Welsh councils could end up ‘marking own homework’ on building safety, committee hears

She added that the new responsibilities would put strain on under-resourced councils, an issue raised by a government official at a housing conference earlier this year. 

According to a memo on the bill published this summer, if the local authority is both the building safety authority and landlord for a Category 1 building, all those taller than 18 metres, they must transfer the building to another local authority.

However they would still be responsible for enforcing buildings in categories 2 and 3, which cover buildings of 11 to 18 metres and five to six storeys respectively, even if they are the landlord.

Gary Strong, global building standards director at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said this had led to “quite a concern” over the risk of conflict of interest under the new system.

“In the eyes of the public, the feedback we’ve received is that you have to be absolutely squeaky clean here in terms of not marking your own homework.

“I would recommend that there is a dispute resolution, an appeals process, put in place that is very robust, so the public can see that, because otherwise I think this bill could be criticised.”

Henry Dawson, a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health’s Housing Advisory Panel, who was also giving evidence to the committee, suggested a solution to the conflict of interest issue could be a single, central body working with three joint inspection teams.

Joel James, MS for South Wales Central, asked the panellists whether Wales was taking the right approach in not bringing in its own regulator, given this was a key recommendation of the post-Grenfell Hackitt Review.

Mr Strong said he had received a lot of feedback from members who are disappointed that there is no single regulator across the four nations of the UK.

“Obviously there’s devolved power to the devolved nations, and Wales has decided to do something slightly differently. But a lot of people have said to me that they just find it a little bit disappointing that there’s a separate process in Wales.”

There was support from the panellists for other aspects of the bill, including the government’s decision to include buildings under 18 metres in scope of the new regime.

Mr Strong welcomed the height categorisation, but pointed out that a “simple cut-off” for buildings of a certain height can sometimes miss out quite high-risk buildings that may not fall neatly into those categories. 

Giving evidence in an earlier session, David Wilton, chief executive of tenant body Tpas Cymru, also expressed disappointment that the bill did not include more requirements around evacuation plans.

Mr Wilton said there needed to be a joined-up approach involving the fire and rescue service and the local authority, rather than just property managers.

Introduced to the Senedd in July, the Building Safety (Wales) Bill will bring in a new building safety regime in Wales for the occupation and management of multi-occupied residential buildings.

According to an impact assessment, the new system will come at an estimated cost to the sector of £132m over 10 years.