    • Ensuring that whistle-blowing, resident concerns and mandatory occurrence reports are effectively collected and acted upon by regulators and industry appropriately
    • Establishing a committee, comprising of industry bodies, independent experts, building owners, and residents to provide cross-discipline peer review, support and challenge functions to drive competence
    • Championing building safety and quality, and the interests of residents, including working with the construction industry to spread best practice and encourage innovation

    building safety regulator

    Another important role of the building safety regulator is to examine safety cases for all building within scope.

    What is a Building Safety Case?

    The Accountable Person (AP) has to make a case to the building safety regulator demonstrating that hazards have been identified, risks assessed and appropriate mitigation put in place.

    Creating a safety case is an evidence-based approach in which the dutyholder identifies, assesses and understands the hazards and risks involved in a building. It describes how risks are controlled and mitigation measures are put in place. This is to reduce those risks as far as is reasonably practicable. The safety case also describes the safety management system in place, including emergency procedures in the event of an incident. The safety case is tailored to each building and is proportionate because the level of detail and amount of information required is determined by the level of risk. It needs to be reviewed every 5 years.

    Of course, a safety case needs to be prepared for existing buildings as well. In this case, slightly less information may be required.

    It is estimated that the preparation of a safety case takes 12 to 24 days.

    This is the final article in our 3-part series about the government consultation on building safety. In part 2 we covered the Building Safety Certificate and the Golden Thread. Part 1 was all about the critical role of the Building Safety Manager.

    How MGR Consultants can help

    We can advise and guide on all building safety related issues and provide physical solutions where required. Please contact us for a complimentary 30-minute telephone consultation by emailing [email protected] or call us at 0116 260 8630 or 0782 444 2159.

  • How the proposed Building Safety Certificate impacts building safety

    How the proposed Building Safety Certificate impacts building safety

    One of the key points of the government’s consultation on a far-reaching building safety reform is the scope of the proposed new regime. It now includes multi-occupied residential buildings of 18 meters and higher (as opposed to previously 30 meters and higher). A Building Safety Certificate must be issued for any high-rise residential building within scope.

    What does the Building Safety Certificate include?

    The Accountable Person (AP) needs to register the building with the Building Safety Regulator and secure a building safety certificate. This document identifies the AP, the building safety manager (BSM) and the obligations and conditions for ensuring the building is safe for residents. It needs to be displayed in a prominent part of the building.

    The registration process will ensure that the AP has sufficient control of the building to safeguard that the obligations of the building safety certificate may be met. In addition, the process ensures that

    • The accountable person is complying with the requirements of the building safety regulatory regime and the obligations attached to the building safety certificate;
    • The building safety manager is competent and suitable to perform the role;
    • The building safety manager is discharging their functions competently and in accordance with the obligations in the building safety certificate.

    There are a variety of conditions that apply to all buildings in scope. Some are mandatory, some are voluntary and there are also special conditions imposed by the building safety regulator under certain circumstances.

    The mandatory conditions will set out the key requirements of the new regime. This includes engaging with and delivering key information to residents as well as maintaining the golden thread of information. In addition, it includes the delivery of the safety case.

    Voluntary conditions would be proposed by the AP as additional conditions under which they will operate to mitigate identified safety risks. These volunteered conditions will be agreed with the building safety regulator.

    Special conditions may be imposed by the building safety regulator and will be specific, measurable and time bound. These could be imposed as a result of an industry-wide issue or because the building safety regulator feels there are specific risks within a building that the accountable person must act on. A special condition can include a requirement which the goes beyond that which accountable person had volunteered to do.

    The duration of the building safety certificate is linked to duration of safety case.

    As mentioned above, one of the mandatory conditions is to maintain the Golden Thread of information.

    What is the Golden Thread of information?

    As part of the proposal, Dame Judith Hackitt talked about a “golden thread” of building information which is created, maintained and held digitally to ensure that the original design intent and any subsequent changes to the building are captured, preserved and used to support safety improvements. The important part here that this promotes openness, transparency and accountability throughout the life cycle of the building. In addition, a key dataset must be kept in a specific format that will enable the building safety regulator to analyse data across all buildings in scope. The golden thread of information and key dataset will enable building safety information to be available to the right people at the right time during design, construction and occupation.

