The head of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has warned that the construction industry still has “a long way to go” to change its culture and processes amid “serious failings” in the system for approving higher-risk buildings (HRBs).
Philip White (pictured) told MPs this morning (18 March) that he was still seeing “quite serious failings” in applications for gateway two approvals.
The Building Safety Act, part of the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower blaze that killed 72 people in West London in 2017, requires developers to secure consent at three gateway stages for HRBs: planning, preconstruction and completion.
Under gateway two, the BSR needs to be satisfied that the HRB design meets building regulations before construction may begin. It requires a detailed application to the regulator.
Appearing in front of Parliament’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee today, White said: “We still see quite serious failings in terms of having to reject nearly 70 per cent of building control applications for gateway two, and where nearly 40 per cent of applications have to be invalidated before they are even assessed, which shows the industry can’t get its head around providing the most basic paperwork.”
White said the regulator’s building assessment work had shown “people struggling to explain how they are managing fire and structural safety risks in buildings”.
He also revealed that problems are now extending to the gateway three process, where buildings must be signed off by the BSR after completion before occupation.
He added: “We have been dealing with the gateway three process over the past few weeks, and [for one scheme] in London, a developer thought its building was ready to be occupied but there were serious failings in relation to fire and life-safety matters. That is a building that has been put up since Grenfell, so there are still significant challenges.”
White told the committee that he welcomed the government’s response last month to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry phase two report, published in September. Housing secretary Angela Rayner told the House of Commons in February that she would accept all 58 of the inquiry’s recommendations, including the creation of a single construction regulator.
White said: “It is very good that the report has referenced the role industry has – those who develop, procure, build, maintain, design and manage buildings. Without changing the culture of how they operate in terms of building safety, you can do all you like with a single regulator.
“Change comes through a number of mechanisms – enforcement no doubt has a salutary effect on a sector. To be fair to parts of the industry, they have stepped up and worked closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), the BSR and others to develop guidance and standards and try to change the way things are done. But there is still a long way to go.”
White called for the regulator to be given powers to tackle poor performance by companies in the construction sector, rather than just individual sites.
“If I saw a problem at a building that manifested because middle managers were incompetent, I could serve an improvement notice to get training done,” he said.
“The Building Safety Act only allows us to tackle issues building by building. We can’t tackle the employer. I would like to have the power to serve an improvement notice for the organisation to get its workforce trained. That is a lever to address the underlying problem.
“There are some wrinkles in the legislation and we are informing MHCLG that these are things we’d like to see [changed] at the next opportunity.”
London’s fire commissioner told members of the London Assembly’s Fire Committee earlier this year that tall buildings were still being constructed with major safety risks.
