CIH's submission to the consultation on the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation on the proposed Single Construction Regulator (SCR).

As the professional body for those working in housing, our response focuses on the areas where we believe we can add value: resident safety, professional practice, accountability and culture. While this consultation addresses a range of safety regulations, our response is primarily focused on the safety of building, refurbishment, and maintenance of social housing properties, and on supporting residents to live safely within them.

We have previously made it clear that we believe the way the wider construction regulatory system operates has clear implications for the social housing sector and its residents. Decisions taken during the design and construction of social housing can have long-term consequences for those responsible for managing buildings, and ultimately for the safety and well-being of residents.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy and its subsequent inquiry highlighted concerns across the building safety landscape, including how regulation could be split among several organisations, leading to fragmentation. The inquiry also highlighted that this could mean safety concerns were raised, but there was a failure to connect the issues to enable early intervention.

CIH therefore both welcomes and recognises the aim of exploring a more joined-up approach to construction regulation. From a housing perspective, we have previously supported the need for a regulator with clearer oversight of how buildings, products and professionals interact, and we recognise this consultation as a positive step forward. 

However, we also feel it is important to acknowledge that evidence from the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, and from research following the Grenfell tragedy, indicates that regulatory challenges are not wholly structural. Therefore, as we have consistently raised, there are questions around professional competence, organisational culture, transparency, and a system that supports residents not only in voicing their concerns but also in acting on them, all of which have played a role in both which risks have arisen and how they have been addressed.

For that reason, our response focuses not only on the proposed regulatory structure itself, but also on how the wider system can support safer buildings, clearer accountability and greater confidence for residents.

There is clear evidence and investigation demonstrating gaps in building safety regulation and governance structures, which have given rise to risks that have developed across the construction system without effective oversight.

As the professional body for housing, CIH supports the aim of establishing a regulator capable of identifying and addressing the links among buildings, construction products and professional practices. We have previously highlighted this as an essential next step to strengthen oversight and reduce risks across the sector.

However, as a recent review has shown, the effectiveness of a single regulator will depend on a clear definition of its roles and responsibilities within a much wider regulatory system.  This needs to take into full consideration the range of government departments, regulatory bodies, professional organisations and building owners already operating in this space. Therefore, establishing clear boundaries and ongoing coordination will be central to avoiding disconnected approaches to safety regulation.

We have previously drawn on the clear international evidence to support the importance of this clarity. For example, research led by the Buildings Performance Institute Europe, examining regulatory structures across Europe, highlights that effective systems rely on clear institutional mandates, stable policy frameworks and transparent data systems.

Europe also offers several practical examples of how both compliance and clarity can be supported through accessible guidance. Norway’s regulatory system combines its technical regulations with supporting guidance. These resources supply practical explanations of regulatory obligations and help translate policy intent into design and construction practice through practitioner interpretation.

Denmark’s building regulations (BR18) similarly combine functional requirements with visual examples of compliance, including diagrams and layouts that show how the regulations can be met in practice.

The Netherlands’ Bouwbesluit framework is another example of outcome-focused regulation. The system allows alternative technical solutions, permitting developers to demonstrate equivalent safety outcomes.

For the UK, it will be important to consider how the proposed regulator will work alongside the existing systems of standards, guidance and technical information. From the social housing sector perspective, it is important that this can operate within the complex backdrop of social housing policy and regulation in which practitioners and housing providers currently work.

We have supported the introduction of the 'golden thread' under the Building Safety Act, which marks a vital step toward a lifecycle approach to information management. Such an approach can be effective in ensuring that reliable, relevant, and useful information about a building is accessible throughout its design, construction, and use. 

Therefore, we welcome the focus on effective digital systems to support regulation, and improvements to information collation and sharing play a key role in ensuring accountability and improving efficiency, particularly for housing providers facing intricate compliance requirements.

However, we want to highlight the need for systems to work together while remaining accessible and usable. From a social housing perspective, many providers already use multiple systems and approaches to data collection and reporting, particularly regarding compliance in asset management and building safety. There is no single defined system or approach to this across the UK, and there are well-documented challenges in effective information and knowledge management, as highlighted by the Housing Ombudsman and more recent research.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that any digital regulatory framework works effectively alongside existing systems to avoid further complexity and administrative burdens, and to drive higher data standards. Here, the European revised Construction Products Regulation can serve as a useful model for digital traceability.

We would also like to highlight the cultural aspect of digitisation, particularly regarding the use of automated reporting and artificial intelligence. First, we have previously been clear that reliance on quantitative and performance-based information alone, whilst often easier to collate and interpret, does not always provide a thorough understanding of residents' lived experiences of safety, buildings and neighbourhoods.

Whilst qualitative and lived experience data can be more complex to integrate into both regulatory compliance and digital systems, our own research has made it clear that systems that prioritise easily measurable data can overlook residents' insights. If digital systems are to support effective oversight, they must ensure that resident experience forms part of the evidence base used to understand system performance.

Furthermore, there are considerations to review regarding automated data analysis and the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), especially when drawing on large language models (LLMs). Such systems have previously exposed harmful biases when examining data on social and human understanding. If lived-experience data and resident feedback are to be part of an effective digital data strategy for regulation moving forward, these biases need to be mitigated.

