Industry urges clients to “step up” safety compliance

For property managers and building owners, the message is simple: safety cannot be procured on price alone.

Clients now sit at the centre of building safety

The Building Safety Act fundamentally reshaped accountability across the built environment. Crucially, it placed clear duties on the client, the building owner, developer, or organisation commissioning work, to ensure that safety is embedded in everything they do.

That means decisions about who carries out critical safety work, such as fire risk assessments, fire strategies, safety case reports and other compliance documentation, are no longer just commercial decisions.

Industry leaders warn that procurement practices that focus primarily on the cheapest option risk undermining the very safety systems the legislation is designed to protect.  If those decisions prioritise competence and oversight, safety outcomes improve. If they do not, no amount of downstream control can compensate.

In other words: safety begins with those who are accountable.

The danger of “cheap compliance”

Across the property sector, safety-related services are increasingly being commoditised. Fire risk assessments, fire strategies and safety cases are often procured through competitive tenders where the lowest price is a decisive factor. But safety is not a commodity.

A poorly scoped fire risk assessment, an underdeveloped fire strategy, or a superficial safety case report may satisfy a procurement spreadsheet, but they rarely withstand regulatory scrutiny. Worse, they can create a false sense of compliance.  For managing agents and asset owners responsible for occupied buildings, that risk is substantial. A substandard assessment can lead to incorrect risk evaluations, inappropriate mitigation measures and ultimately unsafe buildings and what looked like a saving at the procurement stage can quickly become a far greater cost later.

Procurement decisions shape safety culture

Industry leaders are increasingly emphasising that clients have the power to drive a cultural shift across the construction and property sectors.

Every appointment, whether it is a fire engineer, risk assessor, consultant or contractor, signals what matters most on a project. If procurement focuses solely on cost, supply chains will inevitably respond by competing on price. If, however, clients demand demonstrable competence, robust methodologies, and properly resourced safety work, the entire supply chain adjusts accordingly.

That shift is essential if the industry is to deliver on the ambition behind the Building Safety Act: safer buildings for the people who live and work in them.  Safety decisions require informed clients.

One of the challenges highlighted by industry bodies is that many clients still struggle to navigate the complexity of the new regulatory framework. Building safety legislation is detailed, technical and evolving, which can make it difficult for clients to understand what “good” actually looks like. However, that lack of understanding does not reduce responsibility.

Owners and managing agents must ensure that they are appointing competent professionals with the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience and capacity to deliver the work properly.

This requires more informed procurement processes, ones that evaluate competence, methodology, independence and quality assurance, not simply price.

A long-term perspective on safety

Real estate professionals are also emphasising the importance of viewing safety decisions through the lens of a building’s entire operational life.

Pressuring supply chains for aggressive cost reductions at the outset can create risks that emerge years later during occupation, regulatory review or refurbishment. Those risks are often far more expensive to resolve than the initial saving.

Properly resourced interventions, by contrast, provides clarity, resilience and long-term protection for both building occupants and asset value.

The responsibility, and the opportunity

The industry initiative is ultimately a call to action.  Building owners and managing agents are no longer passive participants in the safety system. They are its starting point. Their procurement decisions determine whether safety professionals can deliver robust work, or whether corners are cut.

Choosing the cheapest option may reduce a line item in a budget today. But when it comes to building safety, the true cost of that decision may only become visible much later.

And by then, it may be far more expensive to fix.

David Hills, Ark Workplace RIsk