At some point, someone put wheels on a suitcase.
We don’t know exactly who. No one took individual responsibility for the idea at the time. There were certainly designers. Engineers, indubitably. A few marketing types, probably. And a project manager in the background shaking their head. A team, at some point in time, who designed a product, oversaw production, and carefully nurtured it along its journey to the market, and all had a little bit of responsibility for the product that wheels to your home, gets packed with your clothes, and eventually arrives at the airport.
But the moment it cracks – and those wheels fall off just in front of Gate 42 – there’s no sole individual stepping forward to claim that responsibility.
Historically, construction has been not entirely unlike this.
This is, of course, a loose metaphor designed to catch your attention. Weird enough to make you wonder if we have actually, finally, lost it in the Siniat marketing department, but intriguing enough to get you reading.
But it is, principally, a similar process.
Buildings don’t get built by one person. They’re the result of many people, all doing their part, at varying times, under varying degrees of pressure, trying to make the right decisions to ensure the inhabitants are protected, should the metaphorical wheels come off. The trouble is, in our world, when wheels fall off – and they do – a lot is at stake.
And then the question arrives: who owns the blame?
This is not an article about blame. It’s about competence, liability, and ownership, which are much trickier. And in construction, in the Building Safety Act era, liability cannot be evaded through inaction or informal delegation.
So, this is an invitation. To walk with us, through a journey – an entirely plausible, but entirely hypothetical journey – of where liability could live in a construction project.
Before we get into it: this is both simplified and hypothetical, for educational, informational purposes. The real world of projects is messier, trickier, more complex. Take what we’ll cover as a point for consideration, and reflection on your own projects.
Because sometimes it lives with the client. Sometimes with the architect. Sometimes it could be the main contractor. There’s many characters along this journey. But, the important bit is that everyone is trying to do the right thing, to ensure we’re building the right future.
Where it all begins
We tend to assume that the person who has had the most say in the design of a building is the holder of responsibility. In many cases, this ends up being true. It is not where it starts, though. The first person to hold design responsibility isn't the architect. It’s the client.
In the kind of firm, statutory way that makes regulators very interested in their choices. Under CDM 2015 and now firmly reinforced in the Building Safety Act, the client sits at the top of the responsibility tree. This is for a reason: not because they are meant to decide every detail, but because they have the power to choose who does.
On day one, the client is required to make suitable arrangements for managing the project, including appointing competent dutyholders (like the principal designer and principal contractor), and they maintain responsibility for the due allocation of time and resource to ensure that health and safety in all forms are considered throughout. These are legal duties - if no one is appointed, then the law presumes the client intends to do it all themselves.
Since the Building Safety Act of 2022 is now live, these responsibilities run a little deeper for high-risk buildings (that’s residential structures over 18m, or 7 storeys, with at least two residential units). For these buildings, the law requires that an ‘Accountable Person’—typically the building owner or managing entity—be identified to hold legal responsibility for ongoing building safety.
This is about accountability and consideration as much as anything else. Making sure they understand that how they set up a job – who they appoint, and how early – has a direct and lasting effect on the safety of a building.
Enter: the principal designer
The first addition of responsibility. The principal designer is a body or individual appointed by the client to, in the words of the Health and Safety Executive, plan, manage, monitor, and coordinate health and safety during the pre-construction phase.
This role requires the competence to oversee health and safety aspects. The principal designer must also coordinate with other designers to help ensure compliance with duties.
Under the Building Safety Act 2022, their responsibilities expand further. They must ensure that building safety – predominantly fire, and structural – is considered at every stage of the design and construction process. This includes compliance with the gateway process – they must work closely with the Building Safety Regulator, ensuring compliance with safety protocols throughout the design and build phases.
Guardians of the construction phase
The principal contractor is the second appointment named by the client. Their role is defined by the Health and Safety Executive as one responsible for the planning, management, monitoring, and coordination of the construction phase of a project. The Building Safety Act develops this further, stating that the Principal Contractor must ensure that building work complies with all relevant requirements, coordinate work to comply with building regulations, and take steps to ensure that all contractors cooperate, communicate, and coordinate their work with other duty holders.
Where the principal designer is responsible for ensuring that the design of building duly prioritises and incorporates the necessary fire and structural safety considerations, and meets the necessary building regulations, the principal contractor is responsible for ensuring that what was designed is what gets built, and that the doing so is carried out to the necessary quality standards, by individuals who hold the necessary competence.
The supporting actors
Those are the three main players – in the eyes of the law, and building control, anyway. But as we all know, there are a number of other who make up the middle of the Venn diagram. Lots of knowledge lives here.
Structural engineers, fire engineers, or other building services specialists are first on the list. It’s pretty cut and dry – if you’re preparing design information, you have legal duties. CDM 2015 requires that your work must eliminate or reduce foreseeable risks, and you must provide enough information so that others can do the same. Under the Building Safety Act, designers now have an active duty to ensure their work, if built, would comply with building regulations. This includes coordination, materials, fire safety, structure – everything.
For large, or complex, projects, consultants may also be, well, consulted. For acoustic, daylight, access, or sustainability concerns, consultants provide nuance, and value. Their responsibility is usually informational, and advisory, but designers must assess themselves if it may result in unsafe or non-compliant outcomes.
Installers, quite literally, carry a practical burden. Their role is to install as per the manufacturer’s instructions and the design details. They may carry design liability if they make decisions that influence the performance or compliance of the system, particularly if they deviate from specifications or instructions. Care must be taken here to ensure that any instances of ‘value engineering’ are approved by the designer to ensure strict compliance with building regulations.
Where we come in
Manufacturers – hi, that’s us – play a unique role in this. We provide product and system data, test evidence, certification, and detailing guidance. We also may spend time providing technical support, to help our products and systems to be used correctly, safely, and in compliance with the law.
The duty to assess whether a product is suitable for a particular application sits with the designer and contractor. Under the BSA, principal designers and contractors must explicitly verify that materials used are appropriate, compliant, and safe for their intended application—especially in high-risk buildings.
One thing manufacturers are responsible for, though, is ensuring that any guidance or data they provide is correct, up to date, and not misleading. If you’re taking advice from a specification or technical lead, ask for the documentation to back it up – namely, classification reports. Responsible manufacturers should take no issue with this, as they’ll have it readily available.
The end... sort of
Liability and responsibility for building in the UK is a team sport.
While many roles contribute to a project, legal duties are clearly defined and become sharper by the day. ‘Shared’ responsibility is no longer applicable - under the Building Safety Act, no one can pass the buck.
But it’s more than the letter of the law. It’s about finding the right way forward. The safe way forward. Regardless of your formal design role, everyone must understand their legal duties and the impact of their decisions on safety-critical elements.
For designers, our advice is this.
Document. Question. Appoint – and engage – early. Work with people who know what they’re doing. And can prove it.
