AESG responds to UK’s Building Safety Bill with new digital logbook and audit tool

Specialist consultancy, engineering and advisory firm AESG has released Fire+, a secure, cloud-based data-management platform devised to host and store the information required for the new Fire and Emergency File mandated by UK law, ensuring a building’s ‘Golden Thread’ of safety information is always available to its owner or manager, and that required gateway outputs are easily generated.

The UK government’s reforms to the building and fire safety system, adopted in July 2021, require building owners to demonstrate they are actively managing information related to safety risks and that information gathered at each gateway is also required to be stored and retained for the life cycle of the building.

A core part of the new regulation mandates building owners to maintain a ‘golden thread’ of safety check information throughout the design and construction of new buildings (or major works to existing ones). The Explanatory Notes to the Building Safety Bill also specified the need for ‘robust information management’; part of the effectiveness of the golden thread concept is that information is to be readily available, current, and accurate.

AESG saw an opportunity to offer its clients a bespoke-designed digital platform to host and manage fire-safety data; Fire+ bolsters the company’s existing smart building offering. With its digital audit trail and ability to be updated throughout the lifecycle of a building, Fire+ acts as a logbook to directly support owners of existing and new buildings in ensuring life safety, compliance, efficiency, reliability and sustainability performance are mapped from the outset.

The online platform enables users to easily uphold the new requirements of the Building Safety Bill and allows information to be accessible from anywhere, easily searchable and instantly updatable. It serves as a secure and single, central source of truth for all stakeholders and project teams and is a critical part of helping to safeguard safety standards in buildings and ensuring there is adequate protection of property and of lives.

To develop the tool AESG has drawn on its extensive expertise and track record in advising asset managers and developers to ensure buildings are fire compliant, facades and cladding are fire-proof, and that performance of the building is optimised, including reducing both operational carbon through commissioning and performance management, and embodied carbon through design, as well as enhancing the health and wellbeing of occupiers.

James Dickson, Director at AESG, commented: ‘Compliance with the UK government’s new regulations will depend on the responsible management of asset lifecycle data and the industry widely adopting smart data solutions to facilitate it.

‘With Fire+ we have advanced the digitisation of building fire safety information to create a platform that provides an easily accessible solution to help both existing and new clients adhere to the new fire-safety legislation, and it is exactly these sorts of cloud-based solutions that are critical to safeguarding our buildings and the lives within them.’

To refer to AESG’s newly launched white paper on Fire Statements and the London Plan 2021 that provides a deep dive into the new requirements for planning applications in England, please click on the following link: aesg.com/perspective/fire-statements-the-london-plan-2021