What is the Golden Thread? | Building Safety Act 2022

• The golden thread is a digital record of safety information that must be maintained throughout a building’s lifecycle, starting from the design phase.
• It contains critical documents such as design plans, completion certificates, inspection findings and records of any changes made during occupation.
• Different duty holders are responsible for updating and maintaining the golden thread at different stages, with the principal accountable person taking charge once the building is occupied.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy exposed just how unsafe some high-rise buildings were in Britain. The preventable loss of 72 lives rightly led to a complete review of how building safety was managed at the time, headed by Dame Judith Hackitt.

In 2018, Dame Hackitt summarised her findings in Building a Safer Future, which highlighted substantial safety failings in all stages of a building’s lifecycle. One issue in particular was the “ineffective operation of the current rules around the creation, maintenance and handover of building and fire safety information.”

Essentially, the information duty holders needed to ensure ongoing and effective building safety management was typically incomplete, inaccessible, untraceable or all of the above.

Dame Hackitt’s solution for this was the golden thread.

The Building Regulations Advisory Committee (which has since been replaced by the Building Advisory Committee) developed the golden thread initiative further.

The concept (along with the majority of Dame Hackitt’s recommendations) was included in the Building Safety Bill, which became the Building Safety Act in 2022 after gaining royal assent.

This development made maintaining the golden thread a legal requirement.

The golden thread refers to a building’s complete, current and accessible “thread” of safety information.

It grows with the building, starting in the design phase and being continually updated as construction is completed and residents move in.

In theory, successive duty holders will contribute to and maintain the golden thread, creating an unbroken chain of building safety information.

This “single source of truth” should ensure the right information is available to the right people at the right time. Different parties will have access to vital information when making decisions about building safety. Regulators will also be able to verify standards and duties have been met.

Any and all information relevant to building safety should be included in the golden thread.

It should provide duty holders with all the information they need to safely design, construct, renovate or manage a building, depending on where it is in its lifecycle.

Exactly what must be included is written out in Schedule 1 of The Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information, etc.) (England) Regulations 2024. But we’ve summarised the requirements below.

The client starts the golden thread during the design phase. They must keep records of how construction work will be carried out and managed to ensure the project is compliant and the final building matches the agreed plans.

Specific documents include:

• Drawings and plans
• Competence declaration
• Building regulations compliance statement
• Fire and emergency file

This information must be stored digitally and shared with every designer and contractor involved in the project.

Principal designers and contractors also have record-keeping duties. They must ensure that information related to design and construction is up-to-date and shared with relevant parties.

After construction is completed, the client must pass information to the:

• Principal accountable person (PAP) or accountable person (AP) for a high-rise residential building
• Responsible person for non-residential buildings or common parts of a residential building

This handover must include the:

• Information used in the completion certificate application
• Building completion certificate itself
• Fire safety information

Responsibility for the golden thread passes to the PAP or AP once a high-rise building is occupied.

They must maintain relevant safety information, including the building’s:

• Health and safety file
• Safety case
• Resident’s engagement strategy
• Mandatory occurrence reporting system (i.e., how residents’ complaints will be managed)

They should also keep any information related to refurbishment or regulations under which the building was constructed.

For existing high-rise residential buildings, the PAP must do their best to gather the relevant information and attempt to fill in any gaps in the building’s history.

It’s accepted that this won’t always be possible. Under the Building Safety Act, accountable persons must obtain missing information unless it is “not practicable to do so.”

In other words, there are exceptions for scenarios where it’s genuinely impossible to track down specific documents.

Different people are expected to manage the golden thread at different stages of a building’s lifecycle. These are:

• Clients during the design and construction phases, with support from the principal designer and principal contractor
• Principal accountable person while the building is occupied

If a building changes hands, the PAP must pass all information on to their replacement.

Although a single duty holder is always responsible for managing the golden thread, other parties are expected to contribute.

Contractors, fire safety consultants, facilities managers – the list of professionals who may have to add to the golden thread is exceptionally long. It’s up to the duty holder to gather, collate and maintain this information.

A successful golden thread should be complete, up-to-date and accessible.

To achieve these aims, duty holders are expected to store information and documents digitally.

Digital records can be backed up and copied to prevent any vital information from being lost. Moreover, they can be shared easily between parties.

It should be noted that all sensitive digital files must be stored and managed per the UK General Data Protection Regulation.

Under the BSA, all professionals in construction and building safety have enhanced roles and responsibilities. Throughout a building’s life cycle, duty holders must ensure robust safety standards are met, and critical information is shared with the Building Safety Regulator and other relevant parties.

Our online Building Safety Act Training course provides an overview of this landmark legislation and its implications for building safety. It outlines duties, standards and roles and explains how different parties can ensure compliance with the BSA.