From Compliance to Competency: What is required by the Building Safety Regulator to pass Gateways 2 and 3?

On 19 November 2025, Tim Galloway, Deputy Director of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), offered an audience of Association for Rental Living members insights into the current operations of the regulator. Mr Galloway was participating in a panel event on compliance and competency in relation to building safety hosted by Charles Russell Speechlys in London.

Mr Galloway acknowledged that the BSR has had teething issues and that the assumptions underpinning its original organisation, namely that the construction industry already had a settled understanding of building safety requirements and that multi-disciplinary teams at the BSR could be assembled quickly, transpired to be fundamentally mistaken.

At the same time, there was a clear effort to distinguish the refreshed BSR from the body that has so frustrated developers since its establishment. Before the BSR is moved out of the Health and Safety Executive and into the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), its introduction of an Innovation Unit and the batching of applications to provide to particular private sector registered building control inspectors have significantly shortened Gateway 2 waiting times. He echoed the position that Andy Roe (Non-Executive Chair, Shadow Building Safety Regulator Board, MHCLG) set out to a House of Lords inquiry in October that the BSR is aiming to drive decisions on the pre-existing backlog before end of 2025. Mr Roe told the Inquiry:

“But we would be the first to acknowledge that, until we sort out the very real challenges and issues at gateway 2, which is the part of the operational process you referred to, none of that means anything, because it is a significant factor in having slowed building down, particularly in London. Why has that happened? Because a process was designed in good faith that does not work—it is that straightforward.”

Under the new model, the Innovation Team handling new builds is targeting turnaround times of around three weeks for rejections and 14–15 weeks for approvals. This does not yet meet the 12-week target (which is expected to be achieved in 2026) but represents a marked improvement on performance to date.

Alongside these operational improvements, the BSR is clearly looking to the industry to step up its provision of guidance, engagement and quality applications. While the BSR indicates it will support the sector with materials to help navigate the Gateway process, the substance of that will need to come from industry rather than the BSR. Similarly, in relation to a competent person scheme and the prospect of avoiding going through Gateways 2 and 3 by setting up a scheme for discrete works (Mr Galloway discussed an example in relation to the replacement of a few defective fire doors in an occupied building), the BSR can encourage and approve proposals brought forward but considers that it is for industry to develop them.

Although Mr Galloway did not offer specific guidance on common pitfalls at Gateways 2 and 3, he noted a recurring distinction between unsuccessful and successful applications. The latter category generally considers the entire process and works backwards from Gateway 3 to ensure that all steps to successful completion are identified, sequenced and evidenced at each stage.