Part 3: Building Act 1984 Building control authorities and building regulations Section 33: Building regulations Background
The Independent Review made several recommendations for stringent new building control procedures to increase regulatory oversight of the design and construction of higher-risk buildings and of building work subsequently carried out on them. It identified the importance of persons responsible for building safety having access to accurate and up to date information and concluded that a "golden thread" of good quality information would ensure effective building safety management throughout a building’s lifecycle.
	It also recommended that dutyholders across the building’s lifecycle be required to report safety concerns to the Building Safety Regulator as part of a mandatory occurrence reporting regime.
	Section 16 of the Building Act 1984 sets out general provision for the deposit of plans of proposed building work with local authorities. Specific regulations on procedural matters are in Part 3 of the Building Regulations 2010. These provisions are considered to be insufficient to implement the tightened controls needed for higher-risk buildings and so new provisions will be made in regulations for gateways and refurbishment procedures using the powers provided in section 32.
	Building regulations currently also set requirements for notices to be given to local authorities.
	Sections 16 and 17 of the Building Act 1984 allow the Secretary of State to approve persons who can issue a certificate that work complies with building regulations, and as a consequence have protection from formal enforcement action by the local authority (although no persons have been approved under this power).
	Some lower risk building work can be certified as complying with relevant building regulations requirements if the person undertaking the work is a member of a competent person scheme, and a local authority can accept the certificate as evidence of compliance. Schemes are authorised by the Secretary of State and are listed in Schedule 3 of the Building Regulations 2010.
Example: Golden thread of information
An architect has designed a residential tower block that will be 25 metres high. The architect’s plans for the building form part of the information that will be required by the Building Safety Regulator at gateway two. This information will therefore need to be stored in the golden thread and meet the golden thread standards
Example: Mandatory occurrence reporting
During the construction of a residential tower block, a worker identifies compatibility issues between the insulation and intumescent sealant being installed around copper piping on-site. In the event of a fire, the expanding sealant would deform the insulation and potentially compromise compartmentation. The incompatibility was not spotted during design or during standard internal reviews, and the two products have been installed together numerous times on-site. This presents a systemic and significant risk to life safety.
The worker reports this to the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor who immediately inform the Building Safety Regulator that a mandatory occurrence has been identified. The Principal Contractor and Principal Designer then ensure that a full report is submitted to the Building Safety Regulator as soon as is practicable and no later than ten days from the occurrence being identified.
Upon receiving the report, the Building Safety Regulator can use the intelligence within to identify any trends of similar such incidents across the sector and share this and other valuable lessons learned within the report with industry. In this way the report enables the Building Safety Regulator to help professionals across the sector proactively identify and resolve similar issues on their own sites, mitigating previously unknown risks and improving best practices across the built environment. The Building Safety Regulator can also, at its own discretion, use such a report as a basis for further investigative or enforcement action.