The Building a Safer Future Charter consists of five commitments that demonstrate commitment to protecting life by putting safety first, ahead of all other building priorities.
It was developed by the Industry Early Adopters Group (referred to as Charter Founders) as a first step towards spearheading the cultural and behavioural changes required across the industry to achieve a safer building system.
The Charter Commitments are a key mechanism to drive the culture change and action required to improve building safety by making improvements to current practice and behaviours.
It is important that the Charter is not just a piece of paper that is signed, but a systemic change in approach to ensure that building safety comes first. Across the Charter Founders, they have already been taking steps to do this.
Examples of things that the Charter Founders have been doing are included under each of the five Charter headings below.
What the Charter Founders have been doing:
• Creating a culture where everyone involved in the design, construction and occupation of a building feels able to raise concerns – with transparency and accountability the priority
• Making building safety a collective aim for industry, so that companies across the sector challenge each other, share best practice and share lessons learned to continually improve the safety of buildings for residents
• Pre-empting the implementation of building safety reforms, testing and trialing proposals and sharing the results so that regulation is fit for purpose and proactively taking the lead to continually improve building safety in the future
What the Charter Founders have been doing:
• Creating Building Safety Records to provide key building safety information for residents
• Making the best use of digital technologies to ensure key building information is recorded and retained
• Using social media to keep residents informed as to what is happening and where they can access more information
What the Charter Founders have been doing:
• Ensuring that supply chain partners are similarly committed to improving building safety are working towards signing the Building a Safer Future Charter
• Ensuring clear competence requirements for all companies and people working on high-rise buildings
• Moving towards a ‘digital by default’ approach to working with supply chain partners to ensure that we can create a digital record for new buildings that can be passed into operation
What the Charter Founders have been doing:
• Establishing a single accountable person for each building who residents can contact with queries and concerns
• Ensuring that meaningful consultation with residents is undertaken before any material changes to their buildings
• Developing an open and no blame reporting and feedback process to allow opportunities for improvements in safety to be captured
What the Charter Founders have been doing:
• Ensuring that there is board level commitment to putting building safety first
• Defining clear roles and responsibilities within teams and with supply chain, including building in good quality assurance to ensure a good outcome
• Investing in training and continuing professional development – both within the company and with supply chain partners
• Creating a culture where everyone involved in the design, construction and occupation of a building feels able to raise concerns – with transparency and accountability the priority
• Making building safety a collective aim for industry, so that companies across the sector challenge each other, share best practice and share lessons learned to continually improve the safety of buildings for residents
• Pre-empting the implementation of building safety reforms, testing and trialing proposals and sharing the results so that regulation is fit for purpose and proactively taking the lead to continually improve building safety in the future
• Creating Building Safety Records to provide key building safety information for residents
• Making the best use of digital technologies to ensure key building information is recorded and retained
• Using social media to keep residents informed as to what is happening and where they can access more information
• Ensuring that supply chain partners are similarly committed to improving building safety are working towards signing the Building a Safer Future Charter
• Ensuring clear competence requirements for all companies and people working on high-rise buildings
• Moving towards a ‘digital by default’ approach to working with supply chain partners to ensure that we can create a digital record for new buildings that can be passed into operation
• Establishing a single accountable person for each building who residents can contact with queries and concerns
• Ensuring that meaningful consultation with residents is undertaken before any material changes to their buildings
• Developing an open and no blame reporting and feedback process to allow opportunities for improvements in safety to be captured
• Ensuring that there is board level commitment to putting building safety first
• Defining clear roles and responsibilities within teams and with supply chain, including building in good quality assurance to ensure a good outcome
• Investing in training and continuing professional development – both within the company and with supply chain partners
