The Government has announced that the role of Building Safety Manager, a key element of the Building Safety Bill, will be scrapped in response to complaints from leaseholder groups about the potential costs.
The Bill, which is at an advanced stage in the Parliamentary process, has been designed to implement the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt in response to the Grenfell Tower fire. It originally included the provision that landlords managing high rise residential blocks must recruit a Building Safety Manager to oversee fire and structural safety.
The Building Safety Manager would have been the person appointed by the Accountable Person to plan, manage and monitor fire, and structural safety duties. Building Safety Managers required the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours to carry out such duties.
The amendments remove this requirement and will potentially block the Government's aim to ensure there are clearly identified people responsible for safety of high-rise residential buildings.
Many landlords have already hired building safety managers but leaseholders raised concerns that these managers, who can be paid salaries of £60,000 per year, will be an expensive cost for them to cover. Landlords would have been allowed to recover some of the cost of hiring these managers through the building safety charge, which was to be charged to leaseholders in addition to their service charge.
The Government says the change will "provide a more proportionate and flexible approach that will enable Accountable Persons – typically the building owners – to meet their obligations in a way that that is most effective for their buildings and residents".
It will be the responsibility of Accountable Persons to ensure they have the necessary arrangements in place to manage and maintain building safety risks in their buildings. Guidance will be provided to support them to meet their obligations set out in the Bill.
Announcing the changes, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, said: "No leaseholder should pay the price for shoddy development and we have listened to their concerns, removing the requirement for a separate building safety charge and scrapping compulsory building safety managers, to help avoid unnecessary costs".
Other amendments to the Bill include:
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