Building a Safer Future Charter and culture change

The Building a Safer Future Charter was created to promote a positive culture and behaviour change in the safety of the built environment.

It sets out a series of commitments that will help put people’s safety first in how we plan for, design, build, maintain, and look after the safety of buildings to protect those that use them.

The Charter is a proactive response to Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building a Safer Future Review in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. However, it can be adopted by any organisation involved in the construction, design and management of buildings of any height.

We are encouraging housing associations to sign up to this Charter and to seek Charter Champion status. Housing associations can work towards Champion status by undertaking a robust, sector-specific, self-assessment of their organisation’s leadership and culture on safety, which is then independently verified. Those undertaking the process will be supported with practical tools to help foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Find out more on the Charter’s website and watch our webinar with two organisations who have achieved Champion status.

The importance of resident engagement

The proposals for the new building safety regulatory regime set out a stronger role for residents. This aims to ensure that residents’ voices are properly heard and listened to, and that they will be entitled to core information about building safety, with the right to request more detail as appropriate.

The government has also confirmed that there will be a new statutory duty on residents to cooperate with the Building Safety Manager, a new role whose responsibility will be for ensuring the safety of the building and its residents. As part of a building owner’s responsibility to develop a building’s safety case, they will need to develop and resource a resident engagement strategy.

We support the greater focus on resident engagement in the new regime, as this is a priority for our sector, including through our Together with Tenants work.