Written question WQ84283

Building safety passports are an asset management system developed by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) as an efficient way of managing a building’s ‘pathway’. This includes, but is not limited to any planned maintenance, decarb and building safety works. These produce economies of scale by maximising available resources. They have been widely used in Europe and are being developed in the decarb sector by the Green Finance Institute and our own Optimised Retrofit Programme. Our intention is to draw on this international best practice and utilise building safety passports to ensure the longer term safety of buildings in Wales.

We are developing the use of building safety passports through our Welsh Building Safety Fund (WBSF), the first phase of which was launched in September. This required Responsible Persons to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) to the scheme to inform the requirements around surveys, intrusive fire risk assessments and to establish the supporting structures and framework around the development and use of building safety passports going forward. This essential first phase of the WBSF has been designed with the support of key stakeholders and will enable long term investment in remediation.

The EoI process has not closed and we continue to receive submissions into the scheme. To date we have received 248 EoIs. We have allocated an initial £2m to conduct surveys, intrusive fire risk assessments and the initial development of the building safety passports. This work will inform the further remediation and other work required in future years and the quantum of investment required thereafter.