POLICY | HYWEL DAVIES Significant revisions to Building Safety Bill As CIBSE Journal was going to press, the government introduced a further package of amendments to the bill currently making its way through parliament. Hywel Davies explores what these changes mean A DR HYWEL DAVIES is technical director at CIBSE www.cibse.org s you read this, the Building Safety Bill should have completed its Report stage in the House of Lords and be ready for third reading, before going back significantly changed to the House of Commons. The target will be to get the bill to Royal Assent before the end of the current parliamentary session at the end of April. During passage through the Upper House, which, in the UK parliament, is the revising chamber, the bill has been revised significantly. Following the socalled Valentines Amendments on 14 February, further amendments have been made to reduce the demands on leaseholders and cap what they might have to pay to remedy historic defects. These are very important changes, although they have limited impact on building services engineers. Of greater impact for many Journal readers is the removal from the bill of the Building Safety Manager (BSM) dutyholder role. This role was proposed by Dame Judith Hackitt in her independent review, to support the accountable person in the day-to-day management of a building. There was growing concern that this provision, along with the Building Safety Charge also now removed could have created significant costs for residents in buildings more than 18 metres in height or with more than seven storeys. The fear was that this could become a means for managing agents and their client contractors to generate work and fees fears further fuelled by reports of managing agents already raising service charge demands for BSM costs before the bill is law. Residents groups have welcomed the removal of the BSM and Building Safety Charge, so what does it mean in practice? The changes remove the specific dutyholder role and requirement on the accountable person to have a BSM for every high-rise building, but they do not remove the requirements for the accountable person to manage the safety of the building and its residents. The various duties of the BSM, set out in Part 4 of the bill in particular, clauses 87-94, describing what the accountable person must have done still need to be undertaken. Now, however, the accountable person The changes do not remove the requirements for the accountable person to manage the safety of the building and its residents 12 April 2022 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Apr 22 pp12-13 Hywel.indd 12 25/03/2022 17:32