{"id":840025,"date":"2025-04-09T08:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/hackitt-chaired-building-control-panel-to-issue-recommendations-by-year-end\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T08:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:11:48","slug":"hackitt-chaired-building-control-panel-to-issue-recommendations-by-year-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/hackitt-chaired-building-control-panel-to-issue-recommendations-by-year-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackitt-chaired building control panel \u2018to issue recommendations by year end\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Judith-Hackit-speaking-at-building-safety-forum-2-April-2025-.webp\"<\/p>\n

Judith Hackitt speaking at the Building Safety Forum<\/p>\n

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A newly established panel reviewing the building control system should release its recommendations by the end of this year, its chair has said.<\/p>\n

Dame Judith Hackitt was named last week as chair of the panel<\/a>, established as part of the government\u2019s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

It will assess whether building control can be conducted by individuals or entities with a commercial interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t anticipate it taking us beyond the end of this year to issue our recommendations,\u201d Hackitt told Construction News <\/em>on Thursday (3 April) during the Building Safety Forum 2025 in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cImplementation will likely take much longer than that \u2013 a year or two, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, there are two avenues to obtain building control approval. One is via the public sector Local Authority Building Control (LABC). The other is via contractually appointed private sector building inspectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have this system as a result of changes that were made 20 or more years ago when building control was part-privatised,\u201d said Hackitt.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy questions are \u2013 is that a sustainable model? Do people who are working in building control need to be completely independent and without any commercial interest whatsoever?\u201d<\/p>\n

The review panel will also examine building control staffing levels in the context of the profession\u2019s recruitment and retention issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t come up with an idealistic model that then creates further delays in the [building control] system because there aren\u2019t enough people,\u201d Hackitt said. \u201cSo we have to look at capacity and what\u2019s workable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has overseen the performance of public and private sector building control bodies since 1 October 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the model\u2019s already changed somewhat,\u201d Hackitt said. \u201cThe real question we have to address on this panel is whether that goes far enough \u2013 or whether we need to go even further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BSR required building inspectors to prove their competence last year. However, the regulator had to temporarily change its rules in July after the LABC warned that \u201ca significant number of authorities\u201d would be unable to perform building control.<\/p>\n

Asked whether she sees the need for fundamental changes to the building control delivery model, Hackitt said she was going into the review process \u201cwith an open mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI think we have to measure what has happened since 2018 [when her Building a Safer Future<\/em> report was published]. Have the changes we\u2019ve already made improved things, and what are the effects of those changes on supply and demand [for building control services]? We\u2019ll take a view based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackitt delivered the keynote speech at the 3 April forum, which was hosted by remediation contractor Miller Knight, surveying consultancy TFT, and fire safety consultancy BB7.<\/p>\n

She reiterated her call for a culture shift<\/a> in the construction industry, away from a focus on regulatory compliance towards the proactive pursuit of best practice.<\/p>\n

Hackitt added that the green paper on construction product regulation was \u201cthe most important\u201d aspect of the government\u2019s response to Sir Martin Moore-Bick\u2019s final report into the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the proposal for future legislation that will close the hole in the system that I did not have time to look at in my report [Building a Safer Future<\/em>].<\/p>\n

\u201cGo home and read it,\u201d she said, urging delegates to weigh in during the green paper’s consultation period, which ends on 21 May.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsers of construction products need to get the message to government that you need reform to happen\u201d even if construction product manufacturers raise objections, Hackitt said.<\/p>\n

She concluded: \u201cUnless we get this fixed, we\u2019re still standing on thin ice. We need to have much better product assurance and product testing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Related Article<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Ben Vogel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judith Hackitt speaking at the Building Safety Forum A newly established panel reviewing the building control system should release its recommendations by the end of this year, its chair has said. Dame Judith Hackitt was named last week as chair of the panel, established as part of the government\u2019s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":840026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4299,143098],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-840025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-building","8":"category-hackitt-chaired"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}