Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to evaluate the (a) effectiveness and (b) cost efficiency of the Building Safety Manager role.

The Building Safety Manager role is considered critical in supporting Accountable Persons to ensure fire and structural safety is delivered and maintained.

To ensure a robust and consistent approach to assuring competence, we are sponsoring the British Standards Institution to create a suite of national competence standards for higher risk buildings. This will include the competence framework for the Building Safety Manager and other key roles.

The Principal Accountable Person will be responsible for appointing, and entering into a contract with, the Building Safety Manager. They will need to agree the extent of the role and must be satisfied in the Building Safety Manager’s capability to deliver it, this will provide an incentive for the Principal Accountable Person to ensure the role is delivered in an effective and cost efficient way. Where an individual or organisation is appointed as the Building Safety Manager, we expect professional residential management agents to supply much of the demand. This is in line with the vision set out by Dame Judith Hackitt.

The Building Safety Bill contains a requirement to review the legislation at least every 5 years, including the effectiveness of the Building Safety Regulator and the regulatory system for building safety.