Updated : added related guides and corrected the source date label.
A legacy archive can be scanned and still be unusable if current controls sit beside superseded drawings and nobody can say what is missing.
For an occupied higher-risk residential building in England, accountable persons and principal accountable persons must keep a digital record of building information and manage the system that holds it. The information must be secure, available when needed and usable by recipients. It must work as the building's source of truth.
That is not a direction to scan every page. Historic records should be kept if they are held, but the aim is managed information that helps people assess and manage fire-spread and structural-failure risks.
The five steps below are an operational method, not BSR wording or a universal checklist.
- 4 recordsthe core records the BSR names for occupied higher-risk buildings
- 5 stepsscope, inventory, risk, status and ownership
- 1 testdoes this record help manage a current building-safety risk?
The duty is not a scan count
For an occupied building, the BSR names four records that accountable persons and principal accountable persons must keep: the health and safety file, safety case report, residents' engagement strategy and mandatory occurrence reporting system. It also says they should keep refurbishment information, previous-owner information and relevant historic standards if they have them.
An old drawing can establish how part of a building was designed. A maintenance certificate can show that work took place at a point in time. Neither becomes current simply because it has been converted into a PDF.
Step 1: Set the building and dutyholder scope
Start with the boundary. Record the precise building or part of it, the accountable person's remit, the current safety case and fire strategy, known changes of use, and major works. The safety case guidance expects basic information such as height, storeys, floorplan types and utility or isolation-point information.
On a mixed-use or multi-accountable-person building, make the information routes explicit. One party may hold a relevant record while another needs it to manage its part of the building. The principal accountable person coordinates policies for keeping and storing information, but records may sit with different custodians.
Capture that in a scope note before treating folders as evidence.
Step 2: Inventory before conversion
Do not send an unknown archive straight to scanning or migration. First make the material visible in a first-pass inventory.
For each item or document family, record the apparent date or version, source or custodian, building area or system, and what it appears to relate to. That could be original design, present condition, a safety measure, maintenance activity or later work. These fields are a working proposal, not a legal template.
Apparent is doing useful work here. A file name and date are clues, not a finding. Preserve original material and its provenance while the status is checked. Triage is not a disposal exercise, and records with other contractual, operational or retention purposes still need suitable handling.
Step 3: Prioritise the evidence that supports the safety case
The first pass should follow risk, not archive volume. Government guidance says the information must help accountable persons assess and manage the risks of fire spread and structural failure. It asks them to keep information about original design and construction, current condition, and later refurbishment or change.
Use that as the test. Does a record explain the building as built, its condition now, a live safety control or an intervention that changed the risk? Put records that answer those questions at the front of the review queue.
Different records matter for different decisions, so keep the first-pass queue tied to current risk. Records outside the first-pass safety priority may still have legal, operational or retention value.
Step 4: Test currency and provenance
A record can show that something was designed, installed, inspected or maintained at a particular time. It cannot prove that the relevant measure remains effective today.
Give records a working status as they are reviewed. A team might distinguish current evidence from superseded material, unverified files and context-only records. These are internal labels, not BSR categories. Their value is that people can see what supports a current decision and what needs further checking.
Dates, revision marks and file names support an initial classification. The final position may need a change-history check, confirmation from the responsible party, physical evidence, inspection, testing or competent technical advice.
Step 5: Give every gap and next action an owner
Missing information is not automatically proof of a breach. Where information has not been found, the safety case guidance says the report should explain the steps taken to find it. The detailed accountable-person guidance goes further: keep a record of those steps.
Turn each material gap into an action record. State what is missing, why it matters to the relevant risk, what searches or enquiries have been made, who owns the next action, and whether the issue needs a survey, inspection, test or specialist assessment. The response should be proportionate to the building, risk, cost and practicality.
If a large-panel-system building has missing remediation records, the safety case should set out how its current structural condition was determined. Records work directs the next technical action. It does not replace it.
A record set only helps when the people responsible for the building can use it.
Do not approve bulk conversion until the questions have owners
Before commissioning wholesale scanning or a platform migration, ask for five outputs: a building and dutyholder scope note, a first-pass inventory, a safety-case evidence priority, a current/superseded/unverified status view, and an owned gap and enquiry log. If those do not exist, the next task is triage.
For practical next steps, see golden thread for existing buildings, building safety document checklist, processing supplied digital archives.
A record set only helps when the people responsible for the building can use it.
Quantara Data processes, indexes and structures building records so the status of information and gaps are visible.
Sources
- Building Safety Regulator, “Keeping information about a higher-risk building: the golden thread”, GOV.UK, accessed 8 September 2026. Supports: occupied-building digital record and information-management requirements; the four core records; historic information retained if held; information-sharing and PAP policy responsibilities.
- Building Safety Regulator, “Preparing a safety case report”, GOV.UK, updated 6 December 2024. Supports: building information expected in a safety case report; relevant changes and remediation history; explaining searches for missing information; how structural condition must be addressed where remediation evidence is unavailable.
- Building Safety Regulator, “Managing safety risks in high-rise residential buildings: a detailed guide”, GOV.UK. Supports: information on original design, current condition, safety measures and later changes; records of attempts to find missing information; proportionate reasonable steps; evidence of competent design, installation, inspection and maintenance.