Combustible cladding escapes ban in Hackitt Report

Dame Judith Hackitt has stopped short of banning combustible insulation and cladding that burned on Grenfell Tower in her final review.

Architects, building firms and Grenfell survivors had backed a ban on using combustible materials in construction, but the Hackitt Review has favoured radical rethink of systems.

At its heart is a CDM-style overhaul on the safety of building where clients, designers, contractor and owner are all held responsible for fire safety.

The building team and owners would be held to account by a new Joint Competent Authority made up of Local Authority Building Standards, fire and rescue authorities and the Health and Safety Executive.

This would oversee and police better management of safety risks in these buildings.

She also cals for a more effective testing regimes with clearer labelling and product traceability.

This would including a periodic review process of test methods and the range of standards in order to drive continuous improvement and higher performance and encourage innovative product and system design under better quality control.

This regime would be underpinned by a more effective ‘market surveillance system’ operating at a national level.

To tackle poor procurement practices to drive the right behaviours Dame Judith calls for high-safety, low-risk options to be prioritised and full-life cycle cost to considered when a building is procured.

Her report sets out more than 50 recommendations for government for a more robust regulatory system.

Hackitt recommendations

New regulatory framework

• A new regulatory framework focused, in the first instance, on multi-occupancy higher risk residential buildings (HRRBs) that are 10 storeys or more in height;

• A new Joint Competent Authority (JCA) comprising Local Authority Building Standards, fire and rescue authorities and the Health and Safety Executive to oversee better management of safety risks in these buildings (through safety cases) across their entire life cycle;

• A mandatory incident reporting mechanism for dutyholders with concerns about the safety of a HRRB. Improving the focus on building safety during the design, construction and refurbishment phases (set out in Chapter 2) through:

• A set of rigorous and demanding dutyholder roles and responsibilities to ensure a stronger focus on building safety. These roles and responsibilities will broadly align with those set out in the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015;

• A series of robust gateway points to strengthen regulatory oversight that will require dutyholders to show to the JCA that their plans are detailed and robust; that their understanding and management of building safety is appropriate; and that they can properly account for the safety of the completed building in order to gain permission to move onto the next phase of work and, in due course, allow their building to be occupied;

• A stronger change control process that will require robust record-keeping by the dutyholder of all changes made to the detailed plans previously signed off by the JCA. More significant changes will require permission from the JCA to proceed;

• A single, more streamlined, regulatory route to oversee building standards as part of the JCA to ensure that regulatory oversight of these buildings is independent from clients, designers and contractors and that enforcement can and does take place where that is necessary. Oversight of HRRBs will only be provided through Local Authority Building Standards4 as part of the JCA, with Approved Inspectors available to expand local authority capacity/expertise or to newly provide accredited verification and consultancy services to dutyholders; and

• More rigorous enforcement powers. A wider and more flexible range of powers will be created to focus incentives on the creation of reliably safe buildings from the outset. This also means more serious penalties for those who choose to game the system and place residents at risk. Improving the focus on building safety during the occupation phase (set out in Chapter 3) through:

• A clear and identifiable dutyholder with responsibility for building safety of the whole building. The dutyholder during occupation and maintenance should maintain the fire and structural safety of the whole building, and identify and make improvements where reasonable and practicable;

• A requirement on the dutyholder to present a safety case to the JCA at regular intervals to check that building safety risks are being managed so far as is reasonably practicable;

• Clearer rights and obligations for residents to maintain the fire safety of individual dwellings, working in partnership with the dutyholder. This will include a combination of transparency of information and an expectation that residents support the dutyholder to manage the risk across the whole building ; and

• A regulator for the whole of the building (the JCA) in relation to fire and structural safety in occupation who can take a proactive, holistic view of building safety and hold dutyholders to account with robust sanctions where necessary.

from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2018/05/17/combustible-cladding-escapes-ban-in-hackitt-report/

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