Building Safety Levy begins as Sergio Cavalaro is appointed adviser

In a new Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announcement on gov.uk, the government has paired two major building-safety moves. Sergio Cavalaro has been appointed Chief Construction and Scientific Adviser, and the Building Safety Levy has now come into force. That might sound technical at first glance, but the questions underneath are very human. Who checks that homes are safe? Who pays when the system fails? If you are trying to make sense of post-Grenfell reform, these two decisions are meant to answer those questions together.

Cavalaro, a Professor of Infrastructure Systems at Loughborough University and a civil engineer by training, has been appointed for a three-year full-time term. His role is to give independent construction, engineering and scientific advice on the safety, quality and resilience of buildings, as well as on productivity across the built environment sector. In plain English, he is meant to do more than simply endorse existing plans. The point of an independent adviser is to test the evidence, challenge weak thinking and bring technical judgement into government decisions before problems grow. This post also sits within the wider network of chief scientific advisers across government, which shows that building safety is being treated as a matter of public evidence as well as policy.

This role exists because of Grenfell. It is one of the recommendations being put into practice after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, when 72 people lost their lives and deep failings in building safety were exposed. **Why this matters:** Grenfell was not only a tragedy; it revealed what can happen when regulation is weak, responsibility is blurred and residents' warnings are not taken seriously. Any reform announced now has to be measured against that history. The real test is not whether a new title sounds impressive, but whether people are safer in the homes they live in.

The government says Cavalaro will help deliver the remaining Inquiry recommendations and wider regulatory reform. He is also expected to act as a bridge between government, regulators, industry, professional and trade bodies, academia and residents. Over the next month, he will work closely with Interim Chief Construction Adviser Thouria Istephan to complete a handover. That bridge matters more than it may seem. Building safety often fails when one part of the system assumes another part is checking the risk. An adviser cannot repair every weakness alone, but he can press for clearer standards, better evidence and stronger links between the people who write the rules and the people who live with the results.

Alongside the appointment, the Building Safety Levy came into force on 1 October 2026. According to government guidance, it applies to new building control applications on eligible new residential developments of more than 10 units, as well as eligible purpose-built student accommodation. **What this means:** this is a tax on certain new developments, not a charge sent directly to current leaseholders. The government's case is that the industry should contribute to fixing building safety defects, rather than leaving residents or taxpayers to carry the full cost of failures they did not create.

Ministers expect the levy to raise around £3.4 billion over the next ten years. That money is meant to fund important safety works, including the removal of dangerous cladding, which remains one of the clearest signs of how long the post-Grenfell crisis has lasted. It is worth pausing here. Raising money is only one part of the answer. The harder question is whether that money will be spent quickly, fairly and openly, and whether residents will see real change in the buildings around them. Safer homes are not created by announcements on their own; they depend on follow-through.

Cavalaro's background helps explain why he was selected. The government says he has worked on issues of national significance, including structural evaluations of RAAC, and contributed to measures that helped keep hospitals operational during the Covid-19 pandemic. He has also led work on modern methods of construction, repair and remediation, materials and quality control. Government Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Dame Angela McLean and Building Safety Regulator chair Lord Roe have both welcomed the appointment. For the rest of us, the questions to watch are straightforward: will the remaining Grenfell reforms be delivered, will the levy reduce the burden on residents, and will people feel genuinely safer in their homes? That is the standard this new role will have to meet.