Who's responsible
You’re responsible for fire safety in business or other non-domestic premises if you’re:
- an employer
- the owner
- the landlord
- an occupier
- anyone else with control of the premises, eg a facilities manager, building manager, managing agent or risk assessor
Responsibilities
- carry out a fire risk assessment of the premises and review it regularly
- tell staff or their representatives about the risks you’ve identified
- put in place, and maintain, appropriate fire safety measures
- plan for an emergency
- provide staff information, fire safety instruction and training
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to:
- Non-domestic premises
- all workplaces and commercial premises
- all premises the public have access to
- the common areas of multi-occupied residential buildings
Shared premises
In shared premises it’s likely there’ll be more than one responsible person. You’ll need to co-ordinate your fire safety plans to make sure people on or around the premises are safe.
For common or shared areas, the responsible person is the landlord, freeholder or managing agent.
Alterations, extensions and new buildings
When building new premises or doing building work on existing premises, you must comply with building regulations.
This includes designing fire safety into the proposed building or extension.
Penalties and enforcement
You could be fined or go to prison if you don’t follow fire safety regulations.
Fire Risk Assessments
As the responsible person you must carry out and regularly review a fire risk assessment of the premises. This will identify what you need to do to prevent fire and keep people safe.
- You must keep a written record of your fire risk assessment if your business has 5 or more people.
Carrying out the assessment
- Identify the fire hazards
- Identify people at risk
- Evaluate, remove or reduce the risks
- Record your findings, prepare an emergency plan and provide training
- Review and update the fire risk assessment regularly
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