Dominated by regulation changes, 2023 proved to be a pivotal year for property management. Looking back on the various impacts, we take a sneak peek at what 2024 may have in store for the industry.
The Prioritisation of Fire Safety
With a shift in attitudes on the importance of the safety of our managed blocks shifting dramatically year on year, the Building Safety Act 2022 came into force in April 2023, and with it, the significant changes, duties and responsibilities that we had been anticipating since its inception. Certainly for 4site, and seemingly the rest of the industry, the Act and subsequent updates have been the hot topic of the year. Whilst the heightened level of responsibility for property managers applies to all buildings, those with responsibility of High-Rise Blocks must be especially mindful, with considerable work to do next year as the first High-Rise Blocks are called up by the regulator on April 1st 2024.
Innovative Solutions
The same major industry changes have also called for industry ready solutions. In the case of High-Rise Blocks requiring Safety Case Reports, we’ve noticed that doing this work manually, though achievable, would require a lengthy structured process with lots of potential external nuances which could delay the resulting report and case management. Our own Safety Case service and software solution has adapted to assist with the entire compilation of these Safety Case Reports. We’ve also noticed a heightened number of requests for further updates in our free bespoke software to assist with compliance documentation tracking and user activity tracking. We believe others in the industry are seeing this too, as the proptech/propsoftware industry starts to focus more and more on Block Management and subsequent Compliance Management, whilst the regulators focus on accountability and traceability of action.
Mental Health Awareness
The growing number of software tools that allow us to manage our workloads effectively are always welcomed in this growing industry, which has its own nuanced stressors and challenges. With a new heightened awareness of risk, growing realisation of responsibility and further demanding schedules, we can observe that the role of the property manager and various accompanying roles across the industry will become, and has become, more demanding.
Sponsoring and partnering at key events throughout the year, we observed various speaker sessions being held within the events which focused on improving mental health within the workplace. Indeed, many in the industry are recognising the growing importance of the topic by way of these events, which we have been privileged to be a part of.
Technical Competency Standards
Also attending these events were relevant CPD based sessions containing information from various expert speakers in the industry. Technical Competency across the industry has always been important, but with the aforementioned impacts and updates throughout the year, we’ve noticed an increasing and direct expectation for a higher standard of technical competency for both contractors and property managers alike.
In proactive anticipation, we foresaw this as a potential stressor for our clients some years ago. Since 2019 we have been speaking about this specifically at the key events in the calendar, and having successfully taken steps to solidify our own inhouse teams’ competency in advance, we’ve been able to continually provide our quality of service among the recent noticeable increase in expectation for competent contractors and providers.
Closing thoughts & 2024 thoughts…
With the updates to regulation taking up lots of our focus in 2023, we can predict that this focus continues into early 2024. Assuming there are no plans of lowering the 18m threshold any time soon, managers of High-Rise Blocks will submit their safety cases throughout the year and the maintenance and review cycle of the cases will become a regular process for property managers with responsibility of high-rise blocks. We could therefore see the focus shift from a risk management point of view, from fire safety to asbestos.
Alluding to this, are the concerns that have emerged regarding the coexistence of Asbestos and Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC). With approximately 3.5 million buildings across the country containing asbestos, the management of our blocks could now fall under the limelight for asbestos alongside the recently classified ‘unsafe’ RAAC. This combination of unsafe materials could see a focus on the prioritisation of asbestos management.
Unfortunately, the cycle of realising risk post incident will continue until culture changes across the industry to a proactive approach to safety. For more information on this, or to ask us how we can help you with risk assessments, surveys, safety case compilations and management, or overall safety requirements; our team of safety professionals are on hand to offer personalized guidance which align with the specific needs of your portfolio. For more information, we are available via the contact below:
01376 572 936
