Building control officers must be assessed by 6 July
Building control professionals have been given extra time to complete the new competence assessment required to become a registered building inspector (RBI).
As part of the shake-up of building safety following the Grenfell Tower fire, inspectors faced having to register by 6 April to continue to practise.
However, Philip White, director of building safety at the Health and Safety Executive, wrote to the building control industry on 14 March, outlining new transitional arrangements for the registration of building control inspectors in England.
His letter follows a warning from Lorna Stimpson, chief executive of Local Authority Building Control, that a ‘significant number’ of councils across England and Wales would be unable to offer building control services from 6 April onwards because not enough inspectors would be registered by this deadline.
Under the transitional arrangements outlined by White, the competence assessment period for registration will be extended by 13 weeks to 6 July. Only building control professionals who have registered as a Class 1 RBI by 6 April will qualify for the extension. They must also be enrolled in one of the Building Safety Regulator’s approved schemes and be in the process of having their competency assessed.
The extension is half the six months called for by Stimpson, who also warned that the new registration requirements are prompting an ‘exodus’ of building control professionals.
