Government commits £70m to tackle building safety skills gap

The cash includes funding for bursaries in fire engineering higher education programmes, higher education provision, research and academic capacity. The government said it is investing the cash to speed up the building safety process and increase the number of new homes under development.

The three-year funding programme aims to increase the number of registered Class 3H inspectors qualified to inspect high-risk buildings, as well as new fire engineers.

Building control training will receive £55m of the package, with the remaining £15m going to fire engineering training.

This move follows a call from to the House of Lords regulatory committee for the government to increase capacity in the building control and fire engineering sectors.

Samantha Dixon, minister for building safety, fire and democracy, said: “We’re boosting the building safety workforce to get more skilled building inspectors and fire engineers into the system quickly to keep people safe and unlock the new homes this country needs.

“This is a vital step in building 1.5 million safe homes and ensuring we continue to deliver on lessons from the Grenfell Tower tragedy.”

Earlier this month, the Building Safety Regulator confirmed that it cut the backlog of gateway 2 legacy cases to just three applications, with 18 transferred to a separate complex cases category.

Benjamin Ralph, head of building and fire safety at built environment consultancy Hollis, said: “For too long, workforce shortages in building control and fire engineering have created a bottleneck that affects both the safety of existing buildings and the pace at which new homes can be delivered.

“This funding recognises that you cannot deliver safe housing at scale without the professionals to design and approve it. The investment in fire engineering education and research is especially welcome. A three-year programme signals the kind of sustained commitment the sector needs.”