Building Safety Bill receives Royal Assent
The Building Safety Bill, which aims to pave the way for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to build a more rigorous and robust regulatory regime for high-rise buildings in England, has received Royal Assent.
The Bill has completed all the parliamentary stages in both Houses and will now become an Act of Parliament.
Peter Baker, Chief Inspector of Buildings says, ‘The Building Safety Act introduces tough new measures for the safety and quality of buildings which will be enforced by the new independent regulator being established in HSE.
‘I call on everyone involved in the design, construction and management of buildings in England to now step up, get ready for the changes, and work together to drive the necessary culture change to protect people and deliver safe and good quality buildings.’
The Engineering Council has also developed a standard for the competence of engineering professionals working on high-risk buildings, based upon the existing, internationally recognised UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment (UK-SPEC) and mapped against the BSI Flex 8670 Standard.
This will enable engineering professionals to demonstrate their competence against an external standard set out by the profession and by BSI.
The Engineering Council is a member of the Competence Steering Group (CSG) established by the Industry Response Group (IRG) to address the need to raise and set the bar on competence of those working in higher-risk buildings, as identified in the Hackitt Review, Building a Safer Future, responding to the Grenfell Tower fire.
The CSG brought together for the first time more than 150 institutions and associations across the full spectrum of construction, built environment, fire safety and building owner/manager sectors, all working towards the common purpose of raising competence to improve life safety.
With the professional engineering institutions (PEIs) it licenses and the cross-industry CSG, the Engineering Council has committed to setting up a Register for competent engineering professionals, to support public trust and safety.
