The CIOB Policy Team Newsletter - March 2022

March with the CIOB Policy Team

Welcome to this edition of CIOB’s policy team newsletter.

This edition includes a rundown of the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, a rundown of the latest Building Safety Bill House of Lords Committee proceedings, as well an update on activity in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

We would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch at [email protected]. 

One thing you need to do...Read the National Cyber Security Centre guidance on protecting your business from cyber threats

CIOB has partnered with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on producing guidance to help the construction industry improve businesses security and resilience against cyber threats.

The guidance, aimed primarily at small-to-medium sized construction businesses, has been developed as the industry embraces new digital ways of working. It covers everything from backing up data, through to preparing for (and responding to) cyber incidents.

CIOB will also be discussing further opportunities to work with the NCSC, if you have any further areas you would like to see covered, or if you would like further training and resources, please contact [email protected]  

The guidance can be downloaded for free by clicking here.

Spring Statement Analysis

On Wednesday (23 March) the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak MP, delivered his Spring 2022 Statement to update policy makers and the public on the health of the UK economy.

CIOB’s Policy & Public Affairs team has pulled together an analysis of the Spring Statement, it’s implications for the construction industry as well as the missed opportunities we feel the Chancellor could have pursued in order to best utilise the expertise of construction professionals to help drive down increasing energy costs.

You can read our full analysis here.

Building Safety Bill: House of Lords Committee proceedings

Throughout late February and early March 2022, Peers in the House of Lords met in the Grand Committee Room to discuss the Building Safety Bill and its proposed amendments. The sessions took place on 21, 24, 28 February and 2 March 2022.

CIOB's policy & public affairs team has put together a full summary of the proceedings which you can view at the bottom of this section.

During the Committee hearings one of the notable trends that arose was that the Government did not accept any of the proposed amendments by attending peers, however detailed and well intentioned they were to be input into the Bill. Instead, the Government asked that all amendments proposed by peers were withdrawn or not moved. Amongst these amendments were proposed changes that would require the building safety regulator to address major public safety issues within a set timeframe, increase the monetary fines for building corporations who breach new safety laws and strengthen the regulatory oversight powers of the New Homes Ombudsman.

However, when it came to amendments proposed by Government, the opposite was true as many of the proposed amendments were carried and inserted in the Bill for further scrutiny during the upcoming report stage. Of these amendments some will have a major impact on how the Bill is implemented and the resulting safety regime that will change the way the construction industry works entirely. These included a series of amendments to improve leaseholder protections in the Bill. For example, Amendments 62 to 66 extended the definitions of the types of defects, buildings and leases that are in scope of the protections introduced in the Bill including a provision that sees leaseholders living in their own home or subletting in a building over 11 metres would be entitled to protections from unjust and unaffordable remediation costs. The Government amendments also introduced a new information sharing gateway between the regulatory authorities of the building control profession in England and Wales.

For a full summary of the proceedings please click the link here.

Government scraps building safety manager under raft of additional Building Safety Bill amendments

On 23 March, the Government tabled a raft of additional amendments to the Building Safety Bill, including the scrapping of building safety managers and the building safety charge used to pay for them. These changes come ahead of the Report Stage in the House of Lords, which is expected on 29 March.

The Government states that it has taken note of concerns raised by leaseholders about the structure of the future safety regime outlined in the Building Safety Bill – particularly where decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of freeholders and managing agents, and not the residents who live in a building and know it best. To that end, the Government is:

• Removing the duty to appoint a Building Safety Manager (BSM), ensuring there is flexibility in the regime to enable Accountable Persons to set the most appropriate arrangements for their buildings and residents, and removing the unnecessary cost a BSM could impose on leaseholders in high rise buildings. This is a major change to the proposals made by Dame Judith Hackitt.
• Removing the separate Building Safety Charge, recognising the need to protect leaseholders from another additional charging infrastructure.
• Requiring the Building Safety Regulator to invite disabled representatives onto its residents’ panel; ensuring they have a strong voice in the regime as those among the most vulnerable in the event of a building fire.
• Enabling resident-managed buildings to appoint a professional director to support them in meeting their building safety duties.

Guidance will be published by the Building Safety Regulator to support building owners in these changes. This is particularly important as some social landlords have already hired BSM’s.

Further changes have also been made to protect leaseholders, including exempting all leaseholders in buildings over 11 metres from cladding costs, qualifying leaseholders with properties valued at less than £175,000 (or £325,000 in Greater London) will now be protected entirely from all remediation costs, including those related to non-cladding defects.

We will be circulating further information about these amendments and other changes in our Building Safety Newsletter which you can sign-up for here.

