Building Regulations & Fire Safety: The Role & Scope of the New Regulator

Sir Ken held the positions of Chief Fire Officer of Dorset and West Midlands Fire Services before being appointed as the London Fire Commissioner, a position he held until 2007.

 He was subsequently appointed as the Government's Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, responsible for advising Government Ministers and senior officials on fire policy matters, major emergencies and fire safety enforcement in Crown Premises.

Sir Ken has authored a number of UK reviews for the UK Government and overseas including the Lakanal House fire in South London in which six people lost their lives. He continues to provide advice to both the public and private sector.

Following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower in 2017, Sir Ken was appointed to Chair the Independent Expert Advisory Panel to advise Government on the measures needed to ensure that fire safety requirements of residents of high rise buildings.

Sir Ken is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers.

Scott Sanderson is a partner at leading housing practice, PRP.

Passionate about quality, safety, digital integration and building technology, Scott leads a focused and experienced team delivering technical design services across the full spectrum of PRP’s UK housing projects. Current projects include traditional housing, estate regeneration, high rise residential, mixed use, later living and build to rent.

PRP’s team has specialist expertise in BIM, offsite manufacture and environmental design. We provide fire safety related services including building investigations and façade remediation design.

PRP are appointed as an Analytical Technical Advisor to MHCLG on Building Regulations and Building Safety legislation.

Michael has performed several Resident Involvement roles since 2000 for Local Authorities and Housing Associations, as well as a period as a self-employed Tpas Associate. A previous life as a sub-contracting service engineer to Local Authorities, Michael has now worked in the social housing sector for nearly 30 years. Michael takes his down to earth and transparent approach as the foundation for building strong relationships. With a variety of skills honed from working in all areas of Housing, Michael is an effective communicator with a passion for co-regulatory engagement.

Paul Mooney is the Director of Asset Management at Salix Homes, a Registered Provider of social housing with over 8,000 properties in Salford, Greater Manchester.  Paul has held senior management roles within asset management, compliance and development in social housing in North West England for over 25 years.

Salix Homes own 18 high rise residential buildings in Salford City amongst its property portfolio and therefore building compliance and the outcomes from the reviews of the Grenfell disaster are a key priority for Paul and his team. Salix Homes are part of the Governments Early Adopters Programme and Paul’s has developed early intervention opportunities for the sector and influencing policy makers at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, in relation to Dame Hackitt’s independent review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety.

To date, Salix Homes have been involved in Policy Design Trials with MHCLG on mandatory occurrence reporting, the development and testing of safety cases and the safety case report and Risk Priorotisation.   Paul is also working with industry leads as part of the Joint Regulatory Groups Working Group 1 and with Greater Manchester High Rise Task Force in addition to being a member of the National Housing Federations Building Safety National Group.

Key messages coming from the Early Adopter Group so far is a need for the sector and industry to embrace a cultural of change in relation to providing buildings which are safe for residents, improving construction management and maintenance processes, the quality of management and reporting systems and the need for an improved, safe supply chain management process.  The proposed changes within the Building Safety Bill are significant in terms of the design, construction, maintenance and occupation of high-rise buildings with improved mechanisms for resident engagement.  Paul is confident the new Bill and Fire Safety Order will lead to the construction and maintenance of buildings which are safe for residents.

Outside of work, Paul is a keen but not very proficient golfer who also enjoys country walks and following his favourite rugby team, Sale Sharks RUFC.

Victoria Elvidge has since March 2019 chaired the Social Sector (Building Safety) Engagement Best Practice Group set up by MHCLG to address the impact of engagement between landlord and resident on building safety.

She is also on the Board of LEASE, the Leasehold Advisory Service for leaseholders.

Victoria began her career working for 10 years working as a commercial property solicitor at Ashurst before moving to the public and voluntary sector.

Since then she has acted as a lawyer Chairman of Residential Property and Leasehold Valuation Tribunals and as an adviser at Citizens Advice.

She was Vice Chair of Sanctuary Housing from 2006 to 2013

I have been working in public policy in the Civil Service for the last six years. Between 2014-2017, I worked in the Ministry of Justice, leading on various court and tribunal policy projects, before moving to work on legislation to deliver reforms to the Prisons and Courts Service.  In 2017, I joined the Ministry of Housing, heading up a team in the homelessness and rough sleeping policy unit, before joining the Building Safety Programme in 2019, to lead on a number of Building Safety Regulator provisions in the Building Safety Bill. My role also includes supporting the Health and Safety Executive to deliver its Building Safety Regulator Transition programme.

Previous to my Civil Service career I worked in legal practice and also in local authority youth offending services.

Peter has over 30 years’ experience with HSE as an Inspector and in a number of senior operational roles dealing with a wide range of industry sectors, including construction, major hazard industries and local authorities.  Peter led HSE’s reform and delivery of the regulatory regime for chemical and downstream oil industries and was appointed HSE’s Chief Inspector of Construction in 2015. 

From 2017, Peter led HSE’s involvement in the Government’s Building Safety Programme following the Grenfell Tower tragedy.  As Chief Inspector of Buildings he is now at the forefront of establishing the new Building Safety Regulator in HSE and leading the delivery of the stronger, more robust building safety regime for higher risk buildings working with government, industry, partner regulators and residents. 

Peter is a member of HSE’s Executive Committee and is also responsible for HSE’s workplace health and safety operations in the high-risk construction industry as Director of HSE’s Building Safety & Construction Division.

Kevin is a member of the Fire safety Building Regulations Group and Chairman of the Association of Consultant Approved Inspectors, the body representing private sector Building Control.

He is a Chartered Building Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist with nearly 40 years’ experience in building control having managed teams in large city authorities and private sectors.

Throughout his career Kevin has been actively involved in raising levels of competence and spent nearly a decade working for a professional body, developing and delivering training and development courses for the sector establish professional competence standards and dealing with professional conduct.

Kevin participates in numerous industry groups and committees and is working with professional bodies, governments and the sector to influence future standards and regulations and ensure that those delivering building control can be shown to be competent to do so.

He is currently a Director of Harwood Building Control Approved Inspectors Limited, a Board Member of the Chartered association of Building Engineers and a member of the registration authority of the Society for the Environment.