Scottish Government's update on forthcoming Compliance Plan Approach

The Scottish Government has issued an update on its forthcoming Compliance Plan Approach for building standards and associated new national guidance.

Members who watched our CABE Webinar Wednesday presentation earlier in the year with Frank Doherty, the Scottish Government’s Standards Compliance and Digital Strategy Team Leader in its Building Standards Division, will be interested to know that Frank and his team have released a recent update to their work.

The Webinar Wednesday presentation focused on the Scottish Government’s forthcoming Compliance Plan Approach (CPA) as part of a strengthened building standards compliance regime for high risk buildings – as recommended by Professor John Cole, and the Building Standards (Compliance and Enforcement) Review Panel.

This newest official statement outlines how developments on the CPA have since progressed, including the proposed introduction of Compliance Plans in revised national guidance from next year.

Held to account

"The CPA is about delivering compliant buildings," the statement said.

"We aim to make compliance with building standards, and the responsibilities for it, more transparent and documented, and hold those who would seek to avoid the legislation to account.

"The tools to do this will be provided through the introduction of the Compliance Plan (CP), a new role of Compliance Plan Manager (CPM), and making changes to enforcement and sanctions for offences under the Building (Scotland) Act 2003.

"Particularly for buildings considered as high risk, this means supporting the building owner, or relevant person as it is described in legislation, to fulfil their duty to evidence and deliver a building compliant with the building regulations."

Before work starts on site, the CP will be created and managed by the CPM, and then approved by the local authority building standards verifier as part of the building warrant application. The CP will detail the approach to compliance for a project, including where the work is staged.

"The CPM is a new role, and to fully implement it a change in legislation will be required. But that shouldn’t stop us implementing changes such as the CP process through guidance, and that is what we are intending to do from next year," the statement said.

Revised guidance

The statement also explained how the Scottish Government will issue revised guidance on verification during construction, applying CPA principles and documentation to any new qualifying building project which requires a building warrant. 

"This includes any pre-building warrant discussions, and the issue of a version of the CP with building warrant, which will set out clearly the responsibilities and compliance evidencing particular to the project," the statement said. 

"The CP, when completed, will allow the verifier to consider if a completion certificate, and its compliance statement, have been lawfully made. This includes when the verifier should be notified, what their inspection and evidencing requirements are, it will record if notifications happened, and how well the verifier responded."

The next step will be to publish CPA guidance for industry to voluntarily adopt prior to legislative change. This will include the steps expected of a CPM before it becomes a statutory requirement to work with all parties to propose and then monitor the CP. 

The publication of revised national guidance is all part of the Scottish Government’s response to the Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 recommendations; a process that moved from a single pilot project to an Early Adopters phase in 2024.

"The publication of revised national guidance will allow us to follow a recognised change curve and move from Early Adopters to an early majority before legislative change requires it," the statement concluded.

"This change process will allow us to continue to receive feedback, review and refine the CPA, so that it is an established practice, and fine-tuned for legislation."

Watch our Webinar Wednesday presentation with Frank Doherty below.

Read the Scottish Government’s CPA update in full here.