The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is recruiting legally qualified chairs, registered building inspectors and lay members for the disciplinary panels that decide misconduct cases against building control professionals in England and Wales. Applications close at 11.59pm on Sunday 15 November, according to BSR's recruitment announcement.
Each three-person panel combines a legal chair, a technical member and a lay member. Panels consider cases where concerns have been raised about the conduct of registered building inspectors (RBIs) or registered building control approvers (RBCAs), deciding whether professional conduct requirements have been met and, where appropriate, what sanction should follow. Sanctions can extend to suspension or cancellation of registration.
An active London construction site as the Building Safety Regulator strengthens professional oversight of registered building inspectors. Photo: London Construction Magazine.
The Three Roles
Panel chairs must be solicitors or barristers authorised in England and Wales. Alongside chairing hearings, they advise the panel on the law and draft its written decisions and orders, and they will also act as disciplinary officers, assessing alleged misconduct cases on paper to decide whether a panel hearing is needed.
The technical members must be RBIs registered at Class 2 or above who regularly carry out restricted activities, drawn from both public and private sector building control. Lay members need a background in decision-making, governance, professional regulation, tribunal proceedings, investigations or complaints handling, and do not need any building control experience.
Depending on the role, members can expect to commit eight to ten days a year. BSR will pay a daily rate, which it has not published in the announcement, together with reasonable travel and subsistence expenses, and will provide induction and ongoing training.
How Cases Reach a Panel
The panels operate under BSR's disciplinary and sanctions procedure, published in July 2026. Once an investigation has found evidence of misconduct or a contravention, a disciplinary officer first reviews the case on the papers and can either decide it or refer it to a panel. The procedure says referral is likely where harm has occurred or where the case could lead to cancellation. Panels normally consider cases in private on the papers, with any hearing held by video conference unless an in-person hearing is justified.
The sanctions available are considerably wider than the suspension and cancellation mentioned in the recruitment notice. An RBI can be fined up to £10,000 and an RBCA up to 5% of its annual turnover, while registration can also be varied with conditions or suspended for up to two years, with cancellation generally reserved for the most serious cases. BSR may publish disciplinary orders and the reasons for them under its publications policy.
The requirement for practising Class 2 inspectors means the panels will draw on the same frontline workforce that LCM has reported is already stretched by demand for registered building control capacity on Gateway 2 projects, and which the Government is seeking to expand through £55m of funding for new registered building inspectors.
Charlie Pugsley, acting chief executive of BSR, said: "The integrity of the building control profession is fundamental to the new regulatory framework under the Building Safety Act." Role descriptions and the application form are available through BSR's Citizen Space recruitment page, which is linked from the regulator's announcement, alongside the code of conduct, conflict of interest policy and complaints procedure for panel members.
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