Andy Roe, the chair of the Shadow Building Safety Regulator Board, has urged ministers to extend building safety reforms to reduce risks arising from subcontractors.
Roe KFSM, the former London Fire Brigade Commissioner, was appointed non-executive chair of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) board this summer. The board has taken over the regulator’s functions from the Health and Safety Executive.
Roe told the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee that the current subcontracting system “still holds great danger”. He recommended that professional regulation should go beyond building control and cover other engineering roles in construction.
He suggested that a regulatory system similar to competency assessments and registration for building control inspectors should apply to “other engineering professions and other critical roles inside construction”.
Reflecting on his experience during the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, Roe said the development industry had been “characterised as the enemy”, but added, “as someone who stood there that night and watched the tower, everyone had failed, so everyone has a responsibility to do better, including regulator.”
Roe was giving evidence as part of the committee’s inquiry into building safety regulation, held at the Palace of Westminster on 28 October. Questions were put to Building Safety Minister Samantha Dixon MP and new leaders of the regulator.
The committee examined whether delays to high-rise housing were caused by industry culture and capability, and whether sufficient guidance had been provided on building safe high-rise developments. It also discussed how the regulator, now outside the HSE, could secure the skills and resources needed to process approvals in a sector facing staff shortages.
“We need perhaps to get to a place where we understand all of the different professional roles within the construction industry, and working with the industry, get back to a place where we both regulate and register them… I think the industry themselves would welcome that,” Roe said.
He noted that similar licensing schemes already existed in other countries and said it made sense to examine organisations at a system level, taking into account appointments, competency and risk management.
Roe told the committee that some changes may require new legislation and could lead to a single construction regulator.
