Having spent the last few years working within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, John Palmer explains how building regulations are made and what their role is within the construction industry.
Interview with John Palmer
In 2012, having served as an engineer in the Royal Navy for 16 years, John Palmer pivoted into the construction sector. Over time he gained his Passivhaus credentials, built a high performance home and also spoke to us about the impact of setting an energy target. He then joined the Passivhaus Trust and was trying to lobby the government to do great things for energy efficiency and housing when an opportunity came up in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He moved into a policy position there four years ago, looking at the Future Homes Standard and Energy Performance Certificates. John has recently taken a secondment to work with the Building Safety Regulator on some of the processing of Building Control applications.
British building regulations date back to the Great Fire of London
The origins of building regulations can be traced back to the Great Fire of London in 1666, which resulted in banning timber in the external construction of homes in London. More recently, the building regulations, became not just for fire and structure, but for many other aspects like energy efficiency and moisture, so that there are now 18 parts to the UK Building Regulations.
Each regulation will require a certain outcome to be achieved
John explains that the Building Regulations are primarily outcome-based regulations, which means that they don’t set prescriptive requirements for how things should be built. For example, Part B relates to Fire, with outcomes to build things that don’t spread fire to other buildings, and that can resist fire for long enough for people to get out. This could be met in a variety of ways.
The Building Regulations set minimum standards for life safety
The primary intent of the Building Regulations is to set minimum standards for life safety and that’s where most of the regulations are targeted. John explains that it’s not just about structural collapse and fire, which are obvious threats to life safety, but also longer-term threats such as poor internal air quality and moisture levels within buildings.
Over the years, additional regulations have been added that go beyond this. For example, broadband services and electrical vehicle charging have their own part of the regulations.
Events often drive significant changes to the regulations
The Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017 had a huge impact upon building safety in the UK, notably prohibiting combustible materials from being used in the external walls of buildings more than 80 metres high.
Whenever government decides to bring in a change to the regulations, there is a lengthy process involved to work out what the impact of that change might be.
“Is this going to do what we would like it to do? Is it going to be enough? Are people going to try and circumvent it?”
There can also be unintended consequences to consider.
“What else would people use? What are the non-combustible materials? Are there enough of them in the supply chain? What does that mean for the quality of design or structural strength?”
All these second order effects need to be considered during the policy-making process to ensure the unintended consequences have been explored, and any risks are accepted or understood.
John Palmer giving a keynote speech at the ASBP Healthy Buildings Conference
Policy changes stem from the government of the day
Any changes to the Building Regulations will be initiated by the government of the day, who will ask the civil service for an assessment of the impacts. This will include the second order effects that might occur from a change to the regulations, such as to supply chains and labour markets. Ministers will be looking at how they will balance the impact of the proposed change to the regulations versus other competing government priorities. In some cases, a minor change might be relatively straightforward, with little or no impact on anything else, in which case it would be implemented. Other more significant changes might have bigger impacts on the cost, complexity or material supply chains of new homes. Government ministers will take a measured decision as to whether to press ahead, postpone it or do a lesser version of the change in order to lower the impact. It becomes a proportionality and judgement call for the government of the day at that point.
Policy‑making is a multi‑stage, consultative process
John shares an example of how a regulation might be created and the process it would need to go through. So, it might be proposed that we should paint all our houses pink in the future! This would then be assigned to a relevant team in the civil service, and they would look at how it might work and form some options of how it might be achieved. Building regulations might be one of the options. They’ll look at the potential benefits of pink homes, they will put that to ministers, and create a consultation, because normally there has to be input from the public or a stakeholder view for any proposed policy change. The consultation will have to get ministerial approval and cross government approval. It then gets published and runs for a minimum of three months, at which point it will be evaluated. The results may lead to more questions that need answering and so that might require further work. The options then go to ministers, who may ask further questions or want different options. If an option is approved that requires a change to the regulations themselves, not just the guidance, then a statutory instrument needs to be drafted by lawyers, checked several times and then time found for it to be laid in Parliament. In other words, it’s not a trivial process to update the regulations and can take anywhere between 12 months to two years to put in place.
Other mechanisms could achieve the same outcome
The other option is to encourage the desired outcome. So, in our example there could be an advisory that encourages all homes to be painted pink, and there might be a scheme whereby discounted rates on pink paint from a local retailer has been arranged. This whole approach could be put in place in two or three months.
“The carrot encouragement, optional, discretionary type approach to getting things into the built environment is always much quicker than the stick approach of actually going through and making changes to the regulations.”
Approved Documents provide statutory guidance on how to meet the regulations
Accompanying the Building Regulations is a set of statutory guidance, known as the Approved Documents. John explains that Part A of the UK Building Regulations, which is a statute in law, has an accompanying Approved Document A, which is the statutory guidance that sets out how that part of the building regulations may be complied with in typical situations. That means that someone designing a building can look at that Approved Document and know that there is a clear path to compliance. John says that if you are doing something slightly unusual, say an innovation, that might not be covered by the Approved Documents, then it is the building regulation itself which must be complied with.
