Student Roost’s journey towards building safety compliance

Student Roost is one of the largest purpose-built student accommodation providers in the UK, operating more than 50 properties and providing over 22,000 beds for students in 21 cities across the UK. The portfolio includes over 30 high-rise residential buildings (HRRBs).

As one of Greystar’s student accommodation brands, Student Roost aims to provide the very best experience in student living, with safe, modern spaces providing comfort and student-friendly facilities. Greystar invests in neighbourhoods and communities for the long term, with a portfolio of nearly 10,000 rental homes.

Preparing for Building Safety Act compliance and Safety Case creation

After being acquired by Greystar at the end of 2022, and with the Building Safety Act (BSA) regulation coming into force the same year, Student Roost faced the immediate challenge of ensuring compliance.

The BSA regulation introduced sweeping changes aimed at increasing the safety of higher-risk residential buildings (HRRBs) over 18 metres or seven storeys tall, and accountability of owners and operators. For Student Roost, this meant restructuring its building safety processes and addressing compliance requirements across its portfolio. It required a solution to more effectively manage its building safety data, which could provide a standardised process.

Regulatory Impact

The UK’s Building Safety Act has introduced a comprehensive regulatory framework to enhance building safety, particularly in HRRBs. The aim is to protect residents by enforcing higher safety standards and transparency across safety management. This has placed significant new responsibilities on building asset owners such as Student Roost.

Key requirements of the BSA on asset owners include:

• Designation of Accountable Person(s) (APs) and Duty-holders for each HRRB, who are legally responsible for the safety of residents and ensuring compliance with safety regulations. Those in this role must assess and mitigate risks in residential buildings, maintain safety systems, and provide residents with clear communication about safety measures.
• A Building Safety Case for each HRRB and “Golden Thread” of information, where Duty-holders must prepare and maintain a detailed case which documents the safety risks (particularly the fire and structural risks) and mitigation measures, providing a “golden thread” of information that is accessible and up to date. A golden thread is a digital and easily accessible record that tracks all safety-related data over the building’s lifecycle, including design, construction, maintenance, fire risk assessments, and safety inspections, and ensures that future operators and managers have a clear safety history for each property.
• A Mandatory HRRB Registration and Certification, with a Building Assessment Certificate obtained before occupation.
• A Resident Engagement Strategy and Complaints Handling, emphasising transparency and engagement with residents regarding safety matters, with a system for residents to raise concerns, which must be addressed in a timely and documented manner.

Building Assessment Certificate (BAC) Process Begins for HRRBs

From April 2024, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), under the new BSA regime, started a process to reach out to asset owners with occupied HRRBs, requesting their application for a Building Assessment Certificate (BAC). BAC application requests will be made by the BSR over the next five years for existing occupied buildings.

The BAC application involves a thorough review of HRRB to confirm that all necessary safety measures are in place and properly documented. Asset Owners have 28 days to apply once they receive the request and demonstrate that:

• The building is registered with the BSR.
• A designated Accountable Person has been appointed, and they are fulfilling their responsibilities.
• A comprehensive Building Safety Case has been prepared and is submitted.
• A Golden Thread of Building Safety Information is accessible and up to date.
• Evidence of compliance with Fire and Structural Safety Regulations, documented through fire risk assessments, reports, and inspections.
• A Resident Engagement Strategy is in place.
• A Mandatory Occurrence Reporting System is in place.
  

With such stringent and evolving regulations, navigating the demands of the Building Safety Act presented Student Roost with operational challenges to support its diverse and growing property portfolio that was geographically spread across the UK.

Requiring expert resource, a digital solution for data organisation, and consistent safety documentation practices, Student Roost assigned a dedicated team to lead its compliance strategy, with a focus on building safety and golden thread.

They would ensure all the right fire safety and compliance documentation was in place, alongside a robust process and digital format that is easily accessible by the right people at the right time.

Challenges & Objectives: Fragmented and legacy-building information

Having acquired numerous HRRBs over time and across different parts of the UK, including buildings in Scotland and Wales where regulations are different, Student Roost’s building information was fragmented across systems and formats, including buildings with paper-based information or using systems like SharePoint.

Struggling with a lack of data centralisation uncovered challenges for Student Roost, including difficulty in locating and accessing key information, limitations in data understanding, and inefficiencies with updating safety documentation.

With the upcoming compliance demands of the BSA, with its rigorous requirements for all building information to be digital, always up to date and accessible, Student Roost required an efficient, secure, and compliant solution that would allow it to store and access all building information in one place and be available 24/7, not only for its HRRBs but to manage information for all its sites — irrespective of whether they fall under the BSA.

This approach would allow Student Roost to not only meet regulatory obligations but also ensure information on its complete portfolio was always accessible to key stakeholders, while also supporting the creation of a golden thread and the ability to build on Safety Cases.

