High risk buildings - verification during construction: industry guidance

2. Preface

The national guidance set out in this document has been developed by the Scottish Government’s Building Standards Division (BSD) in collaboration with an industry Working Group.

This document outlines additional steps that design teams and contractors should follow when preparing and submitting building warrant applications, through to the submission of completion certificates for defined High Risk Buildings (HRBs), to deliver the Compliance Plan Approach (CPA). This guidance is being introduced in anticipation of the CPA becoming a legal requirement which has not been confirmed. Legislative change is not anticipated until after the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections and will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Introduction of guidance at this stage serves several purposes:

• Introduction of measured change through guidance before legislative change, including opportunities for revisions based on feedback from stakeholders.
• Delivering on the Scottish Governments response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report^[3].
• Delivering on the findings of the Review Panel on Building Standards Compliance and Enforcement chaired by Professor John Cole^[4].

The objective of this change approach is to allow industry and local authority verifiers to become familiar with the CPA in advance of mandatory requirements being set through legislation, provide feedback and assist in the effective introduction of strengthening of building standards compliance.

This includes the potential for legislative change to impact current forms or terms of procurement and contracting. Compliance with legislation should be considered as non-negotiable and all parties are advised to look to this guidance and consider the impact of proposed legislative change on their business, processes and project programming.

From 1 April, verifiers will apply the verifier guidance to all new build High Risk Building warrant applications meeting the major work definition as set out in the guidance documents. This first phase will also apply to cladding remediation work^[5] requiring a building warrant, meeting a major work definition, being undertaken to a High Risk Building.

Application of the guidance to all other major work to High Risk Buildings will start from 1 January 2027. Industry can start using this guidance following the same phasing. Through agreement with individual verifiers industry can apply the guidance to any project outside of this phased approach.

All representatives connected with the construction industry, from designers and main contractors are urged to assist in this phase of introducing the CPA and provide feedback to BSD prior to it becoming mandatory. This way feedback, whether positive or negative, can be considered, and any good and beneficial suggestions can be incorporated into the new mandatory approach.