Introducing My Golden Thread: Building Safety Information That Stays With the Building

Introducing My Golden Thread

The Golden Thread has become one of the most commonly used phrases in building safety over the last few years.

That does not necessarily mean it is always well understood.

It is easy to reduce the whole idea to document storage. Set up a SharePoint folder, upload the fire strategy, throw in some drawings and maintenance reports, and call it the Golden Thread.

In reality, simply having the information is only part of the job.

That is one of the reasons we have launched My Golden Thread, a new sister platform to FireSecure UK focused specifically on building safety information and how it should be managed.

The Golden Thread belongs to the building

One of the main principles behind My Golden Thread is straightforward:

The Golden Thread belongs to the building.

Managing agents change. Contractors change. Consultants change. Buildings are sold. People leave their roles.

The building stays where it is.

Its safety information should stay with it too.

A change of managing agent should not mean starting again with a new document folder while years of historic information are left sitting in someone else’s SharePoint account.

Likewise, a contractor should not become the only place where important information exists simply because they happened to produce it.

The record needs to remain continuous throughout the life of the building.

A folder full of PDFs is not enough

Documents are obviously a major part of the Golden Thread, but having a document does not tell you everything you need to know about it.

Take an as-built drawing.

Having the PDF tells you that the drawing exists.

It does not necessarily tell you:

• whether it still matches the building;
• who supplied it;
• whether anybody has checked it;
• which revision is current;
• what it replaced;
• whether later alterations affected it;
• or whether there are known limitations in the information it contains.

The same applies to fire strategies, cause and effect matrices, commissioning records, inspection reports and maintenance certificates.

A useful Golden Thread needs to answer more than:

“Do we have the document?”

It should also help answer:

What do we currently believe to be true about this building?

What evidence supports that?

Who has reviewed or verified it?

What has changed since?

Evidence should be controlled

This is where basic document storage starts to fall short.

Important building safety evidence should have a clear history.

Where did it come from?

Who submitted it?

Which building or system does it relate to?

Which revision is current?

Has it been reviewed?

Has anybody actually checked that it still represents the building?

There should also be a clear difference between information being received, reviewed, accepted and verified.

A contractor uploading a commissioning certificate does not automatically mean that somebody has accepted it as an accurate record of the building as it stands today.

Someone needs to take responsibility for that decision.

Missing information should be recorded, not ignored

Existing buildings rarely come with a perfect historic record.

Drawings go missing.

Commissioning records cannot be found.

Previous managing agents fail to hand information over properly.

Original contractors stop trading.

Alterations are made and the records are never updated.

Pretending those gaps do not exist does not improve the Golden Thread.

A better approach is to record them properly.

If the original smoke control commissioning information cannot be found, that should be logged as a known information gap.

The record can then show when the gap was identified, what attempts were made to recover the information, what the implications are, and what alternative evidence or survey work has been used to establish the current condition of the system.

A good record does not need to pretend that the building’s history was perfect.

It needs to show that gaps and uncertainty were recognised and managed.

History matters

The Golden Thread should also preserve what came before.

If a fire strategy is revised, the previous revision should not simply disappear.

If a smoke control panel is replaced, the record should retain what was there before, when it changed, why it changed and what evidence came out of the work.

If information later turns out to be wrong, the old record should not quietly be rewritten.

The correction should form part of the history too.

That matters because, after an incident, the important question may not be:

“What does the building record say now?”

It may be:

“What was known about the building at the time?”

Those are two very different questions.

Supporting the industry rather than just selling another compliance product

My Golden Thread is being developed commercially by Ironmark Digital Ltd, but the aim is not simply to put another subscription between building managers and their legal responsibilities.

The public site has been launched first to provide independent guidance and practical information around the Golden Thread and building safety information management.

The application will come later.

When it does, the focus will be on the building itself: its design, safety systems, controlled evidence, changes, operational logbook and history.

We are deliberately not trying to build another CAFM platform.

Most organisations already have systems for work orders, planned maintenance, contractor scheduling, invoicing, project management and resident management.

The Golden Thread has a different job.

It should preserve the safety-relevant outcome of those activities and the evidence that supports the current understanding of the building.

Free access to the basics

We also believe there should be a meaningful free level of access to basic Golden Thread management.

Smaller organisations, individual buildings and resident-managed blocks should not need to buy an enterprise software package simply to start organising their information properly.

The commercial side of the platform can focus on the additional complexity involved in managing multiple buildings, contractor access, reporting, automation, portfolio oversight and more advanced controls.

That keeps the basics accessible while still allowing the platform to be commercially sustainable.

Where we go from here

The first version of MyGoldenThread.org.uk is now live, with guidance covering:

• what the Golden Thread is;
• who is responsible for it;
• what information should be kept;
• and the principles behind maintaining a useful building safety record.

More guidance, resources and practical templates will be added over time.

Development of the application itself will follow later, once the underlying information model, evidence controls and audit architecture have been properly worked through.

There is already plenty of building management software available.

We do not think the industry particularly needs another platform full of hundreds of loosely related features.

What it does need is a reliable way of answering a much simpler question:

What do we know about this building, what evidence supports it, and can we prove the history of that information?

For more information, see our sister platform, My Golden Thread.