The cost of competency

The FPA’s Director of Operations and Principal Consultant, Howard Passey explains how the tick box approach offered by many assessors may fail to meet the legislative requirement for a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires a fire risk assessment to be carried out for all non-domestic and some types of domestic properties. It is the responsibility of the ‘Responsible Person’ or ‘Duty Holder’ to ensure the assessment is suitable and sufficient.

As most have recognised, the government has not defined a specific process for completing a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, but simply outlined the principles. Initially this led to a plethora of approaches and templates from a variety of sources, with little information on their suitability for use on buildings of varying complexity and risk. These included simple checklists and tick box exercises, through to assessment matrices and more complex forms.

British Standards published PAS79, which most agree describes an appropriate approach, and also provides templates for assessors to work from. It is worth noting that this too utilises a tick box approach, but also provides an opportunity for ‘relevant information’ to be captured in relation to the key factors. Sadly however, many assessors consider completion of the PAS79 assessment template without sufficiently capturing the relevant information as being suitable and sufficient.

The client, of course, relying on the competency of the assessor is unlikely to know any different or question the approach taken. However, responding positively to the question “Is the design and maintenance of the means of escape considered adequate?” without, other than through response to the supplementary questions, describing in suitable detail why the assessor considers the means of escape to be adequate does not prove the case, is entirely subjective, and does not allow for critical review.

In order therefore to provide a ‘suitable and sufficient’ assessment as required in law, sufficient detail is required to clearly establish that all relevant factors have been considered, the outcomes of those considerations, and to allow for critical review. A fire risk assessment cannot be a simple tick box approach but should show how hazards and resultant risk have been mitigated and managed to as low as reasonably practicable.

Of course, this adds time and complexity to the fire risk assessment process, with the resultant impact on cost. But if you are prepared to take the risk that you will never receive a visit from the fire and rescue service and remain content with simply ensuring you have a fire risk assessment to tick off that particular legislative requirement regardless of its quality, then there are plenty of providers who will do that for you quickly and cheaply.

Given the significant changes in the legislative landscape for fire safety particularly in relation to competency, is that a risk you are content to take? A call to the fire and rescue services from your premises to a fire or false alarm is likely to lead to a subsequent visit from their fire safety team, and similarly visits might be scheduled as part of their enforcement programmes.

Amendments to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 by the Building Safety Act 2022 mean that the Responsible Person must record their fire risk assessment in full (not just the significant findings); ensure that they do not appoint a person to assist them in making or reviewing a fire risk assessment unless the person is competent; and record the identity of any person appointed by the Responsible Person to assist them with making or reviewing an assessment.

It is hoped that these changes will impact positively on the quality (or should that be suitability and sufficiency) of fire risk assessments, but inevitably they also impact on price as assessors prepared to offer a ‘cheap and cheerful’ assessment find themselves driven by the market. As a result, we are now seeing a greater uptake in registrations to fire risk assessor competency schemes and company certification schemes which it is hoped will continue to drive up standards of assessments.

Since 2015, the FPA has held National Security Inspectorate (NSI) Gold Certification for the BAFE SP205 Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment Scheme which exists to ‘deliver quality, independent evidence that providers are competent to deliver quality fire risk assessment services’. Furthermore, NSI approval is the ‘hallmark of excellence for providers of security and fire safety services’ and its Gold scheme is ‘designed for companies who meet the industry’s highest technical standards and maintain a commitment to continual improvement with an ISO 9001 Quality Management System’.

Cheap and cheerful might provide some comfort that legislative requirements have been met, but Responsible Persons need to ensure that the assessment is worth more than the paper it is written on. The potential upshot could otherwise be fines or imprisonment. Using a third-party certified provider such as the FPA provides assurance that the risk assessment will be conducted by a competent assessor and will go beyond the basic tick box approach in order to meet the suitable and sufficient legislative requirement.

Find about more about the FPA’s Fire Risk Assessment service.