Dame Judith Hackitt has cautioned against a hasty move to form a ‘super regulator’ in construction.
- The Grenfell Tower Inquiry suggested merging construction and building safety regulators.
- Hackitt’s earlier work led to the formation of new regulatory bodies post-Grenfell.
- Current focus should be on regulatory function, not form, according to Hackitt.
- Hackitt emphasised the need for patience with the Building Safety Regulator’s processes.
Dame Judith Hackitt, a prominent figure in construction safety, has expressed concern over the suggestion to quickly establish a ‘super regulator’ for the construction industry. This proposal was one of the recommendations made by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, specifically aiming to consolidate the oversight of construction products and high-risk buildings under a unified body.
The proposal to merge the functions of the Construction Products Regulator and the Building Safety Regulator was highlighted among the 58 recommendations in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s voluminous final report. Hackitt, whose influence was instrumental in crafting the post-Grenfell regulatory landscape, argues that a premature unification could divert essential attention from the current functional challenges faced by these bodies.
Hackitt highlighted her belief that any discussion regarding the formation of a ‘super regulator’ should be deferred to a later date. She suggests a timeline of three to five years, by which time the existing regulatory bodies, born out of her 2018 interim review report ‘Building a Safer Future’, should have achieved operational maturity.
At a recent building safety conference, Hackitt brought attention to the need for the construction industry to exercise forbearance towards the nascent Building Safety Regulator. There have been complaints regarding delays in the processing of building control applications, which Hackitt attributes to the regulator’s current resourcing challenges rather than inefficiency.
Hackitt illustrated the issue by recounting instances of inadequate submissions received by the Building Safety Regulator, one particularly notable for an application where the applicant questioned its necessity in every section of the form. These examples serve to underscore her point that the delays are often a result of poor quality submissions rather than regulatory bottlenecking.
The focus should remain on improving current regulatory functions rather than hastily merging them.
