Agenda item

The Scrutiny Board received a report of the Director of Environment that provided Members with an update on the latest position regarding the national changes that have directly impacted on the Building Control profession and to inform members on how these changes had impacted on the Council’s building control service, the current pressures, challenges, and of options for addressing the varying issues.

The Council’s Building Control Service continues to operate in a challenging environment and unlike most regulatory services, both individuals and commercial developers have the choice and option to decide on whether to engage the services of the local authority or a private provider for any work that requires building regulation approval.

The Council is often referred to as the “inspector of last resort” as the Council has no choice over the work it receives, either by exercising its enforcement powers, or by having to receive work when a private provider can no longer complete the inspections and the work is “reverted back” to the Council to resolve.

Many other functions of the service, classed as statutory in nature, such as maintaining various registers and carrying out formal enforcement action where necessary, are not chargeable functions. The service also has to maintain an out of hours response to respond to concerns of dangerous buildings.

During the period 19^th September 2023 to 18^th September 2024 (1 year) the Council received 300 requests to carry out the full Building control function for a client/ homeowner. During the same period, the Council was informed of 570 initial notices from private building control providers who were acting on behalf of homeowners/ contractors carrying out works in Oldham. This showed, that in 12 months, the Council was only acting on 34% of all applications requiring Building Control supervision across the Borough, with the other 66% being supervised by the private sector. 

Following the Grenfell tragedy, in 2017 and the independent review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety by Dame Judith Hackitt, published in May 2018, the Government established the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) as the Building Control Authority in England. The inquiry and the resulting changes strive to deliver improvement of the various building standards as well as to implement a new, more stringent, regulatory regime, introduce more powers to order remedial works and the use of enforcement ‘stop notices’.

The journey to change the way building control and construction projects are delivered continues; further changes will inevitably follow as the recommendations and actions outlined in the phase 2 enquiry report are introduced. There was an expectation that the Building Control function will return to a regulatory role, stop operating in the commercial world as well introducing a clear expectation through statutory reporting indicators, that the Council is taking appropriate enforcement against non-compliance.

In considering the report, in some detail, Members of the scrutiny Board commented that the new regime imposed, via legislation, more stringent requirements on individuals who practice as registered Building control officers and the local authority like others across the region is struggling to recruit fully qualified officers. There was a reliance on agency staff at the moment to deliver the service and this comes at an increased cost to the Council.

It was noted that more far-reaching enforcement powers were available with an expectation that they will be used. The current staffing structure has three FTE Building Control Officer vacancies that are backfilled with agency staff and although the Council is looking to employ a trainee it is this immediate resource issue together with the changes to the legislative requirements that are causing concern as the service tries to respond to the issues it faces.

The meeting was advised that there is a national shortage of qualified building control officers with many leaving the profession and it is how the Council responds to this with attractive conditions, renumeration so that the structure in place can be fully staffed and the reliance on agency support reduced. Therefore members sought to consider alternative approaches for additional recruitment of substantive officers, reduce reliance on agency staffing, reduce the overspend and ultimately, provide a viable service that is able to meet the new regulatory regime and the needs of local residents and developers.

Resolved:

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    That the alternative approaches, to successfully recruit staff to the Council’s Building Control Service, be supported.

3.      That the Director of Environment be requested to submit a report to the Scrutiny Board, in approximately six months, updating Members on the Building Control Service’s staffing arrangements.