The BSR building control data collected from registered approvers and local authority teams across England is not accurate enough to release publicly, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has confirmed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) response to Construction News. The admission raises questions about the regulator’s ability to monitor operational standards at a time when its wider performance is already under scrutiny.
What the BSR collects, and why it cannot publish it
Registered Building Control Approvers (RBCAs) and local authority building control teams are required to file annual data returns with the BSR each year. RBCAs must answer 52 questions; councils’ teams must answer 53. The questions cover areas including the number of contraventions identified during building inspections, staffing levels, and the volume of complaints relating to non-compliance with building regulations. Separate quarterly returns require RBCAs to answer a further 57 questions, and local authorities 58.
When Construction News submitted an FOI request seeking information from those annual returns, the BSR said it lacked confidence in two specific data sets: how many building control administrative and support staff are employed in England, and how many complaints relating to non-compliance with building regulations had been escalated to regulatory authorities or local government ombudsmen.
The BSR’s FOI response stated: ‘The BSR [is] not currently confident in the accuracy and completeness of the information that is provided by external building control bodies. We are actively working to resolve these issues and are now undertaking detailed data reconciliation and validation work. This will enable us to provide reliable information in due course.’
A BSR spokesperson added that the organisation was committed to ‘improving its information management arrangements’, describing the data quality issues as consistent with the challenges of a relatively new regulatory regime. The regulator has filed only one set of annual returns so far, relating to 2025/26.
Industry frustration over BSR building control data quality
One RBCA director told Construction News that the situation was difficult to understand, noting that similar data had previously been collected by the Building Control Performance Standards Advisory Group (BCPSAG), part of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, before that process was stopped in 2017. The BCPSAG used to summarise its findings in annual reports. The director asked: ‘Basically, [the BSR is] saying the data is useless and they have no idea about resource levels?’
According to guidance published by the BSR, the annual return submissions are intended to be used to monitor key performance indicators supporting building control bodies’ operational standard rules. The inability to release that data makes it harder to assess whether those standards are being met across the sector.
The FOI response did provide one concrete dataset: there are currently 4,661 registered building inspectors (RBIs) working across England. Of those, 1,232 are class 1 trainees, 2,756 are class 2 building inspectors, and 673 are class 3 specialist building inspectors. A further 803 hold class 4 technical manager status, meaning they hold at least one other class but carry additional responsibilities for technical management of teams and processes.
A regulator under wider pressure
The data quality issue sits alongside broader concerns about the BSR’s throughput. According to the Building Safety Campaign, applications submitted in 2026 have a median determination time of 21 weeks, and over the last 12 weeks the regulator made 45 decisions on new-build projects, achieving an approval rate of 91% and representing 7,587 residential units. Taken in isolation those approval figures look healthy, but the throughput rate has long been a concern for developers and local authorities alike.
Centre for Cities reported that at the start of 2025, over 800 schemes for buildings above 18 metres were stuck waiting to pass through Gateway 2, the pre-construction sign-off stage the BSR controls for higher-risk buildings. That backlog amplifies the significance of any uncertainty about the regulator’s internal data management: sound operational data is a prerequisite for identifying where resourcing is insufficient and where compliance risks are concentrated.
Against that backdrop, a structural change is already in motion at government level. BSR/HSE announced that Andy Roe has been appointed as non-executive chair of a new board of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), established to work towards taking on the BSR’s functions. The transition means that robust, validated BSR building control data will need to be in place well before any handover, so that whoever holds regulatory responsibility can demonstrate evidence-based oversight from the outset.
