Building Safety Act 2022: Digitalisation Roadmap For Compliance

This blog quickly demystifies what you need to know about the Building Safety Act (2022), highlighting who is responsible throughout a building’s lifetime, where it is applicable and what is legally required to keep your organisation compliant.  

Also included is a step-by-step roadmap to deploy a successful digitalisation strategy to ensure compliance with the BSA within 6-weeks.

What is the Building Safety Act 2022?

On 14 June 2017, a tragic fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London. The fire resulted in multiple fatalities and was a catalyst for introducing the most significant building safety legislation in 50 years in England, The Building Safety Act 2022.

Who does the Building Safety Act apply to?  

The BSA applies to every stakeholder along the construction lifecycle. This includes new duty holders who are Accountable Persons (APs) responsible for high-rise buildings (HRBs). This includes:

• Architects
• Building Material Suppliers
• Building Owners
• Contractors
• Developers
• Facilities Management
• Local Authorities

Which buildings does the BSA apply to? 

The BSA has been introduced to enforce improved safety for higher-risk buildings. In England, this includes:

• Buildings at least 18 metres in height or has at least 7 storeys, and
• Contains at least 2 residential units 

Where does the Building Safety Act 2022 Apply?

The BSA is an evolving legislation that is designed to promote safer high-rise residential buildings 18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys. Today, the BSA legislation is enforced within England, while Wales is introducing sections of the BSA to promote building safety within its own jurisdiction. Following the Grenfell fire, Scotland has amended its own fire safety and cladding legislation. While Northern Ireland has also made amendments to its fire safety legislation.

What are the three BSA gateways?

The three gateways have been introduced as key dates for stakeholders to comply with the BSA. Gateway 2 and Gateway 3 are vital for compliance as they require a 'Golden Thread’ of building information to be created, stored and updated throughout the building’s lifecycle.

Let’s look at the key dates and description of what is required at each stage.

Gateway 1 Planning: has been in force since Jan 2023

• Plans must be submitted that include adequate safety controls
• All new buildings that fall under the Act must be approved at planning stage
• Building works cannot start on time and developers will see a delay in ROI

Gateway 2 Pre-construction: has been in force by October 2023

• Gateway 2 is applicable to the pre-construction stage of the construction lifecycle
• Building resources and construction plans must be submitted for approval
• The plans must include the mechanisms that will be used to record build plan alterations and the successful implementation of the approved safety controls
• Building work cannot commence until Gateway 2 has been approved. This has a significant impact on the resources lined up to do the work, in addition to building investors' predictions for return on investment

Gateway 3 Post-construction: October 2023

• Gateway 3 is applicable to post-construction
• Buildings must be approved once construction is complete. This includes a submission of the as-built building
• This is the most difficult Gateway to pass, as to make a submission the builder must have recorded all variations from the approved plans and all of the checks implemented to ensure that the building work was completed correctly
• Gateway 3 has the largest potential impact, as it can result in re-work/additional costs in addition to the impact of delays
  
  

Flowforma Process Automation can provide you with a full audit trail allowing you to clearly show who has done what and when. It’s a tool ideally suited to helping you meet the Gateway 2 and Gateway 3 deadlines.

What is the concept of the Golden Thread?

The BSA introduced the concept of the Golden Thread for construction. The Golden Thread is essentially a digital audit trail of building safety information across the construction lifecycle. It is the duty of the people responsible for a building to put in place and maintain a golden thread of information. Having a tool designed for recording information in a digital format will mean that all stakeholders will have easily accessible, reliable, up-to-date and accurate information. This is a key requirement of the legislation and requires that information is:

• Kept digitally
• Kept securely
• A building's single source of truth
• Available to people who need the information to do a job
• Available when the person needs the information
• Presented in a way that a person can use   
  

How to digitalise a Golden Thread of Information

It is imperative that you source a partner who can help your business meet the Golden Thread requirements but also provide a solution that will adapt to the evolving legislation. There are only three routes for you to take to digitalise and only one route to digitalise successfully in under 6-weeks.

1. Out-of-the-box technologies: the first option is out-of-the-box technologies which are complex to adapt to an evolving environment. They are a one size fits all solution that will not be able to change alongside the evolving nature of the BSA.

2. Outsourced consultants: outsourced consultants are another option for digitalising. But this method is not sustainable. It is a costly temporary fix and does not provide a long-term solution for BSA compliance.

3. Fully customisable no code tool: The only solution that provides the speed, agility and adaptability for the BSA is a fully customisable no code tool like FlowForma Process Automation. This provides a fully adaptable solution that empowers your workforce to digitise in under 6-weeks while adapting to evolving environments and needs with internal and external stakeholders. In short, this option will future-proof your business to the present and any future requirements of the BSA legislation.

Introducing Build Shield, powered by FlowForma

Build Shield, powered by FlowForma, is all-in-one digital tool for gathering, storing and maintaining the entire lifecycle of building information to support Building Safety Act 2022 compliance.

It’s a no code digital process automation tool designed to capture, store and report on a Golden Thread of information. This is the key requirement that your organisation needs to meet in Gateway 2 and Gateway 3.

Build Shield can help your organisation with:

• Digitalising processes such as fire, health and safety, resources, materials and much more
• Integration with common data environments (CDEs) and access to external users such as the HSE, contractors and suppliers
• Rapid digitalisation with processes digitalised in weeks using a no code tool
• Protect against future litigation and reduce risk
• Maintain an audit trail and produce a golden thread of evidence needed to comply with Gateway 2 and Gateway 3

But with the October 2023 deadline looming, can you digitalise in time? Well, yes you can.

How to Digitalise Data In 6-Weeks For Building Safety Act Compliance

One of the many unique selling points of Build Shield is the speed at which you can deploy and use the tool. Build Shield can be installed via SharePoint with the click of a button, which enables users to rapidly kickstart their digitalisation. To meet the requirements of the BSA, FlowForma has also built out a number of out-of-the box templates, which will accelerate your digitalisation even faster. The templates include common digitalisation requirements for the BSA such as fire safety.

See our BSA templates and real-world fire safety process automation in action!

Watch our On-Demand webinar, Building Safety Act 2022: Your 6-Week Digitalisation Roadmap For Compliance and see how simple digitalisation can be for the BSA.

Watch now!

Build Shield we will support your Golden Thread digitalisation and BSA compliance. 

Your BSA compliance timeline will include:

Week 1: Install the FlowForma App for Microsoft 365

Week 1: Accelerated lift-off with FlowForma Specialist help

Week 2: Your 1st process goes live in 2 weeks

Week 2: Train business users for best practice digitalisation

Week 6: Your BSA processes go live

Month 12: You have 50+ processes digitalised

Schedule a Build Shield demo 

As this timeline indicates, it’s not too late to start your digitalisation journey for BSA compliance. Simply schedule your demo of Build Shiled.  Our experts will guide you through every step of the process to successfully digitalisation for BSA compliance. 

Schedule your demo