What the Act asks
Each accountable person must assess the building safety risks for the parts of the building they are responsible for, and take all reasonable steps to prevent a major incident and to limit its severity if one happens. Building safety risks are the spread of fire and structural failure.
The principal accountable person must prepare a safety case report: a written case that the risks have been assessed and that all reasonable steps are being taken to manage them. It must be kept under review and revised when anything material changes.
When the regulator asks
The Building Safety Regulator calls each registered building in for a building assessment certificate. The principal accountable person then applies and gives the safety case report with the application. The report has to be ready before the call comes, not written in answer to it.
What goes in it
There is no fixed template in law, but the regulator’s guidance expects a report a reader can follow from the building to the evidence:
- 1A description of the building, its use, its construction and its fire safety strategy.
- 2The major hazards, how a fire could spread or the structure could fail, and the barriers that prevent or limit each one.
- 3How those barriers are inspected, maintained and kept working, and by whom.
- 4The evidence behind each claim: inspections, certificates, surveys and records.
- 5How the report is kept current, and how residents and others can raise safety concerns.