MHCLG's Built Environment Professions Call for Evidence: What It Means for APs and Managing Agents

TL;DR: MHCLG is running a call for evidence on a new strategy for built environment professions, trades and occupations. It closes on 12 August 2026, asks pointed questions about competence and accountability at every stage of the building lifecycle, including occupation and maintenance, and will shape a strategy due in 2027. If you manage a building, you are in scope. Responding takes an hour and puts your experience on the record before the rules are written.

Read the PAP responsibilities guide →

#What the Government Announced

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published the call for evidence on 20 May 2026. It runs for 12 weeks, closing on 12 August 2026, and applies to England.

In December 2025, the government announced in the Single Construction Regulator Prospectus that it will publish a new strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations in 2027. — MHCLG, Call for Evidence: Strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations (May 2026)

This is not a standalone initiative. The government committed to the professions strategy in the Single Construction Regulator prospectus in December 2025, responding to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry's recommendation for a single regulator covering buildings, construction products and professions. We covered the regulator proposals in our Single Construction Regulator explainer; this call for evidence is the professions strand of the same reform programme.

The stated vision is a building system where buildings are safe, high-performing and sustainable, and where the system itself is trusted. The strategy will decide what that means in practice for the people who design, build and, critically for our readers, manage buildings.

#Does This Affect Your Building?

Yes, if you are responsible for managing one. The call for evidence is structured around the building lifecycle: pre-design, design and specification, construction, and occupation and maintenance, plus a set of cross-cutting themes. The occupation and maintenance chapter covers the work that accountable persons, RTM and RMC directors, and managing agents do every day.

MHCLG explicitly invites responses from across the lifecycle, including clients (commercial, public sector and domestic), professional bodies, statutory regulators, and adjacent sectors such as insurance and legal services. Volunteer directors and small managing agents are not excluded; the exercise covers all building types, not just higher-risk buildings.

For each lifecycle stage, MHCLG wants evidence on five things:

1. Skills, knowledge and experience -- whether the people doing the work are equipped for it
2. Behaviours, conduct and culture -- how work is actually done, not just how it should be
3. Accountability and responsibility -- whether it is clear who answers for what
4. What is working well and what is not
5. How the system could be improved

If those five headings sound familiar, they should. They map directly onto the questions the Building Safety Regulator already asks accountable persons through safety case assessment: who is competent to do this work, how do you know, and who is responsible when it goes wrong?

#Why This Matters Even Though It Proposes Nothing

The call for evidence proposes no policy changes. MHCLG is explicit that specific reforms, including any regulation of functions, will be considered separately. It would be easy to file it as another consultation that does not concern you -- and that would be a mistake, for three reasons.

The direction of travel on competence is one-way. The Building Safety Act 2022 already hard-wired competence into the regime: anyone carrying out building or design work must have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours the work requires (Building Regulations 2010, Part 2A), and the Act established an Industry Competence Committee (Building Safety Act 2022, s.10) to help the regulator drive standards upward. A professions strategy built on this evidence base will extend competence expectations further into the occupation phase, where most residential building managers live.

Building management is inside the frame, not outside it. Previous reform rounds treated property management as someone else's problem: construction reform looked at builders, leasehold reform looked at tenure. This exercise deliberately covers occupation and maintenance as a lifecycle stage in its own right. Separately, the government has already consulted on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services, including the regulation of managing agents; that consultation closed in September 2025 and its outcome is still pending. Evidence gathered now will land in both conversations.

Whoever shows up in the evidence base shapes the strategy. If volunteer RTM directors and small managing agents do not respond, the strategy will be written around the large institutional players who do.

The window is short and the bar is low. You do not need to answer the full document. MHCLG states that respondents may answer only the questions relevant to their role, and real-world examples and quantitative data are explicitly welcomed. An hour spent describing what competence problems actually look like from a resident-managed block is a legitimate, complete response.

Check what else is due this year on the compliance calendar →

#What You Need to Do

1. Decide whether to respond. If you are a PAP, an RTM or RMC director, or a managing agent, you have direct evidence of how competence and accountability work at the occupation stage. That is exactly what MHCLG says it lacks.

2. Pick your questions. Focus on the occupation and maintenance chapter and the cross-cutting themes. Skip the rest unless you also commission works.

3. Bring specifics, not sentiment. "It is hard to find competent people" is weak evidence. "We approached four fire risk assessors in 2025; two declined 11 to 18 metre buildings and the two quotes we received differed by 300%" is strong evidence. Numbers, dates and worked examples carry the most weight.

4. Say where accountability is unclear. If your building has an incumbent agent, a volunteer board and an absent freeholder, describe how responsibility actually flows -- and where it breaks. Our accountable person duties guide sets out where the law currently draws those lines.

5. Submit before 12 August 2026. Respond via the online survey or by email to [email protected], stating which questions you are answering.

#What Happens Next

Responses feed into the strategy MHCLG expects to publish in 2027. That strategy will sit alongside the Single Construction Regulator, the Construction Products reform programme, and the BSR's competence agenda. There is no enforcement consequence for ignoring the call for evidence -- but the strategy it produces will eventually set expectations that do carry consequences, in the same way the Building Safety Act turned "keep good records" from advice into the golden thread duty.

One practical implication is worth acting on regardless of whether you respond: every reform round since 2022 has raised the evidential bar for who did what, when, and whether they were competent to do it. Building managers who keep structured records of appointments, qualifications checks and works sign-offs are already where the system is heading.

#Questions

#What is the built environment professions call for evidence?

An evidence-gathering exercise from MHCLG, open from 20 May to 12 August 2026, that will inform a new government strategy for built environment professions, trades and occupations, expected in 2027. It asks who does what across the building lifecycle, whether they are competent and accountable, and where the system fails. It was announced in the Single Construction Regulator prospectus in December 2025.

#Does the call for evidence propose new rules for managing agents or accountable persons?

No. It proposes no policy changes. It gathers evidence on skills, conduct, accountability and what is not working across the building lifecycle. Specific reforms, including any regulation of functions, will be considered separately once the strategy is developed. The separate consultation on regulating managing agents, which closed in September 2025, is still awaiting a government response.

#Who should respond to the call for evidence?

Anyone working across the building lifecycle: building managers, managing agents, RTM and RMC directors, clients, manufacturers, education providers, professional bodies, and adjacent sectors such as insurance and legal services. You can answer only the questions relevant to your role, and MHCLG welcomes real-world examples and quantitative data.

#When does the call for evidence close and how do I respond?

It closes on 12 August 2026, after a 12-week window that opened on 20 May 2026. You can respond by completing the online survey on the MHCLG Citizen Space portal, or by emailing a written response to [email protected], making clear which questions you are responding to.

#How does this relate to the Single Construction Regulator?

The professions strategy was announced in the Single Construction Regulator prospectus in December 2025. The regulator programme consolidates oversight of buildings, construction products and professions following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry; this call for evidence is the professions strand, and the resulting strategy is expected in 2027.

#Further Reading

• Single Construction Regulator: What UK Building Managers Need to Know
• Accountable Person and PAP Responsibilities Guide
• Building Safety Act Guide
• BSA Compliance Calendar

This article is for informational purposes. It reflects the call for evidence as published, as of July 2026, and will be updated when the government publishes the professions strategy. For building-specific advice, consult a qualified building safety professional.

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