Building Control

The Building Safety Act will help to ensure consistency across the building control profession and drive-up standards. 

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) will independently oversee building control bodies (BCBs) and their professionals.

• The new approach to building control oversight will apply 
  to BCBs in: 
   
• local authorities 
   
• registered building control approvers (RBCAs)
   

It will cover: 

• the performance of BCBs 
   
• the competence of the professionals supporting the delivery of building control functions.

Learn more about the government’s proposals for the oversight of building control.

The Building Safety Act only applies to England. 
 

The strategic context 

HSE wants to set the strategic context for BSR’s oversight of BCBs and bring together the component parts of the new regulatory structure.

The new approach to building control oversight will help BCBs efficiently plan and deliver their functions to consistently high standards.

It intends to draw together different parts of the system by:

• clarifying roles and responsibilities, including those of duty holders, to ensure that buildings are safe and compliant.
• setting out a risk-based approach to building control functions that BCBs and their professionals will be 
  expected to adopt. This will reflect the risk-based approach the BSR will take as the building control authority for high-rise buildings.
•  linking to the code of conduct for registered building inspectors. (RBIs) and professional conduct rules for RBCAs setting 
• Operational Standards Rules (the performance standards) for BCBs key performance indicators (KPIs) data reporting requirements and frequency 
• setting out how BSR will regulate BCBs, and what BCBs can do if they disagree about decisions BSR makes.

 Building Safety Regulator’s role

The Building Safety Act will establish building control as a regulated profession, helping to create a unified profession working to a consistent set of standards.

BSR's role will be to: 

• support, 
• encourage, 
• advise 
• hold BCBs and individual building control professionals to account
  
  BSR will consult on the:
   
• Operational Standards Rules, including key performance indicators and the strategic context for building control oversight, 
   
• code of conduct and competence framework for RBIs, 
   
• professional conduct rules for RBCAs 

Building control bodies and professionals

BSR works closely with public and private building control. 

We assess and monitor the performance of building control bodies. We also provide professional codes of conduct and standards for building inspectors and building control approvers.

BSR keeps a register of all building inspectors who have been assessed to carry out regulated building control activities and have successfully applied to become a registered building inspector.

We also keep a separate register of private sector businesses that carry out building control work. Registered building control approvers must register with BSR by 6 April2024 to continue to operate.This replaces the approved inspector register run byCICAIR.There is guidance for building control bodies and professionals working withBSR.

Monitoring, assurance and enforcement

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) uses a risk-based and intelligence-led approach to assess the performance of building control bodies (BCBs).

BCBs and registered building inspectors (RBIs) may need to: 

• provide regular reports and data returns to BSR fulfil BSR’s information request.
• cooperate with any investigation or auditing activities

Our approach to monitoring and assurance is:

• proportionate
• targeted
• transparent
• consistent

BSR will set out arrangements for the collection of appropriate data.

BCBs will need to have systems and controls in place to ensure the information they identify, store and update is suitable.

The inspection selection criteria explains how we prioritise the inspection of building control bodies.

Enforcement

BSR will have a series of escalating sanctions and enforcement measures to maintain standards and deal with poor performance.

The investigation procedure statement sets out how we’ll conduct investigations into the building control profession. We’ll also publish our findings on the performance of building control bodies.