TWO THINGS, ONE NAME
What is a building safety case?
Most people use "safety case" and "safety case report" to mean the same thing. They are not the same thing, and the difference decides whether you are actually compliant or just holding a document.
One is the work. The other is the write-up. You cannot buy your way to the first by commissioning the second.
Look through Part 4 of the Building Safety Act and you will find "safety case report" in section 85. You will not find a definition of "safety case" anywhere. The phrase comes from the safety-critical industries the regime borrowed from: nuclear, offshore oil and gas, rail.
In those industries a safety case means the whole argument that a thing is safe. The evidence, the assessments, the controls, the management arrangements, and the reasoning that ties them together. The report is simply the document that presents that argument to a regulator.
The Act builds the same structure without using the label. Section 83 requires every accountable person to assess the building safety risks for the part of the building they are responsible for. Section 84 requires them to take all reasonable steps to stop those risks materialising, and to have formal arrangements for planning, organising, controlling, monitoring and reviewing that work.
That is your safety case. It is continuous, it is distributed across every accountable person, and it exists whether or not anybody has written anything down.
Section 85 then requires one person, the principal accountable person, to prepare a safety case report. That report contains the section 83 assessments and brief descriptions of the section 84 steps.
So the report is downstream. It reports on the case. If the assessments have not been done and the arrangements do not exist, there is nothing to report, and no amount of document-writing fixes that.
The Act never actually says "safety case"
WHERE THE TERM COMES FROM
One is the work. The other is the write-up.
THE DISTINCTION THAT MATTERS
The safety case
Building Safety Act 2022, sections 83 and 84
What it is
The assessments of your building safety risks, the steps taken to control them, and the arrangements that keep that going: planning, organising, controlling, monitoring, reviewing.
Who owns it
Every accountable person, each for the part of the building they are responsible for.
Scope
Split across the building. Each AP covers their own part.
Timing
Continuous. Reassess at regular intervals, whenever you suspect the assessment is out of date, and whenever the Regulator directs it.
It exists
Whether or not anybody has written anything down. Doing nothing does not mean you have no safety case. It means you have a bad one.
The safety case report
Building Safety Act 2022, section 85
What it is
One document containing the section 83 assessments and brief descriptions of the section 84 steps. The Act's word is "brief".
Who owns it
The principal accountable person alone. Not shared. If you are the PAP, this one is yours.
Scope
The whole building, pulled together from what every AP has done.
Timing
Prepared as soon as reasonably practicable after the building is occupied or after you became PAP, whichever is later. Then revised as assessments and steps change.
It exists
Only if somebody writes it. And it can only describe work that has actually happened.
Which is why the report cannot be the first thing you commission. A consultant can write you a beautiful section 85 report. They cannot write your section 83 assessments into existence, and they cannot invent the section 84 arrangements your accountable persons are supposed to be running. Buy the document first and you have paid for a description of work nobody has done.
What the Regulator expects to find in the report
NINE AREAS, FOUR QUESTIONS
Government guidance sets out nine content areas. They answer four questions in order, and the order is the useful part: you cannot describe how you are managing a risk until you have described the building it lives in.
Question one
What is this building, and who is responsible for it?
Basic building information
Name, address, registration number, build date, height, storeys, floorplans, unit types, common areas, resident profile, other uses, surrounding area, services and utilities.
People responsible
The principal accountable person, the owner, every other accountable person, the Responsible Person under fire safety law, managing agents, and how information is shared between them.
Question two
What is it made of, and what condition is it in?
Construction methods and materials
Structural elements, materials, load-bearing and stability systems, cladding, foundations, ground conditions.
Structural condition
History of problems, current maintenance arrangements, and the surveys and inspections you hold with their findings.
Building work and refurbishment
Any work affecting the safety risks. For large panel system buildings, the remediation history.
Question three
What is protecting people in it?
Fire safety measures
Standards applied, external walls, structural protection, balconies, compartmentation, fire doors, smoke control, escape routes, stairs, detection and alarm, sprinklers.
Emergency plan
The evacuation strategy, how you communicate it to residents, and the facilities provided for the fire and rescue service.
Question four
How do you know it is working, and how do you keep it working?
Building safety risk assessments
A summary of the assessments made by each accountable person, the methodology used, the findings, and how the risks are being managed.
Safety management systems
Roles, maintenance and inspection procedures, how changes are controlled, and how performance is monitored.
Read question four again. That is the section 83 and 84 work turning up in the report. Everything above it is context. If you can answer questions one to three but not four, you have a building description, not a safety case report. That is the most common thing we see.
Four things a safety case does not mean
WHERE PEOPLE TRIP UP
The myth
"We need to get a safety case report written."
The reality
You need the assessments and the arrangements first. The report describes them. Commissioning the document before the work is buying a description of something that does not exist yet, and it is the most expensive way to discover your accountable persons have not done their section 83 assessments.
The myth
"It is a submission we make when the Regulator asks."
The reality
Section 85 requires you to prepare it and keep it revised. That is the duty, and it bites as soon as reasonably practicable after occupation or after you became principal accountable person. Handing it over is a separate event. If the Regulator asks and you start writing, you were already late.
The myth
"The safety case is the freeholder's problem."
The reality
Section 83 puts the assessment duty on every accountable person, for the part of the building each is responsible for. Only the report is the principal accountable person's alone. And in a building run under Right to Manage, the freeholder may not be an accountable person at all.
The myth
"There must be a required length and format."
The reality
There is not, and we are not going to pretend there is. Government guidance sets out the nine content areas and says nothing about length, proportionality, or who is qualified to write it. What the Act does say is that the report contains "brief descriptions" of the steps taken. Brief is the Act's word, not ours.
Go deeper
KEEP READING
The threshold
What counts as higher-risk
None of this applies unless your building is in scope. The 18 metre and seven storey tests, set out in full.
See the explainer →
Who holds it
Responsible Person vs Accountable Person
The safety case duties fall on accountable persons. Work out whether that is you, and whether you are the principal one.
See the explainer →
The wider Act
The Building Safety Act, explained
The safety case is one duty among several. What else the Act asks of duty-holders once a building is occupied.
See the explainer →
Interactive tool
What documents should you hold?
The safety case report is one record among many. See the full paper trail your building should be keeping.
Check your documents →
If this is you
Right to Manage directors
An RTM company can end up as the principal accountable person, which makes the safety case report its duty, not the freeholder's.
See what sits with you →
Reference
Jargon Buster
Golden thread, accountable person, mandatory occurrence reporting, building assessment certificate. Every term here in plain English.
Look up a term →
Not sure whether you have a safety case or just a document?
Send us what you hold and we will tell you what is actually there, what is missing, and what your accountable persons still need to do. We have no works arm and we do not sell safety case reports, so we have no reason to tell you that you need one.