This is especially so with respect to residents living in social housing or in areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation who have previously been stigmatised and excluded from decisions about their own homes and communities. We strongly recommend establishing ethical data principles to safeguard against structural bias and ensure that residents' viewpoints are always considered.

Digitalisation should therefore be viewed not only as a technical change, but as part of a wider effort to improve transparency, accountability and learning across the sector.

Evidence shows that complex construction supply chains often involve multiple organisations and span different professional disciplines. In such a multifaceted working environment, clear competence frameworks that inform professional behaviours are vital to ensuring that safety risks and resident concerns are properly identified and addressed.

Guidance from organisations such as the Institution of Structural Engineers emphasises the importance of embedding safety culture within professional practice, similar to our own approach for housing professionals. Additionally, the Construction Industry Council’s report, 'Setting the Bar', highlights the role of professional standards in strengthening accountability across the built environment.

However, these are not emergent or isolated issues. The Latham Report also identified structural concerns over three decades ago, including both fragmented supply chains and oppositional procurement practices.  Additionally, our work reinforces the need for reform that extends beyond improving technical standards.

Drawing on our work from the Rethinking Repairs and Maintenance (RERAM) project and the Better Social Housing Review, we would encourage the government to ensure that reform considers how safety is achieved in practice, reflects the realities of how homes are maintained and repaired, and supports the role of professional judgement and culture alongside compliance.

The Grenfell tragedy demonstrated the consequences of treating safety as secondary to cost and convenience. Cultural change across housing and construction is therefore critical and should be supported by clear standards of competence, conduct and professional judgement. Alongside this, clearer and more accessible guidance will help create a system that supports safe practice in delivery, not just in principle.

At the same time, evidence continues to show the significant impact on residents living in unsafe homes, particularly where delays and uncertainty persist. This reinforces the need for approaches that reflect lived experience, with transparent communication and meaningful opportunities for residents to influence decisions that affect their safety.

Within the social housing sector, these issues are particularly important, as the maintenance, repair and refurbishment of homes and neighbourhoods often sit across multiple contractors and suppliers. Achieving consistent competence across the sector is a challenge, but it is central to ensuring safety is a clear priority for all residents. Therefore, we would suggest that. whilst the regulator has a clear role in enforcement, it should also be clear about how it can support ongoing professional development and cultural reform throughout all elements of the construction sector.

We particularly welcome the proposed shift towards outcome-driven regulation, but are clear that this must also fairly and transparently incorporate meaningful resident outcomes alongside more technical, performance measures.

Research has clearly shown that the challenges around the remediation of unsafe buildings have resulted in both significant social and psychological consequences for too many residents. Furthermore, the added challenges of delays, uncertainty, and, at times, fragmented communication have undermined resident confidence and public trust in the system. This is despite the clear efforts underway in technical remediation.

Alongside this, broader research and practice-based evidence continue to show that residents are not simply recipients of information but play an active role in identifying, interpreting, and responding to risk within their homes and communities. Studies of building safety incidents highlight how residents often rely on shared knowledge and informal networks where formal communication is unclear or delayed, while other work has demonstrated that, historically, resident concerns have not always been recognised or acted upon within the system.

From a practice perspective, engagement standards, including those developed by TPAS, emphasise the importance of clear purpose, transparency and meaningful involvement in building trust and enabling residents to contribute to safer outcomes. We would encourage continued collaboration with TPAS to ensure that the resident experience is consistently reflected within the design and operation of the regulatory framework.

Government research exploring residents' perceptions of fire safety in high-rise buildings found that residents' trust in the system is strongly influenced by communication and transparency rather than by technical compliance alone.

We have previously highlighted the importance of balancing quantitative indicators with qualitative insights when measuring resident outcomes. Without such a balance, there is a risk that systems can track process-based compliance but cannot fully measure meaningful outcomes for residents living in the buildings.

We believe the evidence indicates the need to ensure that resident experience is a core part of how system performance is monitored and evaluated, and highlights that this was a key element of the failings at Grenfell. Therefore, we recommend that any assessment of the success of regulatory reform should include not only compliance indicators but also an understanding of key resident outcomes related to trust, safety and communication.

The creation of a Single Construction Regulator embodies an important structural reform. The government has indicated that implementation will take place over several years and may not be fully realised until later in the decade.

During this period, the sector will continue to operate within a detailed regulatory structure, including the Building Safety Regulator, product regulation through the Office for Product Safety and Standards, and a range of professional regulatory structures.

This step phase provides an opportunity to learn from the implementation of recent reforms, including the Building Safety Act and the gateway processes for higher-risk buildings.

It is also important that the new regulatory framework recognises the role of organisations managing existing housing stock. Most safety risks faced by housing providers come from the ongoing maintenance and refurbishment of buildings, rather than from new construction.

Assuring that the regulatory framework supports effective asset management will therefore be essential to achieving real improvements in safety outcomes for residents.

CIH remains committed to supporting this journey. We will continue to work with government and sector partners to ensure that the BSR delivers on its aims — and helps rebuild the trust and confidence in the building safety sector.

For more information on the consultation visit the government's website.

For more details on our response please contact Eve Blezard, policy lead on eve.blezard@cih.org.