Regulations will always evolve
In an ideal world, all regulation is necessary, all regulation is minimal, and all regulation is proportionate. These are the tests that government applies when introducing new regulations. However, things do change over time and regulations which were previously proportionate and made perfect sense, may no longer do so. This means there will always need to be a review and update of the regulations.
Regulation is nothing without enforcement
Part of creating a regulation involves working out how the government or the relevant regulator will know if that regulation has been complied with. Also they must consider what action to take if the regulation is breached.
“As part of the policy process, you would define what the sanctions would be for organisations or individuals that didn’t comply, which might include fines or coming off registers.”
Building Control is the main mechanism in place to ensure that people are compliant with the building regulations.
New regulations may have a long lead in time
Where the impact analysis has been sufficiently confident that the regulation is going to work, it’s not going to cost a fortune or result in supply chains collapsing, it can be put in place in fairly easily. Where it’s less clear-cut, different approaches can be taken. One of the primary routes is to give a long lead in time to allow the industry to plan and adapt. This way it’s also easier to address unintended consequences if they arise.
John tells us it can be more difficult for the government to run small pilot projects as there is a tendency for people to think a proposal is definitely going to happen, which can result in unintended consequences for segments of the industry.
Incentive schemes can also encourage behaviours
Incentive schemes are another mechanism that government uses to encourage certain behaviours. They’re not necessarily regulated in the same way as by their very nature, they’re never going to be enduring. They are used to encourage either innovation in technology, market shifts or consumer behaviour, with solar panels being a good example. When solar panels first came in, they were prohibitively expensive, so incentive schemes mitigated against the high costs, and made them more attractive to homeowners. When the price of solar panels dropped to affordable levels, where payback periods without incentives still made financial sense, the scheme had done its job and that money could be better targeted elsewhere.
Digital tools and automation are the future of compliance
Currently, implementation of the Building Regulations relies on individuals becoming experts in compliance, which may not be the optimal way of doing it. John tells us that an Approved Document review panel has just been set up to look at how the documents are formed, communicated and relate to each other.
“For example, is there a single definition of a dwelling that’s used across all the Approved Documents, or are certain words used in different ways in different parts?”
John says this does happen, so communicating them more effectively and setting them out in a different way might be an option. Digital processes may also be embraced more in the future, perhaps becoming more integrated into CAD design systems.
“Where regulations talk about heights, clearances, etc. could it be possible to have a level of automation? Or maybe a red, amber, green indication that you are compliant with the Building Regulations? Those kinds of things could make a big difference and create a better starting point for a designer to feel confident they’ve designed something in accordance with the building regulations.”
Sometimes you may need specialist input to check you are compliant with the Building Regulations
When building your own home or having your own home built, you can use either the Local Authority Building Control or a registered Building Control private provider. As part of your project, you will submit evidence to demonstrate that you’re compliant with the Building Regulations. This will include documents and drawings showing the structure of the build, fire safety, etc. For a typical self-builder, this will be quite specialist information that will require technical input. For John when building his own home, he was keen to have an input over the design materials and felt qualified to have a view on those. However, when it came to other parts of the Building Regulations, such as the structure and fire safety he knew he needed to bring in expertise.
“That specialist input may sit with your architect or designer along with structural engineers, possibly fire engineers and energy assessors when required.”
New building standards apply to some but not all aspects of retrofit
John outlines how new build standards, don’t necessarily apply in their entirety to retrofits, because you’re starting with something already built. For example, energy performance will be looked at differently in a retrofit, where you can’t necessarily decide the form factor, the size of the windows or amount of glazing.
There is also a basic principle of non-worsening in the Building Regulations that applies to retrofits. If you’re redoing an entire wall, you might need to bring that up to a required standard for thermal performance, whilst other aspects of the Building Regulations might not apply. You don’t necessarily have to make your refurbished building as accessible as a new building, but you do need to make sure that it doesn’t get less accessible, which is the non-worsening principle. Your Building Control body should be able to advise on exactly what level you need to reach in certain areas and whether other things would be subject to non-worsening, in which case you can leave them as they are.
There’s likely to be a more coherent approach to housing as a system
John concludes by noting that many different pieces of legislation have grown up organically over time, which drive outcomes in the housing sector and so it is a complex area. He thinks that the regulatory landscape will start to evolve to a more coherent approach towards housing as a system. This could go all the way from deciding what you’re going to build, planning, designing, building regulations, and once built to its occupation. All those regulatory regimes could work together a bit more seamlessly, and a bit more effectively.
“So that the end result – which is people living in high quality, safe, decent homes, beautiful homes that you know are a pleasure to live in – becomes more the norm.”
Find out more
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Transcript
Download a transcript of this episode.
Please connect with us
Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts
