Will the Golden Thread Expand Digitisation Across the Built Environment?

The golden thread of fire safety information will be an integral part of the more stringent regulatory regime following Grenfell and the Hackett Report. Could it have implications beyond fire safety for the way we create and maintain the built environment?

Current fire safety regulations leave a potential disconnect between the approval of building designs and post-construction regulation for occupation and use. Any information gaps between design, construction and occupation can compromise the effectiveness of fire risk assessments and evacuation procedures.

The information contained in the golden thread will include the size and height of building, materials used, manufacturer product information, and escape and fire containment information. There must also be a record of inspections, reviews, maintenance and testing.

The debate about fire safety has arguably shone a light on how building information is collected and managed right across the construction lifecycle.

Digital Information

The government is still consulting on the exact scope and operation of the golden thread. What we do know is that information must be held digitally and be easily accessible, both by duty holders in the design and construction phases, and by the accountable persons during the occupation phase.

The government isn’t planning to mandate BIM or MMC-based construction in order to create the golden thread, but this would seem the obvious environment to work in.

This isn’t just because BIM makes it easier to store building data, it’s also a question of fully resolving fire safety-related issues during the design stage and then ensuring that the construction phase reproduces every detail of the design faithfully, as typically happens with manufactured construction.

With traditional construction methods significant structural changes can occur after the initial design that are sometimes not fully documented.

Buildings In Operation

The golden thread will have to be established for existing buildings that are in-scope for the occupational phase. These are residential buildings deemed to be ‘higher risk’ because they are over 18m or 7 storeys tall.

Establishing and validating a golden thread for buildings that have not been through the Gateways process, and which may not have complete digital records, will be a substantial task in some cases.

Once the golden thread is established as a way to update and access fire-safety information for in-scope buildings, it seems logical to extend this to establishing a digital environment for all asset management and compliance data. The alternative would be to implement digital systems for some buildings and aspects of asset management but maintain manual systems for everything else.

Establishing a digitally-enabled asset management environment isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Osborne has implemented digital asset management regimes for social housing that invariably lead to substantial cost savings and efficiencies. These more than pay back the initial investment.

To find out more, contact Jo Fletcher ([email protected]).