Duration: 20 minutes
Platform: Microsoft Teams
Speakers: Zoe McLean-Wells & Lee Russell
The Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA 2022) introduced two new roles for those who are responsible for building safety risks in ‘Higher-Risk Buildings’ in England.
They are known as the “Accountable Person” (AP) and the “Principal Accountable Person” (PAP). The BSA 2022 requires both dutyholders to comply with a significant number of duties and undertake a number of actions. There are therefore specific changes in housing management aspects as a consequence of the requirements of the dutyholder roles.
Why Boards need to be thinking about it:
- Assessing and managing building safety risks – The AP and PAP role are statutory obligations imposed by the BSA 2022. The role of an AP and PAP is generally to ensure that fire and structural safety is being properly managed for the building and that they have in place proportionate measures to asses and manage building safety risks.
- Responsibilities towards residents – The PAP must prepare a strategy for promoting the participation of residents in building safety decisions and provide a copy of the strategy to them. It must also establish a suitable complaints policy. Both APs and PAPs must engage with residents about the buildings safety.
- Enforcement – Failure to comply with the various duties could open the organisation up to significant legal, regulatory and reputational risk.
In this session we will cover:
- Explain AP/PAPs – This will set out how to work out the AP and PAP roles – this can be complex in some property ownership structures, and we set out what happens in the event of a lack of clarity or dispute and what to do where there are several duty holders.
- AP/PAP Obligations – This will look at the responsibilities/duties that arise from being a duty holder and how to discharge them. It will also consider how third parties’ interact with duty holders in discharging their obligations.
- Discuss why Boards need to be thinking about this – This will help plan for future changes to the HRB regime which is likely to bring more buildings in scope for these roles.
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