The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has welcomed the announcement by the Housing Secretary, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP on expansion of the Building Safety Fund. This included full funding for the removal of unsafe cladding for leaseholders in all residential buildings 18 metres and over (6 storeys) in England; and a finance scheme to provide reassurance for leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres (4 to 6 storeys).

The CLC recently submitted an industry wide response ahead of the Chancellor’s Budget Statement on 3 March 2021, focusing on a small number of key interventions including an increase in the funding for the Building Safety Fund to cover the remediation of all eligible buildings and other matters.

Government and industry continue to work together to ensure the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire does not happen again.  The majority of this work is being led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) through its Building Safety Programme and is structured around four key areas: identification of unsafe buildings, making those buildings safe, identifying system problems, and fixing the system.

The Construction Leadership Council Building Safety workstream is supporting CLC and industry engagement with the Grenfell Inquiry, Building Safety Programme, new regulatory bodies and wider work for the built environment.

The Competence Steering Group (CSG) has assembled a coalition of organisations from across the built environment and fire industries together with organisations representing building owners and managers. The group has produced two reports – Raising the Bar published in August 2019 and Setting the Bar published in October 2020. The work was initiated by the recommendations in Dame Judith Hackitt’s review Building a Safer Future.

In addition, MHCLG has commissioned the National Standards Body, BSI, to develop the National Standards for the overarching competence framework and accompanying Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) standards for the three regulated roles of Principal Designer, Principal Contractor and Building Safety Manager.

Improved product safety is also a key part of building safety reforms. This includes the industry development of a code for construction product information, led by the Construction Products Association’s Marketing Integrity Group. The aim of the code is to have a robust and consistent approach to how construction product information is communicated.

Throughout 2021, the Building Safety workstream will look to share and update the industry via the CLC website on key work and announcements.