Building Safety Act Duty Holder Compliance Support

The Building Safety Act (BSA) has introduced significant changes to how safety is managed in building projects, particularly in relation to Duty Holders. These individuals or organisations play a crucial role in ensuring that buildings are safe for use and comply with regulatory standards. At Sweco, our regulatory experts provide class-leading, end-to-end support for all Building Safety Act Duty Holders, drawing on extensive experience across all sectors and levels of complexity.

Sweco is a leading provider of building safety and compliance services, with a dedicated team providing end-to-end solutions. Our experts have extensive experience across all sectors and levels of complexity, and we work in a proactive and collaborative way to ensure your legal obligations are met while adding value to project designs and the build process itself.

Our technical competence, cross-sector experience, industry leading processes and ISO17020 accreditation means we are ideally placed to advise you on existing and upcoming regulatory changes. Our service offering is being developed in line with the Building Safety Act 2022 and principles of the Golden Thread to ensure that you not only meet current regulatory requirements but also that your projects are future-proofed.

Duty Holder Responsibilities

Duty Holder Responsibilities

 

The Building Safety Act, enacted in England on April 28, 2022, has introduced significant changes to how safety is managed in building projects, particularly in relation to Duty Holders. These individuals or organisations play a crucial role in ensuring that buildings are safe for use and comply with regulatory standards.

 

In addition to implementing more rigorous safety protocols, the primary goal of the Act is to increase the accountability of all parties engaged in essential stages of a building’s lifecycle.

 

The Act ensures that these stakeholders are held responsible for the safety of the structure, its occupants, and the surrounding community. This is achieved through the establishment of a new duty holder framework, as recommended in the Hackitt Report — an independent review of building regulations and fire safety led by Dame Judith Hackitt, which was initiated in response to the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy.

 

Duty Holder Responsibilities

  • Safety Management: Duty holders must establish and maintain effective safety management systems at all stages of the building lifecycle, ensuring compliance with the Building Safety Act.
  • Communication and Coordination: Effective communication among all duty holders is vital. They must coordinate efforts to manage risks and ensure that everyone involved understands their responsibilities and the safety measures in place.
  • Risk Assessment: Duty holders are required to carry out regular risk assessments to identify potential hazards and implement appropriate mitigation strategies.
  • Documentation: Maintaining accurate documentation is crucial. Duty holders must keep records of safety assessments, safety management systems, and compliance activities to demonstrate adherence to the regulations.
  • Continuous Improvement: Staying informed about best practices, new regulations, and evolving safety standards is essential. Duty holders should engage in continuous learning and improvement to enhance building safety.

Key Duty Holders

Key Duty Holders

 

‘Duty Holders’ (DH) includes everyone from those commissioning construction projects to the various companies and individuals involved in the design, construction, and occupation of buildings. All duty holders must proven competency in terms of the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours needed to fulfil DH roles effectively. Key Duty Holders are identified as:

 

  1. Client: The client is responsible for ensuring that a competent and accountable team is appointed to manage health and safety throughout the project. They must ensure that the duty holders understand their roles and responsibilities.
  2. Principal Designer: The principal designer is tasked with planning, managing, and monitoring the pre-construction phase. Their role includes ensuring that health and safety considerations are integrated into the design and that all designers comply with their duties.
  3. Principal Contractor: This role involves managing the construction phase of the project. The principal contractor must ensure that the work is carried out safely and in compliance with regulations, including coordinating health and safety measures across all contractors.
  4. Designers: Designers must consider the implications of their designs on the safety and health of construction workers and future occupants. They are required to eliminate risks through design and communicate safety information to the principal designer.
  5. Contractors: All contractors must follow safety protocols and ensure their work contributes to the overall safety of the building. They are accountable for their actions on-site and must adhere to the health and safety plans established by the principal contractor.

Our core Duty Holder compliance services

As a surveyor-led team, we can offer Building Safety Act Duty Holder advisory, consultancy and site monitoring expertise through RIBA Stages 1-7, including:

  • Client advisory services
  • Principal Designer advisory services
  • Principal Contractor advisory services
  • Building Safety Regulator Gateway 1-3 consultancy
  • Façade compliance consultancy
  • PAS9980 assessment
  • Specialist cladding compliance review/monitoring
  • Building Regulation/Golden Thread compliance monitoring
  • Building Regulation compliance assessments
  • Building Regulations compliance appraisals (Parts A to T)
  • Training & CPD provision

More about our BSA Duty Holder services

Client Advisor

We provide a service to assist the client in fulfilling their role as the main duty holder by periodically reviewing the required arrangements to plan, manage and monitor the project to determine whether it is/can be built to be compliant with the relevant requirements.

Our service will provide the client with the appropriate knowledge to sign their required declaration at Building Control Sign off stage.

As part of these works, we will provide processes to enable the appointment of a competent Principal Designer and a Principal Contractor and review and comment on the competence assessment strategy provided by the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor through all appointed RIBA stages.

We can also assist with the requirement to identify whether proposed work is higher-risk building work, and we can undertake reviews/site surveys of existing buildings to determine if sections of a higher-risk building can be classed as dependant during occupation where requested.

