A Fire Risk Assessment is a review undertaken of a building to assess its fire risk and offer recommendations to make the building safer, if necessary. They help to review and identify potential fire hazards, as well as assessing existing fire preventive measures as well as looking at further improvements. Fire Risk Assessments are a requirement under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for commercial premises and other buildings.
By law, every block of flats and business is required to have an individual who is designated as the “Responsible Person” who is responsible for the building’s fire safety.
The job of the designated Responsible Person is to ensure that all relevant fire safety tasks are conducted and that any necessary action is taken in order to prevent fires from occurring and to prevent death or injury if a fire takes place.
The responsible person is, therefore, the one who needs to ensure that a valid fire risk assessment is made on your building.
For tower blocks and blocks of flats, the Responsible Person is usually the managing agent or landlord, although it can be a Residents’ Association member as well.
The Responsible Person in blocks of flats is only responsible for common areas, like stairwells and corridors. Leaseholders are responsible for ensuring that their own flats are safe from fire.
Your fire risk assessment should cover:
A Fire Risk Assessment must be produced and then reviewed on a regular basis. We recommend the following timescales:
According to legal guidelines, a fire risk assessment may be conducted by a “competent” individual. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a qualified Fire Risk Assessor must be used.
However, what it does mean is that whoever does conduct your fire risk assessment must be comfortable with assessing your building or premises against all of the different factors that are listed above.
They also need to be able to do the following:
A professional fire risk assessor undergoes lots of detailed training and is fully versed in the most recent guidelines and legal requirements, including how they should be applied to different kinds of buildings.
As a building occupant, you have the right to access to the Fire Risk Assessment for the premises if you want it.
You should first contact your building’s Responsible Person. If you are unsure who that is, then a good place to start would be the managing agent or landlord.
If you discover that there is no valid fire risk assessment for your building, then you should ask the Responsible Person to have one conducted right away.
If you feel your concerns are not being treated seriously by the Responsible Person for your building, then you should contact the local fire and rescue service as your last resort.
If the responsible person has not instructed a fire risk assessment and importantly do not have the proper fire safety precautions in place, the penalty is prosecution that results in severe fines. The penalty can be a prison sentence in extreme negligence cases.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to our block management experts at Horizon
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