In a recent parliamentary meeting, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) admitted there have been “teething troubles” with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), including issues around “management oversight”
Held on 5 February 2025, the Work and Pensions Committee meeting heard oral evidence from the HSE regarding its role in regulating workplace safety in Britain. Speaking about the regulator’s current priorities, HSE Chief Executive Sarah Albon said: “We wanted to increase the trust of citizens that their home, the place they live, would be safe and to ensure that it is safe. That was thinking about the work as part of the post-Grenfell work as Building Safety Regulator”.
Notably, the regulator also has a science and research centre based in Buxton that enables it to carry out “very large-scale, experimental work”, including “work on the impact of fire in different contexts” to help inform the BSR.
David Pinto-Duschinsky, MP for Hendon, raised the issue of limited capacity of the HSE in which to roll out a new building safety regime, noting that while the HSE had achieved much in a short space of time, there had been “mixed reviews” from those working in the construction industry, such as concerns over delays, which had “slowed down a range of important processes”.
Responding to this, Albon said: “In the BSR, first I think we should acknowledge that there are definitely teething troubles. I know in your own constituency [Hendon] there have been several major projects that I am sure will have been raised directly with you that have been delayed.”
She added that the setting up of the new regime had been a “learning curve”, with the BSR having now “significantly reduced the amount of time” it was taking to consider Gateway two applications.
“I think we have almost halved the time, so when we started a year ago, it was taking in the region of 30 weeks. We are now down to about 16 weeks to consider an application.”
Albon explained that of the 16 weeks to consider an application, approximately six weeks were spent identifying people from the fire and rescue services and the local authorities to be part of the multidisciplinary team.
“We lose a significant amount of time in trying to get co-regulators to find the right resource to work with us. I should say that is not through any lack of willingness or effort from them. It is around the strain on their own capacity.”
She added: “Also—and I think this is a sign of success in the change that the Government have introduced in the greater rigour—we see a very large proportion of the cases that come in front of us still failing to demonstrate that they meet the new safety standards that are required. I guess if we saw everything just sail through, you would have to ask if this regulatory regime is going to make a difference. Are people going to be safer in their homes as a result of this imposed effort?
Explaining that in the region of 40% of cases are not able to demonstrate that the buildings that they want to build will be fit for the future or safe for people to live in, she agreed that this, “undoubtedly causes concern and cost and delay, but we are doing the right thing by spending longer in the design and the build phase to ensure that people can stay safe in the future”.
While the panel also mentioned the shortage of competent inspectors due to recruitment freezes, which had left the regulator with a “ratio of experienced to inexperienced inspectors that is skewed much more than we are comfortable with”.
Albon also noted “the majority of the people that we have brought into the BSR are new recruits, new to the HSE, so again there was significant management oversight in creating the right kind of culture and bringing those people in. We are still at the very early stages of delivery in the BSR, but I think the team that have been directly doing that have been remarkably successful in bringing in a large new cohort to a brand-new regulatory area and have made a great start in the important work that they are doing post-Grenfell.”
As previously mentioned by the FPA, a Fire Industry Association investigation revealed that, at the time of writing, only 14% of developers plans had been approved by the BSR, with Construction News also reporting that only two out of 130 higher risk building submissions had been given the “green light for construction”.
You can watch the full Committee meeting here.