How much does a building safety case cost?

The total cost of preparing a building safety case can vary considerably and the consultant's fee is only one part of the overall cost.

As a broad indication, consultancy fees for preparing a building safety case report might range from around £5,000 to £15,000 or more per building, depending on the size and complexity of the building, the quality of the existing information and the amount of investigation and risk assessment required.

However, the true cost of producing a safety case can also include:

- specialist surveys and assessments required to fill evidence gaps - fire, structural, façade or other specialist advice - internal staff time spent locating information and responding to queries - additional work required to resolve conflicting or incomplete building information - remedial investigations arising from identified deficiencies - responding to Requests for Information (RFIs) from the Building Safety Regulator - consultant or internal rework where the original safety case does not adequately demonstrate the management of risk - maintaining and updating the safety case as the building changes - the opportunity cost of senior building safety staff spending significant time managing documents, spreadsheets and report revisions rather than managing risk

The cheapest initial safety case is therefore not necessarily the lowest-cost option.

For example, commissioning a relatively inexpensive report that subsequently requires substantial rework, additional surveys and repeated responses to regulatory questions can ultimately cost considerably more than developing a robust safety case from the outset.

There is also an important distinction between paying for a safety case report and investing in the management of the safety case. The report is an output. The underlying work involves understanding the building, identifying what could go wrong, establishing the controls relied upon, assessing whether those controls are effective and maintaining the evidence that supports those conclusions.

For organisations responsible for multiple higher-risk buildings, there can also be significant efficiencies in managing safety cases consistently across the portfolio, rather than commissioning and maintaining each building as an isolated report.