Part 4: Higher-risk buildings Duties relating to building safety risks Section 85: Safety Case Report Background
This is a new provision.
	The Independent Review recommended new responsibilities should be placed on dutyholders to proactively manage risks and work with residents to ensure that the building remains safe throughout its life cycle. It sets out that the dutyholder should do this by undertaking regular safety case reviews of the building, in which they must demonstrate to a regulator that they are reducing and managing building safety risks.
	The new "safety case review" system is therefore the main way that the Building Safety Regulator will hold the Principle Accountable Person/Accountable Persons to account for identifying the hazards and risks in their building, describing how risks are controlled and the safety management system in place, so that building safety risks are reduced and all reasonable steps are taken to prevent major incidents arising from building safety risks, and reduce the impact should an incident occur. Safety case reports will be reviewed by the Building Safety Regulator as part of the Building Assessment Certificate application process.
	Safety case requirements are employed in many high hazard industries. They provide the means by which dutyholders demonstrate to themselves and regulators that they are effectively identifying and managing risks to an acceptable level. In a safety case review system, the dutyholder provides information to the regulator to demonstrate that they have considered what could go wrong, what the worst-case scenarios are, the consequences if those scenarios are realised and to show that they have preventive, protective and reactive measures in place to manage the risks of the scenarios occurring. This is an ongoing process, and the safety case is reviewed often and when a significant change has occurred to ensure the management systems in place remain relevant. .
	As part of their Safety Case report, the Accountable Person will need to set out that the building is safe for occupation (i.e., meets the outcome of clause 84), through the sum of the measures they have in place to support that claim, that decisions have been taken in accordance with the prescribed principles and direct the reader to the evidence that supports that argument.
Overview
In safety case review systems, there are two key terms:
Safety case – the full body of evidence, comprising a comprehensive and structured set of documents. It will often include evidence from test results, detailed safety analysis reports etc. For the purposes of the regulation of higher-risk buildings this may also be referred to as the golden thread information (the concept of golden thread goes further, to include specific digital standards).
Safety Case Report – a summary of the key components derived from the full body of evidence, with appropriate references to supporting evidential documents, which makes the claim of and argument for safety.
It is the Safety Case Report in this regime that is the key document and will be required for all occupied high-rise residential buildings. The Accountable Person will produce a safety case report following an assessment of building safety risks and the taking of reasonable and proportionate steps to ensure those risks are managed on an ongoing basis. The Report should provide a summary of the risk assessment and safety measures across the building and will need to comply with the content requirements set out in secondary legislation. It will need to be submitted to the Building Safety Regulator, most often as part of an application for a Building Assessment Certificate.
Example
The Principal Accountable Person has written their safety case report, submitted it to the Building Safety Regulator and obtained a Building Assessment Certificate. After a period of time, they undertake a scheduled review of their assessment of building safety risks in the building.
This review identifies an issue not previously accounted for, and the Principal Accountable Person concludes that they should introduce an additional safety measure to ensure the risk is controlled. The documentation and data created as part of the revised risk assessment and introduction of reasonable additional safety measures are part of the wider safety case, so the Principal Accountable Person revises the Safety Case Report to ensure it presents an accurate reflection of the building.
They then notify the Building Safety Regulator that they have updated their safety case report. The Building Safety Regulator requests that the report be submitted for review, as the changes made regarding the assessment of building safety risks and steps in place to manage them have changed significantly.