Principal Designer Advisor

We provide a service to assist the appointed Principal Designer with their duties to plan, manage and monitor a project so that they are able to ensure that the design work meets all relevant requirements.

Our service will provide the Principal Designer with appropriate knowledge to sign their required declaration at Building Control Sign off stage.

We will provide templates and a tracking document for the assessment of the competence of all designers, and we can co-ordinate this with the design team to enable the Principal Designer to fulfil their duties in managing the appointment of competent designers and sub-designers.

We provide support and advice on Building Regulation compliance to the design team and design consultants throughout appointed stages and can attend workshops at an agreed frequency.

We can assist the Principal Designer with compliance queries raised by their Building Control Approver and any queries raised by the Principal Contractor once the relevant information has been shared.

Principal Contractor Advisor

We can provide a service to assist the appointed Principal Contractor with their duties to plan, manage and monitor a project during the construction phase providing advice on compliance with relevant requirements where required.

Our service will provide the Principal Contractor with the appropriate knowledge to sign their required declaration at Building Control Sign off stage.

We will provide templates and a tracking document for the assessment of the competence of all contractors, to enable the Principal Contractor to fulfil their duties in managing the appointment of competent contractors and sub-contractors.

We provide support and advice on Building Regulation compliance to the contractors throughout appointed stages and can carry out inspections of the work at an agreed frequency.

We can assist the Principal Contractor with compliance queries raised by their Building Control Approver and any co-ordinate required design changes with the Principal Designer to ensure design changes are fully monitored.

Building Safety Regulator Gateway 1-3 Consultancy Services

Where proposed works are to create or are classed as work with a higher-risk building, we can provide support and advice on Building Regulation compliance to the Principal Designer and throughout appointed stages of design both prior to Gateway 1 submission and in preparation for the Gateway 2 application.

We can provide assistance through RIBA Stages 1- 4 by providing an assessment of the design and communicate any observations that we consider to be a non-compliance with the Building Regulations.

We can maintain appropriate records of the design assessment process via a Building Control tracking document, and once this is completed, we can provide a Building Regulations compliance statement to demonstration of your pathway to compliance with all relevant Regulations.

We can provide templates and process guidance documents to Duty Holders to enable them to fulfil their duties in appointing competent persons and we can collate the responses into one competency declaration document for duty holder review and signing in preparation for submission.

We will create the Fire and Emergency File for the scope of works being carried out to enable the Principal Designer/Principal Contractor to populate and maintain during construction.

In coordination with the Principal Designer, we will start the construction control plan for input and completion by the Principal Contractor.

We will provide templates and process guidance for the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor to populate and manage the Change Control process.

We will provide templates and process guidance for the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor to populate and manage the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting process.

We can provide support and advice together with an overview of the documentation completed by the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor prior to Gateway 3 submission.

Façade Compliance Consultancy

Our specialist façade team can provide support and advice on compliance matters relating to new and replacement façade systems, throughout the design stage of your project. We can provide attendance at design team workshops and an assessment of drawing packages and product test information.

We also maintain appropriate records of the design assessment process for submission to your Building Control Approver or your Gateway 2 submission to the Building Safety Regulator where applicable.

PAS 9980 Fire Appraisal of the External Wall

To allow us to establish the overall fire performance of an existing external wall we can undertake a Basic Level external wall fire appraisal as per clause 8 in PAS 9980.

Prior to the fire appraisal our fire safety team will agree the location of intrusive surveys and undertake inspection of the exposed external wall build up (exposing works to be undertaken by others).

Once the build-up of the external wall is known, we will produce the fire risk assessment in accordance with the guidance in PAS 9980.

The Sweco Duty Holder team are class leading Building Safety Act consultants, specialising in both HRB’s and non HRB’s. In response to client requirements, we have developed bespoke support services for the duty holders i.e. the Client, Principal Designers and Principal Contractors. The team have been focusing on advice to ensure duty holders can provide compliance declarations to Building Control Approvers as well as preparing the required documentation for Gateway 2/3 Submissions to the Building Safety Regulator. As an early starter into this market, we have the knowledge to support our clients in this evolving environment.

Peter Louis Head of Building Safety at Sweco UK

 

Building Regulation Monitoring

We can provide monitoring to assure the project is being built to comply with the UK Building Regulations and other relevant legislation. Sweco Building Standards team includes a leading Building Control unit – with the highest number of Class 3 RBI’s in the UK – who have vast experience of technically complex projects.

This service is available from RIBA Stage 1-7, this service can be flexible as we can focus on a bespoke suite of UK regulations or specialist section of the design.

We will provide regular reporting to the client/design team/principal designer/ principal contractor throughout each design stage along with end of stage compliance statements.

Training & CPD provision

We offer support with a selection of in person or online training sessions to our clients to enable you to fully understand your duties in the new regime of the Building Safety Act and be informed with new and upcoming changes to the Building Regulations. Please enquire if you are interested in attending one of our famous breakfast events or if you would like a bespoke CPD session arranged for your company.

Peter Louis

Head of Building Safety

Lorraine Kawka

Duty Holder Support Director