1. Fragmented documentation: Having records stored across various platforms, including SharePoint, led to inefficiencies in understanding, accessing and updating safety documentation.
2. Legacy and incomplete data: The acquisition of various properties created inconsistencies across the business.
3. Compliance demands: More rigorous and accessible building documentation was required to meet new regulatory requirements and regional variations, further complicating compliance management.

The Solution: Building Document Management

While Student Roost evaluated several solutions to improve building information management on the road to BSA compliance, Greystar were already successfully using a solution from Zutec for High Rise Building Compliance. Greystar introduced Zutec to the team at Student Roost, and after a demonstration and several discussions, Student Roost followed Greystar’s lead and opted for a tried and tested solution that would bring uniformity to the group.

Providing a single source of truth, Zutec’s Building Document Management solution brings all historical information for existing in-use buildings across an asset portfolio into one centralised repository, with a real-time dashboard which provides a consistent way of hosting all key building documents.

The implementation process was smooth and efficient, largely due to the collaborative effort with Zutec’s delivery team. Training and support were provided by Zutec to ensure that all team members were confident in using the system effectively. The Zutec delivery team was also responsive to questions, offering assistance as new properties and documents were added to the system. Users praised Zutec’s attention to detail, as well as its ability to address challenges promptly.

Once the Student Roost team got started, the drag-and-drop functionality and user-friendly features made it a trouble-free way to upload documents into structured folders and proven templates. The simplicity enabled users to quickly onboard and begin working with the platform, providing a straightforward upload process even for paper-based records, which could be scanned and added as PDFs.

How the solution met Student Roost’s requirements

Zutec's Building Document Management solution offered:

1. A Comprehensive dashboard: The intuitive and real-time dashboard provides users access to a centralised view to manage documents and safety data while helping them understand the data required to be compliant.
2. Enhanced security: Built to ISO 27001 information security standards, Zutec ensures sensitive data is protected and always secure, offering Student Roost additional peace of mind.
3. Ease of use: Built with users in mind, Zutec is easy to navigate, with an asset register to manage buildings and structured folders, templates, forms and workflows, for easy document uploads in a structured format with meta-tagged data making it easy to find.
4. Cross-project reporting: With robust reporting and analytics, users can easily update other teams on information, and valuable insights into built assets can be gained to help manage and maintain Student Roost’s assets.
5. Search functionality: Metadata-enriched information, paired with an intuitive search feature, ensures Student Roost have effortless access to the exact documentation with swift retrieval of information, whenever they need it.

The Results: Golden thread and Safety Case compliance

Zutec’s Building Document Management solution is now fully integrated into Student Roost’s daily operations, with key benefits including:

• One Place for Fire Safety Documentation Management for all Buildings: Teams are actively uploading Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs), Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Manuals for each building. Having data in one platform provides consistency, permits gap analysis to identify missing information that can be filled, and is helping Student Roost bring together Safety Case reports for BAC’s submission.
• Building Safety Case Management: Student Roost is now actively creating its Safety Cases from the information in the Zutec platform and has submitted safety case reports for several buildings, with others in progress. The company is gradually using the system to manage and revise building safety cases more efficiently.
• Real-time Compliance Tracking: The dashboard enables the team to easily identify areas where documentation or compliance is lacking, providing a “red/green” visual status that drives targeted action.
• Centralised documentation: All building data is now accessible in one secure location by all key stakeholders, significantly improving building understanding and reducing the risk of misplaced or incomplete documents.
• Improved operational efficiency: The user-friendly dashboard interface, combined with the ability to locate and share documents swiftly, has streamlined workflow, shifting the focus to proactive safety management rather than administrative tasks.
  

Using Zutec, Student Roost has now successfully overcome its biggest challenge of consolidating O&M and fire safety documentation from multiple properties across varied formats and levels of completeness.

The structured process and proven templates of Zutec’s Building Document Management solution, built from years of experience in creating documents for customers, make it easy to review details for each building and manage and support regulatory compliance.

Looking ahead

Student Roost continues to upload documentation as new projects are completed, alongside maintaining precise and up-to-date information for existing buildings so data is always current and accurate.

This approach helps avoid delays in maintaining and managing tasks, makes finding essential information quicker, and reduces miscommunication errors by allowing all users to work from a single, reliable, source of truth. As a result, it is completely transforming its safety documentation process.

Once Safety Case creation is complete, Student Roost is optimistic about leveraging Zutec’s Building Document Management solution for more detailed and granular data insights, improving compliance visibility, and having more control over building risks and mitigation.

Through Zutec, Student Roost’s building data is also linked to other systems to allow the company to more effectively track all routine PPM, inspections, capital works and asset management. Integration with other systems is a key attribute of Zutec.

As regulation and safety standards evolve, Zutec’s High Risk Building Compliance will offer a flexible approach to proactive building safety management across all Student Roost’s sites ensuring it has an updated golden thread, while supporting its roadmap to ISO45001 compliance.