BSR Guidance Changes April 2025: What you need to know from the latest updates

by Jason Foster – Director – enevo Building Safety

April’s updated Building Safety Regulator guidance introduces several key refinements for those involved in higher-risk building projects.

Whether you’re overseeing design and construction, navigating approvals, or responsible for building safety at handover, these changes affect how you plan, document, and demonstrate compliance. Staying ahead of evolving Building Safety Regulator guidance is now essential for every dutyholder involved.

This summary highlights the key areas of updated guidance and outlines what they mean in practice for dutyholders.

1. Completion Certificates – a more rigorous final step

Full guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/applying-for-a-completion-certificate

The completion certificate process has become more robust. It’s no longer a procedural addition at the end of a build. Instead, it’s now a formal application to the BSR, requiring clear evidence that the building meets all applicable requirements.

The change places emphasis on documented assurance and coordinated handover. Expect to provide a detailed audit trail showing not only what was built, but how decisions were made, risks were managed, and compliance was verified throughout the process!

Practical takeaway: Treat the certificate completion process as part of the build strategy from the outset. It’s now a critical compliance milestone, not just an administrative close-out that requires maintenance of the golden thread of information through design and construction.

2. Managing Higher-Risk Building Applications – active oversight required

Full guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/manage-a-building-control-application-for-a-higher-risk-building

For those involved in higher-risk buildings (HRBs), there’s a shift in focus from “submission” to “ongoing responsibility”. Applications are no longer a one-off event, they are now part of a managed, traceable process with clearly defined roles and expectations.

The BSR has outlined that it expects regular engagement, status updates, and continued communication between the applicant, Principal Designer, Principal Contractor, and the Regulator. There’s also greater focus on competence and accountability.

Practical takeaway: Assign responsibility to a project member for actively managing the BSR relationship as you would for any other critical workstream / stakeholder.

3. Information Preparation – get aligned early

Full guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/preparing-information-for-a-building-control-approval-application

Guidance on preparing information for building control approval now includes clearer direction on what’s expected and when. Beyond technical documents, the BSR wants to see how safety related risks have been considered, controlled, and recorded.

In practical terms, this comes down to earlier coordination between designers, contractors, and safety professionals. Any assumptions made during design must be validated on site. Late-stage clarifications will no longer be sufficient to meet approval expectations.

Practical takeaway: Again, a change to the project management process, but building your application around risk ownership, decision making and traceability from the outset will help here. The BSR is looking for clear reasoning and thought process, not just completed documentation.

4. Building Control Approval: Stronger Front-End Scrutiny

Full guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/building-control-approval-for-higher-risk-buildings

The guidance here underlines yet again the need for proactive, front-loaded compliance strategies, with the BSR taking a keen view on early-stage design accountability towards safety-critical elements.

There’s more clarity around dutyholder roles, competence requirements, and what constitutes a “sufficient” application. The onus is on the applicant to demonstrate both capability and control (particularly where design responsibilities are shared across multiple parties).

Practical takeaway: As is the theme of most of these updates, anticipate more detailed questioning of your application logic and the evidence to support how you arrived at the decisions you have and how they ultimately meet the statutory requirements.

All in all, (and as I seem to be saying a lot in recent commentary on BSA evolution and BSR updates!), these updates continue to cement a broader shift in regulatory culture, from a somewhat passive oversight to more hands-on, proactive enforcement. For anyone delivering or managing HRBs, we should expect increased scrutiny, earlier involvement, and less tolerance for “unreasoned assumptions”.

The challenge here is in adjusting project team coordination and information gathering early to reduce downstream risk and workload, but this can only happen if these updates are understood and properly integrated into your delivery strategy.

If you need to bend the ear of experts who can guide you through this or want practical help applying this guidance to your projects, then the enevo Building Safety team can help.

We specialise in navigating the regulatory landscape for all manner of projects including higher-risk buildings. Get in touch today, we’re here to help you get it right, and stay ahead.