Agenda item

The Chair asked Mark Norris to introduce the update.

Mark said that since the report had been written, the Chancellor had announced an additional £1 billion for the remediation of flammable cladding and to help local authorities collect data on buildings in their area. Mark said that civil servants were currently drawing up the detail but that the distribution of the money was likely to be modelled on the existing ACM cladding fund.

In relation to the data collection exercise, Mark said that returns were currently running at around 30 per cent but there was likely to be an extension for councils with large numbers of buildings in their areas.

Mark informed members that the Government was keen for the Joint Inspection Team to ramp up its work but this would need to be reviewed in the light of Covid-19.

Finally, Mark said that the Fire Safety Bill was due to be laid before Parliament later in March but that this may also need to be reviewed.

Members expressed concern that the outsourcing of the building control function by councils had undermined consistency in standards and that councils no longer had control of the building safety process. Mark said that a key part of the new Fire Safety Bill would be the establishment of a new regulator which would provide oversight of issues such as building control.

Decision

Board members noted the update.