A regulator's deadline, met with evidence
The Building Safety Regulator gave us a very short timeframe to update and re-work the evidenced structural risk information.
A gap in the explanation, not the structure
The regulator's concern was how well the safety case set out the understanding of structural risk. It had not identified a structural problem with the building itself.
A team mobilised in days
Structural and fire engineers, the client's building safety team and property managers were brought together fast, working to one shared timetable.
01
The challenge
The building is a modern high-rise residential tower, built, owned and operated by the client as part of a wider portfolio. Its safety case had gone through the usual BAC application process and the client was issued a Prompt Remedy Notice.
The notice was about clarity of the argument, not construction. What it flagged was that the safety case had not sufficiently set out and evidenced the client's understanding of the building's structural risks. It was not a finding that the structure itself was defective or that residents were at risk. A Prompt Remedy Notice carries its own deadline and the client needed to give the regulator a satisfactory, evidenced response within that fixed timeline.
The combination of a short statutory window and a regulator expecting a robust answer defined how we worked together.
02
What we did
We started by pulling together everything already known about the building's structure: the original design basis, the structural engineer's evidence, prior inspections and surveys and the assumptions those relied on. The aim was to establish, quickly and precisely, what was understood about the building's structural risks and where that understanding needed to be made explicit.
With no room for a drawn-out process, we ran a compressed HAZID workshop that brought together the client's structural and fire engineers, its building safety and asset management teams and a Cascade risk consultant. Structural failure scenarios were worked through directly against the regulator's concern: what could threaten the structure, what already controlled that risk and what evidence backed each control.
Those hazards were then developed into a bowtie risk assessment in Cascade, so the reasoning behind the structural risk position was structured and traceable rather than held in a set of separate documents.
The desired response was essentially an addendum to the safety case that went through the Prompt Remedy Notice point by point, making a clear statement about certain structural risks, the controls relied upon and the evidence supporting them.
Throughout, the client's team stayed closely involved as evidence was located, assumptions were tested and questions were answered.
03
The outcome
The result was a better articulation of the client's understanding of certain structural risk scenarios. It answered the Building Safety Regulator's questions and gave the client more confidence in how well it is managing the structure of the building.
Another win was the creation of an improved safety case. The structural risk assessment developed to answer the regulator has since been incorporated into the safety case, held and actively managed in Cascade. The hazards, the controls relied upon, the evidence behind them and any outstanding actions are now being managed in one place.
For the client, that matters beyond this one building. As a developer that builds, owns and operates its properties directly, it holds this kind of regulatory exposure across a large portfolio. A building safety case that lives in Cascade is one that can be reviewed, updated and defended again if it needs to be.
The client was already managing the risk. We just helped them to explain it in risk language.