The Hackitt Review is the informal name given to the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, commissioned by the UK Government in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
It is one of the most important documents in the history of UK building safety regulation, and its findings continue to shape legislation and industry practice to this day.
Why Was It Commissioned?
On 14th June 2017, a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey residential block in North Kensington, London.
72 people lost their lives, making it the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the Second World War.
In the immediate aftermath, it became clear that the fire had spread with extraordinary speed up the exterior of the building, largely due to the aluminium composite material cladding that had been installed during a recent refurbishment.
Questions were asked not just about the cladding itself, but about how it had been approved, how the building had been managed, and why the concerns of residents about fire safety in the years prior to the fire had gone unheard.
In August 2017, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government commissioned Dame Judith Hackitt to lead an independent review of building regulations and fire safety.
Who Was Dame Judith Hackitt?
Dame Judith Hackitt is a chemical engineer and former Chair of the Health and Safety Executive, where she served from 2007 to 2016.
She brought to the review a deep understanding of regulatory frameworks, risk management, and the culture of safety in complex industries.
Her appointment was widely welcomed as a signal that the review would be rigorous, technically informed, and genuinely independent.
What Did the Hackett Review Find?
The interim report was published in December 2017, and the final report, titled Building a Safer Future, was published in May 2018.
Its findings were stark and far-reaching.
Dame Judith concluded that the existing system of building regulations and fire safety was not fit for purpose.
She found that the regulatory framework was too complex, that responsibility for safety was unclear and too easily passed between parties, and that there was a race to the bottom culture within parts of the construction industry, where cost and speed were routinely prioritised over safety.
The review identified that there was no single person or organisation that felt clearly responsible for ensuring the safety of a building throughout its lifecycle.
Designers, contractors, building control bodies, and building owners all had partial roles, but none had clear overall accountability.
This fragmentation of responsibility, the review found, had created a system in which serious safety failures could occur and persist without anyone being held to account.
The review also found that residents of high-rise buildings had no effective voice in decisions about their safety, and that their concerns were routinely ignored or dismissed.
It found that enforcement of building regulations and fire safety law was weak, inconsistent, and under-resourced.
And it found that the competence of those working on higher-risk buildings was inadequately assured, with insufficient checks on whether designers, contractors, and inspectors had the knowledge and skills to do their jobs safely.
What Did the Review Recommend?
The Hackitt Review made a series of wide-ranging recommendations, centred on the creation of a new regulatory regime for higher-risk residential buildings.
It recommended the creation of a new Joint Competent Authority, bringing together local authority building control, fire and rescue authorities, and the Health and Safety Executive, to provide stronger and more joined-up oversight of higher-risk buildings.
It recommended the introduction of a clear and accountable dutyholder regime, with defined roles and responsibilities at every stage of a building’s lifecycle, from design and construction through to occupation and ongoing management.
It recommended the creation of a golden thread of building information, a comprehensive and accessible digital record of a building’s design, construction, and any changes made over time, to ensure that critical safety information was never lost or inaccessible.
It recommended that residents be given a meaningful voice in decisions about the safety of their buildings, and that clear mechanisms be established for raising and escalating safety concerns.
It recommended stronger enforcement powers and a greater willingness to use them, including the prosecution of those who failed to meet their safety obligations.
And it recommended a fundamental cultural change across the construction and building management industry, moving away from a compliance culture focused on doing the minimum required to pass inspection, towards a genuine commitment to building safety throughout the lifecycle of every building.
What Happened After the Review?
The Government accepted the broad thrust of the Hackitt Review’s recommendations and committed to implementing them through new legislation.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 (c.24) was the first legislative step, clarifying and extending the scope of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to explicitly include the structure, external walls, and flat entrance doors of multi-occupied residential buildings.
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/547) followed, introducing specific new obligations for responsible persons in multi-occupied residential buildings, including requirements around fire door inspections and the provision of fire safety information to residents.
The Building Safety Act 2022 (c.30) was the centrepiece of the legislative response, introducing the new regulatory regime for higher-risk buildings that the Hackitt Review had called for.
It established the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive, introduced the new dutyholder regime including the Accountable Person and Principal Accountable Person, created the legal requirement for the golden thread of building information, and gave residents of higher-risk buildings new rights to information and to raise safety concerns.
Why Does It Still Matter?
The Hackitt Review matters because it fundamentally changed the way building safety is understood and regulated in England.
Its findings set the agenda for a decade of legislative reform that is still being implemented and embedded across the industry.
For anyone involved in the design, construction, management, or ownership of residential buildings, understanding the Hackitt Review is essential context for understanding why the current regulatory framework looks the way it does, and why compliance with it is taken so seriously by enforcement authorities.
The culture change that Dame Judith called for has not happened overnight, and in many parts of the industry it is still a work in progress.
But the direction of travel is clear, and the legal obligations that flow from the review’s recommendations are now firmly in place.
We Can Help
At ESI: Fire Safety, we help building owners, managing agents, freeholders, and responsible persons navigate the complex and evolving fire safety regulatory landscape that the Hackitt Review helped to create.
From fire risk assessments and fire door inspections to advising on compliance with the Building Safety Act 2022 and supporting the duties of Accountable Persons, our team has the knowledge and experience to help you meet your obligations and keep the people in your buildings safe.
If you have questions about how the current regulatory framework applies to your building, get in touch with our team today.
