FREE WEBINAR – Building Regulations Contractor Competency

As you may be aware, the Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023 (“the Amendment Regulations”) came into force on 1 October 2023. The Amendment Regulations introduced new sections into the 2010 Regulations. Significantly, the new Part 2A which contains the new duty holder positions and duties.

Within Part 2A of the 2010 Regulations, Clients must make suitable arrangements for planning, managing and monitoring projects to ensure compliance with all relevant requirements of the 2010 Regulations. One of the Client duties is to appoint a Principal Designer and Principal Contractor if there is to be more than one contractor on a project.

While using the same phrasing as the Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015 (“CDM”), the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor roles under the 2010 Regulations are separate and distinct. A Principal Designer will have control over all design work and must plan and manage the design of all designers to ensure compliance with the relevant requirements of the 2010 Regulations. Similarly, the Principal Contractor will have control over all design work and must plan and manage the building work undertaken by all contractors to ensure compliance with the relevant requirements of the 2010 Regulations.

Designers and Contractors, which are not principals, are also under a comparable duty to ensure that their own work is compliant and to co-operate with all other stakeholders to ensure compliance in design and building work.

Accordingly, the Client of a project has a duty placed upon them to ensure that everyone connected with a project is suitably qualified by having the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours necessary or the organisational capability to carry out their portion of the work and their assigned role in accordance with the 2010 Regulations; that way it is ensured that the final product is a safe, compliant building where occupants can properly manage building safety risks. Failure to do so will be a breach of the 2010 Regulations.

 Principal Designers and Principal Contractors also have specific duties under the Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023 when the work relates to higher-risk buildings (i.e., building with 7 or more storeys or over 18m in height). These include setting up and operating a mandatory occurrence reporting system which adequately records and reports building safety occurrences, undertaking inspections of the site or design at appropriate frequencies to identify safety occurrences and the provision of compliance declarations regarding the compliance of design or building work with the 2010 Regulations.

As a result, wherever you would be providing a design or building services, Clients will be required to assess your competence to provide those services before any work can be carried out. This will be of particular importance when the work relates to a higher-risk building, as it is necessary for Clients to evidence the steps taken to assess competence during the building control approval process.

Without this evidence of assurance work cannot proceed.

As this emerging legislation is still being analysed and digested by those that it relates to; to assist and provide some additional clarity, we are very happy to announce that we will be running a FREE webinar, in conjunction with Devonshires, covering all aspects of contractor competency assurance which will take place on 1 May, from 10.00am to 12:00pm.

You can attend the webinar by using the link below:

Join the meeting now

We strongly encourage as many people as possible to attend this informative webinar, even if you feel these changes are not applicable to you. The webinar will be informative for all who work in our sector. There are no limitations on numbers so please do share this session with colleagues if appropriate.