BS 99001 is a British Standard that provides requirements in addition to ISO 9001 to implement a quality management system for the built environment sector.
It is gaining in popularity due to new and updated legislation in the UK including the Building Safety Act which puts new requirements and penalties in place.
What is the Building Safety Act 2022
The Building Safety Act aims to improve safety by giving homeowners and residents more “rights, powers, and protections”.
It establishes the Building Safety Regulator to regulate high-rise residential buildings with at least 7 floors or at least 18 metres in height; or at least 2 residential units.
It also regulates care homes and hospitals during the design and construction phases.
The act also intends to raise safety standards across the industry and manage risks across the supply chain.
Read more: The Building Safety Act – GOV.UK
What is the Golden Thread?
The golden thread is defined as ‘the information that allows you to
understand a building and the steps needed to keep both the building and people safe , now
and in the future’.
Clients, principal designers, principal contractors and accountable persons are required to keep, and share, certain information relating to high risk buildings.
ISO 19650-1 can be used to assist organisation with Information management using building information modelling.
Read more: Keeping information about a higher-risk building: the golden thread – GOV.UK
Achieving BS 99001 Certification
BS 99001 provides a set of additional requirements to the ISO 9001 quality management system that stakeholders can use to help manage Building Safety Act compliances as well as other compliance requirements.
The BS 99001 standard is well adapted to apply to “projects” as well as the business as a whole.
Organisations must also comply with ISO 9001 which provides the base quality management system upon which BS 99001 requirements can be added.
Certification bodies including BSI currently provide BS 99001 certification.
BS 99001 and Other Standards
Although BS 99001 is a quality management standard, it does include “hooks” and opportunities to integrate with other standards, including ISO 19650 for information management, ISO 45001 for Occupational Health & Safety, ISO 14001 for Environmental management.
Getting Started with BS 99001
The first step in implementing BS 99001 is to ensure you have an ISO 9001 quality management system in place. Our ISO 9001 Consultants can help you establish the basic quality system in the first instance.
Then our consultants can provide a Gap Analysis against the BS 99001 requirements, which can lead on to an implementation project to close the gaps.
Ahead of your certification audit, our consultants can perform an internal audit to ensure your system is compliant.
