Construction Leadership Council publishes new 'golden thread' guidance

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has today published guidance on the golden thread of information requirements for higher-risk buildings.

Intended to support dutyholders and accountable persons to deliver a golden thread for their building, this new, detailed guidance supports the huge amount of work happening across industry to deliver the higher-risk building regime and to enable the delivery of robust information to support safer buildings, the CLC said.

"The purpose of the golden thread of information is to give the right people the right information at the right time. It is the information that allows someone to understand a building and the steps needed to keep both the building and people safe, now and in the future," it added.

The Golden Thread Guidance has been developed by an industry working group with experience from across the sector in the design, construction and management of management of higher-risk buildings. The guidance sets out the golden thread information that dutyholders and accountable persons will need to generate, keep, maintain and handover during design, through construction, handover and completion of the building and into occupation.

The guidance is clear that the golden thread is not something entirely new. At its heart, the golden thread is accurate, up-to-date information and good information management. Most importantly, the golden thread is something that should be used.

Those responsible for a higher-risk building (dutyholders and accountable persons) should embrace the golden thread, as it is their information for them to use to assure themselves, their residents and regulators that their building is safe.

As the new regime develops, the CLC said this guidance will almost certainly need to develop with it, and the organisation invites constructive feedback from users of the guidance to support this process.

The full Golden Thread Guidance is available to download from the CLC
website here, and a short summary of the guidance is available here.

For a detailed guide to HRB regulations for Accountable Persons, see this article by CABE's Head of Technical Insight, Dr Hywel Davies.