Debate on the performance of the Building Safety Regulator

Context

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) was introduced under the Building Safety Act 2022. It is an independent body created by government in response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. The BSR is part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Building regulations and safety are devolved matters. This briefing focuses on England.

The Library briefing on Building regulations and safety (July 2024) has information on building regulations, the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Building Safety Regulator.

The role of the Building Safety Regulator

The BSR is responsible for approving building work on buildings 18 or more metres high (or seven or more storeys) which have two or more residential units; or are a hospital or care home. These are referred to as higher-risk buildings in the Building Safety Act 2022.

Government guidance on building control approval for higher risk buildings (March 205) explains that a higher-risk building with at least 2 residential units must be registered with BSR before people live there.

The purpose of the BSR is to:

• Regulate higher risk buildings

• Raise safety standards of all buildings

• Help professionals in design, construction, and building control to improve their competence.

The BSR also has a legal responsibility to consult with residents through a residents panel, to help give residents confidence in the safety and standards of their building.

Under the Building Safety Act 2022:

• Developers need to obtain approval from the BSR to build new higher-risk buildings and make changes to existing higher-risk buildings.

• Higher-risk buildings must have an ‘accountable person’ who must assess and manage building safety risks (which are risks to people’s safety from the spread of fire or if a building were to collapse). The BSR will check whether the accountable person complies with their duties.

The BSR, along with local authorities, has enforcement powers to require developers to fix non-compliant work. It can also pursue prosecution against people who violate building regulations.

The BSR is not responsible for approving works on buildings below 18 metres, or seven storeys. Approval will be carried out by a registered building control approver instead. This is either a local authority or private building control professional.

Private building control professionals must register as building control approvers with the BSR.

Performance of the Building Safety Regulator

The BSR operates using the following documents:

• The Building Safety Regulator strategic plan which sets out the BSR’s priorities and main activities.

• The Building Safety Regulator Enforcement Policy Statement which provides details of the BSR’s approach to inspection and enforcement.

Once an application for a higher risk building has been validated by the BSR, government guidance on building control approval for higher risk buildings (March 2025) says:

Unless an extension is agreed, BSR will take up to:

• 12 weeks to assess applications for new higher-risk buildings

• 8 weeks to assess applications for existing higher-risk buildings

The time it takes BSR to assess your application will depend on the quality of the application and the complexity of the work.

Works on ‘higher-risk’ high-rise buildings can only commence after the BSR has given building control approval on the design and construction plans, a stage known as ‘Gateway 2’. The buildings can only be occupied after the BSR has checked that the finished building work is compliant with the approved plans – this stage is known as ‘Gateway 3’. Further detail on the stages is published by the BSR.

The Centre for Cities think tank published a report on “bottlenecks” in the housing supply system, which identified the BSR as a source of delays (see section 5, pp.20-23). It reported bottlenecks at ‘Gateway 2’ and ‘Gateway 3’. The report found was partly due to the quality of applications but also due to procedural matters within the BSR.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee held an inquiry on the capacity of the construction sector in March 2025. The Committee heard from Mark Reynolds, Co-Chair of the Construction Leadership Council, who reported that in his experience approval from the BSR “is taking 24 to 28 weeks […] and some are taking up to 40 to 48 weeks”.

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee also held a short inquiry into Grenfell and Building Safety, concluding with a letter to government in May 2025. The letter included concerns over delays in BSR approval.

The government introduced reforms to the BSR to accelerate housebuilding at the end of June 2025.

The government published building control application data for the BSR in October 2025. This is a regular quarterly performance update.

The International Fire and Safety Journal has summarised the data on new build applications as follows:

BSR is currently progressing 152 live new build applications, representing 33,670 housing units across England.

An additional, 253 live remediation applications are also being processed, covering an estimated 22,304 housing units.

This comes amidst a steady rising pace of decisions, with determinations reaching an all-time high of 209 across all application types during August.

The newly established Innovation Unit (IU), a dedicated centralised resource is now managing 27 new build applications (6,192 housing units).

The IU is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA) for processing applications.

Average working days for key milestones are also currently performing better than targets.

The data also shows that 91 new build applications (comprising around 22,000 housing units) submitted under the previous legacy system are “actively progressing”. The BSR expects to have cleared the majority of this backlog by December 2025, with the final three cases closing in January 2026.

Reforms to the Building Safety Regulator

In June 2025 Alex Norris, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Building Safety, Fire and Local Growth announced the government will be publishing a prospectus of reform of the BSR in the autumn.

Proposed reforms include:

• Moving the functions of the BSR from the HSE to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

• Implementing a new fast track process “to enhance the review of newbuild applications, unblock delays and boost sector confidence”.

• Increasing capacity in the BSR and building capacity within the industry.