Expanding our policy & public affairs function

CIOB’s policy and public affairs remit is growing, and we are pleased to announce that Jocelyne Fleming has joined the team on a part-time basis as our Policy & Public Affairs Officer for Scotland. We have also hired a new Policy & Public Affairs Officer for Wales, as well as a Policy and Public Affairs Manager for Australia on a part time basis – both starting in late March. Finally, we have positions open for a Policy & Public Affairs Officer for England North and a Policy & Public Affairs Coordinator role.

If you are based in any of these regions and would like to engage with our work, please contact [email protected] and we will happily arrange a meeting.

National Overview - Republic of Ireland

• The Regulation of Providers of Building Works Bill reaches final stages

The Regulation of Providers of Building Works Bill 2022 is at Report and Final Stages in Dail Eireann this week. The Bill provides for the establishment of a register to be known as ‘the Construction Industry Register Ireland’. Once enacted, the statutory register is expected to help develop and promote a culture of competence, good practice and compliance with building regulations.

• CIOB presents research at 12th GMIT International Construction Management Day Conference

In recent years, this conference has grown into one of the major events in the built environment calendar in Ireland and was attended by over 500 delegates on Tuesday 8 March. This year CIOB was invited to present the findings of the ‘Job Quality in the Irish Construction Sector’ report, written in partnership with TASC.

• New bill to encourage builders to recycle demolition waste

Ireland’s upcoming Circular Economy Bill will impose levy on disposal and speed up approval process for reusing existing soil, stone and concrete. The Government plans to make it easier for builders to recycle more construction and demolition waste to reduce costs for the sector.

Around 5.6 million tonnes of excavated soil and stone as well as other construction materials is going to landfill dumps every year, even though this is widely reused and recycled in other European countries.

The Government’s forthcoming Circular Economy Bill is due to contain measures to encourage builders to reuse more construction and demolition waste. This will include speeding up the environmental approval process for reusing existing soil, stone and concrete.

CIOB will be monitoring progress of the Bill, should you require any further information, or have any views, please contact Joseph Kilroy, CIOB Policy & Public Affairs Manager – Ireland on [email protected].

Throughout 2021 CIOB teamed up with the Construction IT Alliance to roll out a series of seminars on the circular economy and the built environment: 'Aistriu: Transitioning Towards a Circular Economy for the Build Environment'.

You can watch the recordings of the sessions here.

National Overview - Northern Ireland

• Committee for Finance receives briefing on Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) from Northern Ireland Building Regulations Advisory Committee (NIBRAC) and Department of Finance

Since 31 December 2020, all new buildings in Northern Ireland have been subject to Nearly Zero Energy. This builds on the previous Nearly Zero Energy Building requirement for all new Public Authority Buildings which came into force from 1 January 2019. The committee for Finance is currently taking briefings from NIBRAC and the Department of Finance about the feasibility of a wider roll out of the NZEB standard.

• The Northern Ireland Assembly has passed climate change legislation committing the region to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

CIOB is a member of the APG on climate change, which has been campaigning for net-zero carbon emissions legislation for some time. This legislation is an important first step upon which Northern Ireland can now build strong sustainable policies for a thriving-built environment.

Coming up in April

April is always an interesting time in politics as both the House of Commons (1 April to 19 April) and the House of Lords (8 April to 25 April) are on Easter recess.

This presents a welcome opportunity for both legislators and observers to reflect on what has been a busy 2022. It also acts as a reset on the Government agenda, following the Spring Statement, to bring new policies and priorities to the table.

Upon return to the House of Commons, we expect the Opposition to raise a multitude of urgent questions about the impact of the Spring Statement as homeowners continue to adapt to the cost-of-living pressures. Furthermore, questions about the energy and fuel crisis are likely to gather momentum as the Government seeks to balance net zero ambitions with affordability and supply.

April will also be a time of reflection for the Government on crucial topics such as building safety. After the rapid progress made on the Building Safety Bill in the early months of 2022, April will be a time for civil servants and ministers to look back on the proposed Government amendments to the Bill and find out how they have been received by stakeholders, as well as how the changes might work in practice.

If you made it this far...Sign up to attend our safer buildings conference

CIOB members will receive a discount to attend its Safer Buildings UK conference on 26 May 2022. The conference aims to raise awareness of the culture change needed to ensure buildings are safe for those who occupy them.

It will bring together perspectives on the new regulatory system that will govern the design, construction and occupation of higher-risk buildings.

Delegates will hear from Government ministers and industry experts on the progress being made on the Building Safety Bill as well as the work that is ongoing to raise levels of competency across the industry and increase resident engagement.

Speakers include Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, Minister of State (for Building Safety and Fire), Dame Judith Hackitt DBE, author of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety and Peter Baker, Chief Inspector of Buildings.

The full day conference (09:00 – 17:30) takes place in London on Thursday 26 May 2022.

For further information and to register, please click here.

Staying in contact

Thank you for reading this month’s update from the CIOB policy team. We will be back in your inbox next month with more information about what the team is up to, what is going on in Parliament and built environment news to look out for.

All the best,

The CIOB policy team

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