    For new buildings, it includes information collected through gateway points which will feed into the safety case. For existing buildings, it includes information collected during the building safety registration process as well as information required to build and evidence the safety case.

    This article is the second in our series covering the ongoing government consultation on building safety. You can find part 1, all about the critical role of the Building Safety Manager, here. In part 3 we talk about the new role of the Building Safety Regulator and explain the Safety Case.

    How MGR Consultants can help

    We can advise and guide on all building safety related issues and provide physical solutions where required. Please contact us for a complimentary 30minute telephone consultation by calling 0116 260 8630 or 0782 444 2159 or email us at [email protected]

  • The critical role of the Building Safety Manager (BSM)

    The critical role of the Building Safety Manager (BSM)

    The final report of Dame Judith Hackitt on building regulations and fire safety in May 2019 states that a ‘clear and identifiable duty holder’ an accountable person (AP) who is responsible for the safety of the whole building needs to be appointed. This person must in turn nominate a building safety manager (BSM) or declare that they will take on the role themselves.

    What does the role of Building Safety Manager entail?

    A building safety manager works under the supervision of the accountable person. They support them by carrying out the day to day functions of ensuring that the building is safely managed with regards to fire and structural risk. This would include:

    • Ensuring that those employed to maintain and manage the building have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience;
    • Maintaining information management systems to facilitate safe management of the building;
    • Maintaining the safety case for the building so that risks are proactively identified and mitigating measures put in place and maintained;
    • Ensuring that necessary and appropriate building remediation is undertaken to ensure that the conditions set out in the building safety certificate are met;
    • Engaging residents in safe management of their building through a Resident Engagement Strategy that includes routes of escalation for resident concerns;
    • Ensuring that fire risk assessments for the whole building are undertaken and reviewed regularly and any recommendations are undertaken in a timely manner; and
    • Being responsible for reporting mandatory occurrences to the building safety regulator.

    Their role would also entail the promotion of openness, trust and collaboration with residents which is fundamental to keeping buildings safe.

    They would also oversee safety works as well as others employed in management, maintenance or checks of the building. In addition, they’re accountable for the performance in complying with obligations under the building safety certificate unless there is a case of proven negligence or obstruction from the AP.

    If an organisation fulfils the facility management role, they must have nominated an individual within the organisation to be the competent BSM.

    Necessary preconditions for the success of a BSM

    The building safety manager needs access to occupiers’ premises to fulfil their role. The proposal includes the requirement for residents to cooperate with the AP and/or the BSM with regards to fire and structural safety issues and any issues relevant to the abilities of the AP (or their agents) to fulfil their duties. This includes the requirement of residents to provide reasonable access and information regarding works carried on their homes within a reasonable time frame.

    The BSM also needs to have access to all necessary and up-to-date building information. With regards to the ‘Golden Thread’ (a single source of information from design through construction to the occupation of the building), the BSM’s functions are

    • Maintaining information management systems to facilitate the safe management of the building
    • Maintaining the safety case for the building so that risks are proactively identified and mitigating measures put in place and maintained

    It is imperative that the Building Safety Manager has relevant competence, experience and qualifications to undertake functions in compliance with the building safety certificate.

    This is part one of a series of articles covering the ongoing government consultation on building safety. Part 2 covers the Building Safety Certificate and the Golden Thread of Information. In part 3 we talk about the new role of the Building Safety Regulator and explain the Safety Case.

    How MGR Consultants can help

    If you have any questions regarding your building’s fire regulations or health and safety matters, we provide a complimentary 30-minute telephone consultation. You can either call us on 0116 260 8630 or 0782 4442159 or enter your details on our Contact Page and we will get in touch with you.

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MGR are a family run business providing fire safety consulting services across the whole of UK & Ireland, we operate at the forefront of current practice and stay in touch with all relevant regulatory and legislative changes in fire safety.

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