High risk buildings - verification during construction: compliance plan approach - background and implementation

4. Roles overview

4.1 Relevant Person

The relevant person (RP) is usually the owner, tenant or a developer who is doing construction work for themselves, or who may employ consultants, certifiers, and contractors to undertake design and construction work on their behalf.

When a building warrant is obtained, the RP is responsible for controlling the work on site so that the work complies with the building regulations and they can submit the certifying completion certificate, without doing so recklessly or knowingly containing a false statement. On completion of the work the Act requires the RP to submit the completion certificate to the verifier.

The completion certificate certifies that the work, or conversion, was carried out in accordance with the building warrant, and the building, as constructed or converted, complies with the building regulations.

While an agent of the RP may complete and sign the declaration, legislation requires that the RP submits the completion certificate in every case. It is an offence if the RP knowingly submits a completion certificate that contains a statement that is false or misleading. It is also an offence to recklessly submit a completion certificate containing a statement which is false or misleading.

Submitting a completion certificate without having taken appropriate and informed professional advice, particularly but not exclusively, where the RP is not an experienced construction professional, could be considered as reckless.

Where the tenant or developer are not considered or identified as the RP, the owner is then considered to be the RP when a completion certificate is submitted.

4.2 Other Persons

While the RP is responsible for lawful submission of the completion certificate there are offences under the Act such as carrying out work without a building warrant, including stages of work where staged approval hasn’t been granted, or in a case where a building warrant has been granted, otherwise than in accordance with the warrant.

In these circumstances persons considered as having committed an offence include

• any person carrying out the work or, as the case may be, making the conversion,
• any person on whose behalf the work is being carried out or, as the case may be, the conversion is being made,
• if the owner of the building does not fall under the above, the owner.

Case law has confirmed that all of the above can be considered as having committed the same offence on a single project.^[11]

Several requirements of the Act and subordinate legislation require actions of persons carrying out work, such as notifying the verifier of start of works and of the completion of stages of work to allow inspection, however it is expected that the RP in their duties to submit a lawful completion certificate, would exercise control through contracts on the required actions of those employed to carryout work on their behalf.

4.3 Verifier

The 32 Local Authorities are appointed as verifiers by Scottish Ministers to administer the building standards system for their own geographic area.

Their primary function is to protect the public interest by providing an independent check of applications for building warrants to construct or demolish buildings or convert buildings. This includes checking during the design phase before granting a building warrant and checking during the construction phase before accepting a completion certificate.

Verifiers must, on an application for a building warrant made to it, grant a building warrant if, but only if, it is satisfied that the work involved will be carried out in accordance with building regulations and that nothing in any plan, specification or other information submitted with the application indicates that the building when constructed or converted will fail to comply with building regulations.^[12]

Applicants and their designers have the responsibility for design compliance, along with certifiers of design where appropriate, however it is the verifier who takes the decision to issue a building warrant.

Applicants would be considered as committing an offence if their application contained a statement which is false or misleading in a “material particular”^[13].

CPA guidance will describe the actions the verifier must take, and the CP will allow the verifier to set out their planned approach to reasonable inquiry and record in an open and transparent way both their efforts and those planned and delivered by the RP and their contracted parties.

Where the CP is not followed, the verifier must record the deviations and their actions to ensure their reasonable inquiry is not frustrated.

Verifiers must accept a completion certificate if, but only if, after reasonable inquiry, they are satisfied as to the matters certified in the certificate.

In regard to potential compliance issues with technical or procedural requirements of building regulations for projects under local authority control, or where the local authority has an interest, there are no changes under the compliance plan regards conflicts of interest.

Provisions are already in place through schedule 2 paragraph 9 of the BS Act 2003, and the Building Standards Operating Framework has confirmed that verifiers must operate to ensure that there is no conflict of interest between operation as a Verifier and any other activities they undertake (corporately and individual staff). Verifiers must assess and record such risks and record activities and measures put in place to demonstrate that any conflict of interest is resolved.