The new Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is targeting former police officers to join its team and help bring criminal prosecutions.
The body, which is part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), is currently trying to ramp up its complement of staff and has started advertising on Police Oracle, a news and jobs website for serving and former police officers, for roles including investigations team manager, senior field intelligence officer and disclosure officer.
Two of the ads state that the recruits need to be familiar with the processes of criminal investigation.
The investigations team manager will be “responsible for leading a team of specialist investigators, disclosure and field intelligence officers carrying out a wide range of regulatory investigations and criminal prosecutions”.
A BSR spokesperson told Construction News: “The BSR is recruiting to a wide range of roles and we are seeking people who have the right skill sets, including ex-police officers, for particular vacancies.”
Explaining its role in the adverts, the BSR outlines that its formation followed the Grenfell Tower fire and adds: “We want to serve as a lasting tribute to those who have lost their lives due to poor and substandard structures.
“We will consign these instances to the past by providing oversight of the built environment, setting standards, offering advice to industry and government, and overseeing work to drive increased competence of professions and trades working on buildings.”
Its website states that it will target its enforcement activity “at cases where action is needed” and take a “consistent and proportionate approach”.
The body, formed as part of the Building Safety Act, will become the planning control authority for high-rise and high-risk residential buildings and oversee the safety and standards of all buildings in England.
Contractors will be expected to demonstrate to the BSR that they have carried out checks and balances throughout the construction process to ensure the end-users of buildings will be safe.
The exact nature of its responsibilities are still being shaped by the government, with secondary legislation and guidance set to refine its role further in coming months.
A government-commissioned independent review of construction product testing released last week questioned the creation of two new separate regulators – the BSR as well as a National Regulator for Construction Products.
The review, by former Whitehall construction advisor Paul Morrell and legal expert Anneliese Day, pointed out that issues with construction products – the remit of the regulator for products – may not be apparent until buildings are in use, at which point the responsibility would be the BSR’s.
“This structure certainly does not appear to meet the objective of Dame Judith [Hackitt, in her post-Grenfell review of building safety] in creating a ‘single, streamlined, regulatory route for the provision of building control’,” it says.
In an interview with CN in 2021, BSR head Peter Baker said that the new regime will be similar to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 process that involves thoroughly planning jobs for health and safety risks, and being able to show the HSE that this has been done.
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Ian Weinfass