There were no unsuccessful tenders to win places on the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR’s) higher-risk building framework, Construction News can reveal.
Seven companies won places on the framework in October 2023 with LB Building Control winning an extra place last year, the BSR said.
The framework sees the companies carry out tasks such as building control certification and approved inspection work that the regulator does not have the resources to carry out itself.
A full list of companies awarded places on the framework has never before been published and was made available to CN after a warning by the Information Commissioner’s Office (see box below).
A Freedom of Information response shows Aecom, Arup, Bureau Veritas, the National House Building Council (NHBC), Socotec, Stroma Building Control and WSP landed places on the framework in 2023 for three-and-a-half years, with an option to extend for another three years.
LB Building Control, a subsidiary of Assent BC, was appointed in 2024 for two-and-a-half years, also with an option to extend by three more years.
Their contracts are on a call-off basis so there is no set contract value in place.
The response said that bids were assessed by putting a 60 per cent weighting on quality, 30 per cent on price and 10 per cent on social value.
However, it added that no companies submitted unsuccessful tenders for the work.
The NHBC was among the bodies criticised in phase two of the Grenfell Tower report, which said it failed to ensure its building control function “remained free of commercial pressures”.
“It was unwilling to upset its own customers and the wider construction industry by revealing the scale of the use of combustible insulation in the external walls of high-rise buildings, contrary to the statutory guidance,” it said, concluding there was a conflict between commercial interests and the regulatory function of building control.
One industry figure told CN that the BSR’s higher-risk building system was “failing”.
“Approval times are not within required deadlines and the process is causing delays and obstruction to many schemes, potentially leading to a slowdown of the high-rise residential market and investor looking elsewhere for development,” he said.
The source added that the BSR having to turn to the private sector for its resources showed the “state of building control at present”, adding that the loss of experience and resource in both the public and private sectors, and a shortage of class 3 registered building inspectors (RBIs) were problematic.
“NHBC being directly criticised during the Grenfell Inquiry does not look good on the BSR, but truly it appears their hands are tied due to the lack of available resource,” he said.
“Unless the BSR engages directly with RBIs rather than the organisations they work for, I do not see this changing anytime soon.”
A BSR spokesperson said that reforms of the building control profession since Grenfell have fundamentally changed the way that building control operates and the NHBC has become a registered building control approver, which meant it has been assessed as meeting the required standards.
They added that while the contracted companies provide technical expertise, BSR remains the decision-making body.
“NHBC are the largest building control body in England and, whilst the government is actively considering its relationship with those named in the inquiry, it remains appropriate that the BSR judiciously draws upon the expertise of its inspectors to support its work.
“The government is currently considering the nature of the relationship with those named in the Inquiry and the BSR will reflect the outcomes in all future work. In the meantime, BSR will continue to meet its obligations under the agreed framework terms,” they said.
On delays to the approvals process, they added that 70 per cent of applications are rejected because they do not demonstrate compliance with building regulations.
“We acknowledge there have been delays to processing approvals for building control applications and we are working to put this right,” they added, stating that as of February the processing time for higher-risk buildings under gateway 2 has decreased to 16 weeks on average.
HSE warned over contempt of court
In November, the BSR – part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – declined to answer questions about its procurement process for the framework after CN reported on concerns raised in the industry about its function and transparency.
CN then submitted a Freedom of Information request on the topic – asking for details of the companies appointed, the framework itself, the process that the BSE ran to appoint them and how many unsuccessful tenders there had been.
The HSE did not respond to it within 20 working days, as required by law.
In February, enforcement body the Information Commissioner’s Office contacted the organisation to ask it to respond within 10 working days, but it did not do so.
Last month, the Information Commissioner found the HSE to have breached section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and ordered it to respond within 30 calendar days, warning that a failure to do so risked being treated as contempt of court.
The response was received 10 days later.
In November, a spokesperson for the BSR said: “We are committed to transparency.”
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Ian Weinfass