High Risk Buildings (HRB’s)

With the Building Safety Bill/Regime being crafted as we speak I wanted to look at structures. What should constitute a high risk, and how should they be managed? The Bill will mitigate and correct historical statutory direction along with updating current thinking, but how do we mitigate the operational side?

Clause 19; within the currently proposed document, defines the meaning of high risk buildings. Currently, the thought is HRB’s will relate to mainly fire risk.  

Within the Bill occupied buildings have a different risk factor to new developments. Part of the Bill relates to new build, which should be much easier to control. The risk mitigation of existing occupied buildings is a much more difficult proposition and is giving the most concern to Landlords.

The Bill rightly takes the Grenfell situation and treats everything above eleven meters as an HRB, even more so if it’s clad in an RCM. But how should we see the more typical asset which is low rise but may have other factors which may compromise the structure? On top of the factors which created the fire and spread at Grenfell was the restricted access to fire engines, one that was not there when the building was first constructed. This scenario is not limited to high rise.

What makes a HRB?

In general as far as the new Building Safety Bill is concerned it’s based around performance, with some specific combination of components. The adjoining legislation, like the up-dated Building Regs and Fire Reform Order, will add the detail but from an operational point of view, managers need to look at the practical day-to-day management and the different combination of risks, which on their own are normal factors, but in various combinations could increase the risk of the building.

So, you manage a low-rise four-storey (

Dig a bit deeper, the structure is timber frame with external timber cladding built 30 years ago. The supported tenure section of the building has had small fires but have been contained within the room. The access to the block for the Fire Brigade has been compromised due to recent ASB. Some work has been carried out to the block to provide broadband systems and has potentially compromised the compartmentation of the dwellings. As the manager, how do you feel now?

The point I make is that just looking at obvious high-rise blocks is folly. The structure, its location, age, tenure, use, services/facilities all need to be viewed as a collection of factors, any one potentially compromising the management of risk.

Managing risk

The one biggest issue social Landlords face at this point in time is knowing their assets. Changes in staff and systems over the years have resulted in gaps in knowledge on condition, facilities and quantities. Yes, you keep systems and can provide reports on what, where and when, but do you really know? The Building Safety Bill is bringing this into focus now and my expectation is that there will be a requirement to show what you are doing to mitigate risk, but also to show your knowledge is being tested to confirm it’s accurate and up to date and with no gaps.

Currently, there are mechanisms to report your position but these have been shown to be lacking for various reasons. When the new Regulators publish their reporting structures they will possibly require evidence of regular audits of ‘knowledge’. Including what has been done to mitigate the risk. What system do you have to classify risk and what resources do you have in place to resolve the issue in the most effective time possible?

Quantifying risk  

With my contact with managers in all types of environments, it’s clear that the thing keeping them up at night is not knowing what they have or its history.

A system needs to be developed in your organisation to identify and quantify risk. This can be done by ranking all the possible risks. Creating a range to classify each band then connect different inspection processes to monitor. The monitoring then needs to have a priority where funds and resources can be placed on the remediation away from the normal budgetary constraints.

There are some good systems out there that can monitor housing, compliance, stock condition and manage programmes of work but I have not come across a system yet which will holistically control/monitor social housing and building risks. With the installation of Building Managers and Responsible/Accountable persons the issue of fragmented knowledge will hopefully diminish, but there will be a need for a risk management system taking data from different parts of the business to provide a ‘live’ risk assessment.

This assessment will sit above every operational process and be given the highest priority. It will initially be dynamic due to the nature of new approaches but will settle into a more managed process. Financial liability will be front loaded but this will smooth out over time.

The status reports will carry the highest level and be reported to the Executive and Board with governance recorded and actions taken.

In previous articles we at Cordery Castle point out that there is no need to panic, there is time to put actions and processes in place to achieve a safer outlook. However, time is relentless and you should be in a position to have identified any weaknesses at this point in time.

If you have not started or have any concerns feel free to make contact at Cordery Castle or contact me directly at tim@corderycastle.co.uk.

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