Guidance

Accountable Persons: factsheet

Updated 5 April 2022

This guidance was withdrawn on 25 July 2022

This guidance is withdrawn as it is no longer current. Please see the latest guidance on the Building Safety Act.

What are we going to do?

We are strengthening accountability and providing greater clarity on responsibilities for the management of safety within higher-risk buildings by introducing a statutory definition to identify the Accountable Persons for occupied high-rise residential buildings. They will have legal requirements for ensuring that the fire and structural safety of their buildings are being properly managed.^{[footnote 1]}

How are we going to do it?

We are creating a statutory definition that identifies Accountable Persons for occupied higher-risk buildings. Accountable Persons are landlords and freeholders who are in charge of repairing the of the building. They could be an individual, a partnership or corporate body. Common parts include the structure, exterior and any other part of the building provided for the common use of the residents.

All occupied higher-risk buildings will be required to have at least one clearly identifiable Accountable Person, known as the Principal Accountable Person, who is responsible for ensuring that fire and structural safety is being properly managed for the whole building.

If an occupied high-rise residential building has just one Accountable Person, they will automatically become the Principal Accountable Person for that building. Where there are two or more Accountable Persons, we have ensured that provisions are in place to determine that one of them will be assigned as the Principal Accountable Person with overall responsibility for meeting specific statutory obligations for the whole building.

The Principal Accountable Person will have same statutory obligations for assessing and managing building safety risks in their own area of the building as other Accountable Persons.

As part of the registration process, the Principal Accountable Person will identify themselves to the Building Safety Regulator as being the person with overall responsibility for managing fire and structural safety. This must be done before a high-rise residential building is occupied to avoid committing an offence.

If a Principal Accountable Person does not come forward to register the building, the Building Safety Regulator can identify who the Principal Accountable Person is by using the statutory definition, or alternatively by applying to the First-tier Tribunal for a determination.

To enable effective management of fire and structural safety for a high-rise residential building, we have set out in the Building Safety Bill that all Accountable Persons will have statutory obligations to:

• Comply with the safety case and mandatory occurrence reporting requirements;

• Conduct an assessment of fire and structural safety risks for areas of responsibility;

• Prepare and keep under review a Residents’ Engagement Strategy;

• Provide residents with relevant safety information about the building;

• Keep and update prescribed information about the building; and

• Take all reasonable steps to prevent a major incident occurring (a major incident being defined as leading to a significant number of deaths or serious injury to a significant number of people) because of a building safety risk materialising and to reduce the severity of the incident.

We will use regulations to define the parts of a high-rise residential building an Accountable Person is responsible for to provide clarity to Accountable Persons about the areas that fall under their remit for the purposes of fulfilling their duties under the Building Safety Bill.

As the dutyholder for high-rise residential buildings, Accountable Persons must determine how best to meet the duties placed on them and what arrangement they require. Recent amendments to the Bill have removed the legal duty to appoint a Building Safety Manager.

The new regime will be flexible and enable Accountable Persons to meet their obligations in the way that is most effective for their buildings and residents. This could include upskilling existing staff or agents, and only where necessary hiring additional competent people or organisations to deliver the duties set out in the Bill in a proportionate way to ensure that unnecessary costs are not passed on to leaseholders.

Background

In her interim report, Dame Judith Hackitt found that there was no requirement for a person or entity to be clearly responsible for the fire and structural safety of high-rise residential building. She identified that the powers of local authorities under the Housing Act 2004 allow them to act against individual landlords and leaseholders on fire safety risks, but do not require someone to take overall responsibility for the safety of the whole building in every case.

In her final report, Dame Judith recommended that a clear and identifiable ‘dutyholder’ with overall responsibility for building safety during occupation and maintenance was needed and that they should be responsible for maintaining the fire and structural safety of the whole building. Her report was clear that buildings must be thought of as an integrated system and managed in a way consistent with a whole building approach.

How will we hold the Accountable Person to account if they breach their duties?

If the Accountable Person fails to comply with their duties, the Building Safety Regulator will have a suite of tools and powers available to ensure compliance.

Initially we would expect the Regulator to work with the Accountable Person to rectify any potential non-compliance, However, there will also be sanctions available to the Building Safety Regulator which include compliance notices, criminal prosecutions and in extreme cases, on application to the First-tier Tribunal, placing the building into Special Measures and ensuring safety obligations are met for the building.

Will there always be just one Accountable Person, or could there be multiple Accountable persons?

In some complex residential buildings, it may not be easily possible to identify a single Accountable Person for the entire building.

Where there are multiple Accountable Persons, each will have responsibility for managing risks within the areas for which they are the Accountable Person, and one will be assigned as the Principal Accountable Person.

Where there are multiple Accountable Persons responsible for different areas of a building, how are they required to work together to deliver building safety?

To support the “whole building” approach, where there are multiple Accountable Persons for a building in scope they must, when carrying out their duties, cooperate and coordinate with all other Accountable Persons for that building as far as possible to deliver building safety to residents.

Where there are multiple Accountable Persons for a building, what are the specific responsibilities that the Principal Accountable Person has?

For a building with just one Accountable Person, that person will automatically become the Principal Accountable Person for that building.

Where there are multiple Accountable Persons for a building, one person will be designated as the Principal Accountable Person. They will have the same responsibilities for assessing and managing building safety risks in their area of the building as the other Accountable Persons.

They will also have the following specific responsibilities:

• They will implement a single Residents’ Engagement Strategy for the whole building (this will be agreed in cooperation with the other Accountable Persons);

• They will establish and operate a system for the investigation of residents’ complaints;

• They will be responsible for applying for Registration and Certification for the whole building, including bringing together a single safety case report;

• They will be responsible for displaying information about the most recent building assessment certificate, compliance notices and details of those responsible for managing building safety for the building;

• Where a special measures order has been made, they must ensure that no building assessment certificate relating to the building is displayed in the building;

• They will take the lead responsibility for coordinating the golden thread of safety information for the building, keeping the golden thread updated and ensuring it is accurate and accessible; and
• They will establish and operate a system for mandatory occurrence reporting.

Didn’t each in-scope building have to have a Building Safety Manager, why has the government removed the legal duty to appoint one?

The decision follows further reflection on the role and our commitment to ensuring a proportionate regime. We are scrapping the legal requirement to appoint a Building Safety Manager in order to engrain flexibility into the regime and ensure Accountable Persons cannot hide from their responsibilities.

Meeting the obligations set out in the Building Safety Bill is the responsibility of Accountable Persons and they should determine how best to meet the duties. We are committed to driving up standards of safety management and maintenance in high-rise buildings, and the competence of those who deliver it. In the first instance this should be done by supporting the development and upskilling of those already managing buildings.

Key facts

The total number of high-rise residential multi-occupied residential buildings of 18 metres or more in height, or at least seven storeys (whichever is reached first) in England is estimated as of April 2020 to be approximately 12,500. We expect some Accountable Persons such as local authorities and social housing providers to have responsibilities across a number of buildings.

1. For the purpose of this factsheet, any reference to the Accountable Persons and their responsibilities is to be regarded as also meaning the Principal Accountable Person and their responsibilities. ↩