Guest blog: The Common Assessment Standard introduces Building Safety Pre-qualification Questions

Guest blog: The Common Assessment Standard introduces Building Safety Pre-qualification Questions

By Paul Reeve, Chair of the Build UK Common Assessment Standard Review Group, and former Director of CSR at leading engineering services body ECA

 

Common Assessment Standard mandates Building Safety prequalification questions  

On 1st July 2025, Build UK issued what is arguably the most significant update so far to the construction prequalification Common Assessment Standard (CAS). Among the latest changes, the new CAS V5 will switch its set of crucially important Building Safety questions from ‘advisory’ to ‘mandatory’, requiring suppliers to actively engage with this section to obtain future CAS certification.

The significance of this change is further underlined by communications from various large building contractors to their suppliers, notifying that they must successfully complete the new mandatory Building Safety questions by 1st October 2025. 

The result of this autumn deadline is that many construction suppliers will need to obtain a new or updated CAS assessment which includes their response to the Building Safety question set, well before the end of their current annual assessment cycle. The reason for this unusual move is that many construction buyers now want to know which suppliers have the ‘organisational capability’ to meet their duties under current Building Safety legislation, and they would prefer not to wait up to a year to find out.  

  

About the Building safety duties  

Developed in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Building Safety Act 2022 applies to building design, construction and maintenance and for now, it applies mainly to buildings in England. Since October 2023, legislation in support of the Act has put extensive duty holder roles on those who design or carry out notifiable building work – with significant extra duties for those who work on Higher Risk Buildings (HRBs, such as high-rise flats and hospitals). However, even though this legislation is fast approaching its second anniversary, its broad implications are still poorly understood by many across the industry.  

To help improve duty holder understanding, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) produced a summary of what designers and contractors must do, which can be found here.  The mandatory Building Safety section in the Common Assessment Standard and associated changes in the CAS Health and Safety and Quality sections now bring these duty holder roles even more to the forefront. 

In outline, the Common Assessment Standard Building Safety section includes prequalification enquiries about suppliers’ arrangements to ensure the following, for design and construction:

		Workers, including sub-contractors, have the necessary skills, experience, and behaviours to deliver compliance;
		Work is properly planned, managed and monitored;
		Choices and changes are not made at any stage that will lead to non-compliance;  I
		Essential information is shared with workers, including subcontractors, and others engaged in and around the work;
		Any significant defects are properly notified and addressed; and
		Effective communication and cooperation with other duty holders.

 

Delivering building safety assurance 

Constructionline and the other Recognised Assessment Bodies work continually with Build UK to help provide the building safety and wider prequalification assurance needed by the industry and its clients. For example, suppliers who pass Constructionline’s Gold prequalification assessment will automatically achieve CAS certification and can start to show procurers they have the ‘organisational capability’ to comply with building safety legislation and standards. Being able to provide this type of assurance will be vital for both suppliers and procurers, noting that any criminal and civil liability resulting from non-compliant design and installation could be incorporated into a building for decades before it presents itself.  

Additionally, Constructionline customers have the voluntary option to respond to extra questions that align very closely with BS 8670-1:2024. This Code includes core criteria for the knowledge, skills, experience and behaviours required to comply with the Building Safety regime. At no extra charge, customers who answer these questions can provide additional assurance to any procurer who looks for compliance with this recently adopted Code. 

 

About the Common Assessment Standard 

The Common Assessment Standard is run by Build UK with support from the wider construction industry, clients and seven Build UK ‘Recognised Assessment Bodies’, including founding assessment body Constructionline. Since its introduction in 2019, supplier engagement with the Common Assessment Standard has grown strongly. 

Today, around 21,000 construction and other site services suppliers hold a CAS certification, with the majority obtaining it through Constructionline’s Gold membership. Many suppliers have benefitted from the ‘cross recognition’ of schemes afforded by the Common Assessment Standard, which has allowed them to reduce the number of construction prequalification questionnaires they have to fill in. 

The long-established ‘Constructionline Gold’ assessment is a widely acknowledged route for suppliers to attain the Common Assessment Standard as well as its Platinum Membership, which offers a site audit. In addition to construction buyers, a growing list of procurers in the public and private sector specify the Common Assessment Standard, notably since Government procurement guidance PPN 03/24 broadened the scope for public sector procurement.

Noting that the duty holder legislation in support of the Building Safety Act has been in place for some time, there has been increasing industry recognition that the CAS Building Safety questions must be made mandatory. As a result, CAS V5 now provides a broad set of supplier prequalification questions that includes key assurance topics such as Financial, Health and Safety, Quality, Environment and Information Security, in addition to the mandatory Building Safety questions.

Requiring the UK’s construction and building maintenance supply chain to actively engage with the duty holder roles will be a challenge but also an opportunity for many thousands of construction suppliers. Many will look to trade bodies and others for practical guidance on how to show the capability to meet the legal and other good practice requirements, to help provide buyer assurance and crucially, ensure future building safety.

Version 5 of the CAS question set, including the updated and mandatory Building Safety questions is at:  Common-Assessment-Standard-Question-Set-Version-5.pdf 

 

Author: Paul Reeve is outgoing Chair of the Build UK Common Assessment Standard review panel, a former Director at leading engineering services body ECA, and a Fellow of IOSH and IEMA.