Wales is updating its building safety regime following the Building Safety Act 2022

1. What’s changing in Wales – context and regulatory reform

Wales is updating its building safety regime following the Building Safety Act 2022 and related secondary legislation. Unlike England, Wales has adapted its own rules and timelines, with the intent that:

• Dutyholder roles are clearly defined in law (who is responsible and when).
• Dutyholders must demonstrate competence, not just claim it.
• Regulatory oversight is strengthened, especially for higher-risk buildings. GOV.WALES+1

These reforms complement, not replace, the traditional Approved Documents (including Part B for fire safety) by embedding expectations of accountability and competence into the building control approval process.

2. Duty-holding roles under the new regime

Under the emerging Welsh framework, a range of key players in the built environment become dutyholders with legal duties (similar in intent to roles in the CDM regime but specific to building regulations):

Key roles include:

• Client – person/organisation commissioning the work
• Principal Designer – coordinates design compliance
• Principal Contractor – manages construction compliance
• Designer / Contractor – deliver design or work under dutyholder oversight

For higher-risk buildings (HRBs), additional roles such as an Accountable Person / Principal Accountable Person are proposed to manage fire safety and ongoing occupation duties once the building is complete. moderngov.denbighshire.gov.uk+1

3. Competence requirements – the core of the reforms

A central theme of the new Welsh regulations is that dutyholders must be competent, and this must be evidenced:

What this means:

✔️ Dutyholders (like designers and contractors) must have the skills, knowledge, experience and behavioursappropriate to their role.✔️ Clients must take reasonable steps to ensure appointees are competent.✔️ For higher-risk work, clients must record and submit evidence of how competence was assessed as part of the building control application, including consideration of past performance or any serious infractions.✔️ A signed declaration from the client must accompany the application, affirming they are satisfied with the competence of the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor.✔️ Local authorities will check that these declarations are provided when reviewing applications; they can assess competence independently but are not required to do so in every case. GOV.WALES

This means that competence is no longer assumed — it must be proven through documentation (CVs, qualifications, project experience, certifications, competence scheme membership, references, and professional accreditation where applicable).

4. Why competence matters in practice

The rationale behind these changes is to improve building safety outcomes by ensuring that dutyholders can actually do what they are legally required to do. This has several direct implications:

For professionals:

• You may be asked to provide evidence of competence with applications.
• You must be able to justify your capability for your role.
• You may need to document ongoing development (e.g., CPD) and demonstrate recent relevant experience.

For clients:

• You must check and record competence before appointing key dutyholders.
• You are accountable if you appoint someone who is not competent.
• Clients will face additional administrative tasks at the building control stage. GOV.WALES

For organisations:

• Processes must be put in place to evaluate competence consistently.
• Contracts and procurement will increasingly include competency checks.
• Internal systems may need updating to keep evidence organised and auditable.

5. Interaction with Part B (Fire Safety)

Approved Document Part B (fire safety) continues to set technical guidance on how to satisfy fire safety requirements (means of escape, fire resistance, external walls, etc.). In Wales it has been updated as recently as 19 June 2025 ahead of broader building safety reforms. GOV.WALES

However:

• Part B itself does not prescribe dutyholder competence rules — those come from the broader dutyholder / building safety regime being introduced.
• Part B requirements (e.g., fire safety design criteria) are still the technical baseline, but the new dutyholder and competence requirements mean that professionals involved in meeting those criteria must also be able to prove they are competent to do so.

So, whereas Part B says what you need to achieve for fire safety, the new dutyholder regime says you must be competent to achieve it and able to prove it.

6. Implications for practice — a summary

7. How organisations should adapt

To meet the strengthened expectations organisations should:

1. Develop competence frameworks that map roles to skills and evidence requirements.
2. Institute pre-appointment checks for all key dutyholders.
3. Maintain evidence repositories for competence documentation.
4. Train staff on the new duties, including how to produce signed competence declarations.
5. Review contracts to embed competence verification requirements.

In plain language

Wales is introducing a regime where, before you begin regulated building work, you must not only identify who’s doing what (roles), but also prove that each key person is competent to do it. This evidence becomes part of your building control submission, and regulators will expect both the declaration and the supporting documentation. It’s designed to make accountability real and reduce failures in fire safety and other critical areas.