The golden thread,
stated plainly.
Most software marketing treats the golden thread as a buzzword. It is law — with a precise scope, real penalties, and published rejection data. This page sets out what it actually requires, and what software can and cannot honestly claim.
What the law requires
For higher-risk residential buildings in England, the Building Safety Act 2022 makes a digital record — the golden thread — a legal requirement. It has to be held electronically, kept accurate and up to date, be promptly accessible, and only change through a process that records who changed what, and when. At handover it must transfer with its filing structure, indexes and keys intact, in a format the recipient can read, keep and update.
Building Safety Act 2022 s.88 · SI 2023/907 reg.7 · SI 2023/909 regs.31 & 38 · SI 2024/41 · Building Safety Regulator guidance, updated September 2024.
weeks — median time to Gateway 2 building control approval, against a 12-week statutory period
of decided Gateway 2 applications rejected
of the named rejection reasons: inadequate golden thread arrangements
Building Safety Regulator application data, 12 weeks to 29 May 2026 · Build UK, “Reasons for the Rejection of Applications at Gateway Two”, September 2025.
Where it applies — and where it doesn’t
England. Higher-risk buildings — at least 18m or 7 storeys with two or more residential units; hospitals and care homes during design and construction. Wales runs its own separate regime with a broader definition.
Wind farms, solar farms, BESS and substations — no golden thread duty attaches to any of them. And the law requires a digital record, not a digital twin.
On energy infrastructure the duty is different, and quieter. CDM 2015 requires a health and safety file — kept available for anyone who needs it, handed to the client at the end — but the law does not say it has to be digital. Which is precisely why so many of them end up as a box of PDFs nobody can use on the day it matters. Where digital arrives on infrastructure, it arrives by contract: the ISO 19650 information-management standards, applied on central government work through the Construction Playbook on a comply-or-explain basis.
What software can honestly claim
Software can help you maintain a golden thread. No software can make you compliant — the duty sits with the accountable person, and it rests on people, competence and process. There is no official certification scheme for golden-thread tools. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.
The Construction Leadership Council’s guidance states it directly: the golden thread “cannot be delivered as a product, a ‘software solution’ or a consultancy service.” We agree — and we would rather you knew that before a salesperson tells you different.
How Basira records
The statutory standards describe how a record has to be created in the first place. That is how Basira records by default — on every scheme, whether the law compels it or a contract does.
- ✓Attributable by default
Every entry carries the person, their company and their role. Nothing lands anonymously.
- ✓Time-stamped at capture
The record shows when it happened, not when someone wrote it up.
- ✓Located to the asset
Updates attach to the turbine, plot or bay they concern — with coordinates and the photo.
- ✓Revisions kept, not replaced
Superseded drawings stay in the register with change notes and approval state.
- ✓Only changed on the record
Who changed what, and when — the audit trail is the default, not a feature.
- ✓Built to be handed over
Structured and exportable, because the asset outlives the project by decades.