Will the 'Golden Thread' of Building Safety Information make the difference?

There's a lot of responsibility on the first runner in a relay. In this article we look how the concept of a golden thread of building safety information can be passed seamlessly from duty holder to duty holder - but will that batten get passed on intact, and how will it be maintained in our having to do with it?

Liken a relay to signing off a building design project as 'fully compliant'. Speaking to architects recently, they say it can be a big deal taking up role of 'principle designer'.

So lets take a look at this new arena of 'principal designer', 'principle contractor' and 'accountable person' - all designed to help improve fire safety, protecting life within the buildings we live.

Published on 20 July 2020, the first Draft Building Safety Bill was the Government’s response to the terrible Grenfell fire tragedy. The Bill was designed to prevent such a disaster ever happening again by setting out clearly where responsibilities for building safety lay, and by ensuring there was to be no gaps in safety measures. It also introduced a specific concept of ‘higher-risk’ buildings - now named 'relevant buildings'.

In the Rutland Door Controls webinar "World of Responsibilities Under New Building Safety Act" 31 March 2021, we discussed for the first time the 'golden thread' of building safety information - a complete digital file of compliance that could be passed seamlessly person to person. From principle designer, right through to accountable person.

The 'Golden Thread'

An important take-out from the Draft Bill was the [then] new concept of a ‘golden thread’ of building safety information.

This traceability of information relevant to the safety of a building could be kept together and, whenever personnel changed, passed from outgoing to incoming duty-holder.

Designed to prevent any vital information slipping down cracks between parties, this concept of traceability was welcomed by many in the fire safety industry!

Once the Act was approved, the plan was for the Secretary of State to set regulations as to what information was encompassed, particularly such things as the certifications obtained [what competency meant], potential safety concerns notified and product safety data, all to be recorded and retained throughout the lifetime of a building. It seemed loosely akin to a car’s MOT history, but with much more detail recorded. The information was suggested to be held in digital form.

"Anyone who has paid any attention to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will be able to see how missing small details and not approaching construction products using a systems-based methodology has the potential to snowball, leaving the rest of ‘the thread’ (whether that be design, manufacture, installation, inspection or maintenance), incomplete. The ‘golden thread’ reinforces compliance for all these stages and reduces the risk of construction products forming part of a safety strategy on the basis of just one test or inaccurate information." Neil Harrison, Falcon Panel Products, Technical Director

Passage of the bill from House of Commons through to Royal Assent took many months and much debate and amendments as can be seen on this chart of its 'passage' below.

Now with Royal assent (in April 2022), the bill, now known as the Building Safety Act includes part 5 section 156 titled 'prospective' Amendment of Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

At first when we did our webinar many were confusing the new draft building safety bill with what would replace the RRFSO (Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

However, Lucy Witts of Frankham Risk Management made it clear to us in the Rutland webinar March 2021 that these two Acts, the Building Safety Act (BSA) and new Fire Safety Act 2021 (FSA) are separate acts. Since our webinar the FSA has been ratified and comes into force 23 January 2023.

Where the BSA refers to the FSA in section 156, the act defines topics from risk assessment through to cooperation between accountable persons. Included is a definition of 'assistance with risk assessment' making clear that only a 'competent' person can assist you in assessing fire safety.

It gives information on the 'provision of information' to residents, relevant fire safety matters, provision of information to new responsible person, all of which we take to be included in references to our golden thread of building safety information.

From initial design, through to on-going maintenance of construction products, the act of passing on complete fire safety information is key. Our goal to ensure buildings protect the life within them.

A really exciting part about the golden thread, is apps being developed for surveying purposes. This will mean fire door manufacturer's customers will hopefully sign up to the scheme and when they go to site surveying individual doorsets, the “Golden Thread” journey then begins at survey stage. These apps will record who and when the structural aperture for the doorset was surveyed. This information will then eventually be contained on a QR code label or pin on each doorset.

In my experience with door manufacturers, many surveys are hard to interpret which slows down production of the fire doorsets.

Some manufacturers are developing ERP software systems to interact with their door app. An idea being the survey information generated at the time of survey, will be instantaneously uploaded to a cloud-based database.

As soon as the specification is uploaded, they will then have access to information which can be extracted and imported into the ERP software. This will automate the whole process and revolutionise how door data is processed, making traceability a dream.

Whether we're first runner or last runner in handling fire door safety data, never before has the golden thread of building safety information been at such an important stage.

So, will the golden thread concept be effective? There's every reason it will. Especially as we see every week new digital data usage in the construction sector.

Resources:

https://www.rutlanduk.co.uk/accountable-golden-thread

https://www.rutlanduk.co.uk/webinar-draft-building-safety-bill

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/part/5