The UK is entering the largest housebuilding programme in a generation, with 1.5 million new homes promised this Parliament. Yet quantity alone is not success. The real test is whether these homes are safe, and whether residents can trust the system that built them.
Grenfell remains the turning point. It showed what happens when regulation is fragmented, competence is patchy, and residents are ignored. Since then, the Building Safety Act 2022, the PAS 8670 suite, and the creation of the Building Safety Regulator have reshaped the landscape. However, frameworks don’t deliver safety on their own, it comes down to competence at every level of the supply chain.
Closing the Gaps in Competence
The same weaknesses keep reappearing:
- Uneven competence: while large developers can often show compliance, smaller contractors (the ones fitting fire doors, alarms, and cavity barriers) struggle to access pathways designed for bigger firms.
- Loss of competence at handover: safety measures are too often substituted for cheaper alternatives, installed poorly, or passed on with incomplete records.
The consequences are stark. In one major inspection, over 60% of tested fire doors failed, not due to poor design, but because of poor installation and lack of maintenance. Each failure represented a broken link in the chain of competence and a direct risk to residents.
Competence must therefore be universal, continuous, and tested in practice. Anything less risks repeating systemic failures at scale.
Residents’ Rights Depend on Competence
The Building Safety Act put residents at the heart of the new system, giving them rights to information, engagement, and redress. These rights only matter if the work behind them is competent.
Meaningful accountability comes when competence is validated through regulatory oversight and residents lived experience. If residents cannot see, question, and trust the competence of those making safety decisions, the law risks becoming symbolic rather than effective.
From Compliance to Culture
The golden thread and gateway regime were designed to bring consistency and transparency. Their success depends on culture. At present, procurement practices still too often reward the lowest price over proven competence. That undermines both safety and trust.
True culture change will only happen when procurement embeds competence and safety as non-negotiables, and when the whole supply chain from the largest developer to the smallest subcontractor is supported to meet the same high standards.
Towards a Competence-Driven Future
The housing pledge will not be judged by the number of ribbon-cuttings. It will be judged by trust: Do residents believe the system works for them? Do they feel safe in their homes?
Competence is the foundation of that trust. When it is embedded at every stage from design and installation through to inspection and maintenance, we can deliver homes that are not only more numerous, but truly safer.
