The Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) data management is “not viable” and BSR staff are segregating data manually. That’s what BSR non-executive chair Andy Roe told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee yesterday (2 September).
Roe told the committee: “In the spirit of full transparency, I think we are well resourced. I’ve had very good support from Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, and I’m not here to speak about kind of the genesis of the BSR, but one of the things I don’t quite understand is the lack of an IT system that I would reckon suitable.
“There’s a real challenge around digital and data at the heart of this ability to segregate data, provide data quickly, and understand where applications are in the context of region or a particular developer or a scheme.
“All I’ve met inside the BSR are really passionate, really hard-working people who know they’re fundamental to getting houses built as well as keeping people safe, but they’re working with a product that I don’t recognise as viable.”
No compromise
Roe added: “One of the other big challenges is we have got to improve our approach to data digital capture, and then use that to better organise the way we operationalise application approval.
“My very hard-working colleagues inside the BSR are having to manually segregate data the whole time to best understand where to put their efforts. That is an unnecessary amount of bureaucracy that has nothing to do with safety, and if we radically improve it, will enable more houses to get built, more applications to be processed without ever compromising the ideology of the [Building Safety] Act, which is, let’s be frank, in existence because of the death of 72 people, and should not be compromised.”
AI’s role in screening applications
BSR director of operations John Palmer highlighted the role AI could play: “We are looking at whether there are any technological ways we can help [with applications] – possibly AI screening of applications early to give applicants an indication of whether it’s a red, amber or green, [which] will save them and the BSR a lot of time before things get in the [system].”
Gagan Monhindra, MP for South West Hertfordshire and acting chair of the session yesterday, asked Roe to keep the committee updated on the BSR’s progress to improve its data management.
