What is the difference between fire safety schedule, fire safety certificate and fire safety statement?

Hi,

As a Building Surveyor- Fire Safety Officer and as TAFE Teacher of Advanced Diploma of Building Surveying at Ultimo Campus, I have been asked this question many times. I thought I do this article to explain this to my students.

Let’s begin by looking at the definition of these terms. These are my own simplified definitions, based on my own limited understanding. Please feel free to correct me if I have missed anything or misinterpreted anything. Let’s work together as a team. ??

Simplified Definitions

Fire safety schedule: It Is a schedule, or a list of the fire safety measures that are currently exist in the building or proposed to be installed in the building to fulfill a fire safety requirement, as a result of a DA (Subject to Section 62, or Section 64 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021), Construction Certificate (Commonly known as CC), Complying Development Certificate (Commonly known as CDC), Or a Fire Safety Order.

Consequently, fire safety schedules can only be issued in any one of the following: ways:

1. Development Application with Council (Commonly known as DA) Subject to Section 62 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021. For a change of use without any building works. This is because a CC is not required due to the proposal does NOT trigger CC. Therefore, a fire safety schedule would not otherwise be issued unless Council imposes this condition as part of the DA Conditions or issues the DA with the fire safety schedule as an appendix.
2. Development Application with Council (Commonly known as DA) Subject to Section 64 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021. This is because of the proposed building works require upgrading or the existing building is considered by Council to be unsafe to protect persons in the event of fire, or facilitate their safe egress in the event of fire, or restrict the spread of fire. Council imposes this condition as part of the DA Conditions or issues the DA with the fire safety as an appendix. ?
3. Construction Certificate (Commonly known as CC).
4. Complying Development Certificate (Commonly known as CDC), as per Division 4.5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.
5. Fire Safety Order pursuant to Schedule 5, Part 2 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

A list of the statutory fire safety measures can be found in Clause 79 0f the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Regulation 2021.

?Fire safety certificate:?It is a Certificate typically issued by the Owner of the building at the Occupation Certificate Stage to the Private Certifier or Council. Or issued at the completion stage of the works required by a Fire Safety Order pursuant to Schedule 5, Part 2 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, issued by the Owner of the building (whom the fire safety order was served) to Council stating that the essential fire safety measures that were originally designed for and should be implemented in the building (In the form of the Fire safety schedule) were actually installed in the building in accordance with the relevant minimum standard of performance as outlined in the original Fire safety schedule.

Occasionally, we may find that some fire safety measures as listed in the Fire safety certificate, could be slightly different from the original Fire safety schedule. This is due to some changes or alterations that may occur to the building fire safety systems design during the construction stage, due to other unforeseen circumstances or site constraints. This can be in the form of a Fire Engineering Report as a Performance Solution in accordance with Part A2.2 of Section A, the Governing Requirements of the National Construction Code (Commonly known as NCC). This process is usually documented by the Private Certifier or Council in the form of a Modified Consent (Such as Section 4.55, or Section 4.30 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979).

Fire safety certificates confirms the final list of the fire safety measures that were actually installed in the building. Fire safety certificate can be in the form of an interim fire safety certificate or a final fire safety certificate.

The date of issue of the fire safety certificate, will be used to set the new due date for the Annual Fire Safety Statement, which is 12 months from that date.

Annual fire safety statement: It is a statement typically issued by the Owner of the building, or their appointed agent (Such as Strata Manager) to both Local Council, and Fire & Rescue NSW. The Annual Fire Safety Statement (Commonly known as AFSS) is issued annually following a routine maintenance of the fire safety measures in the building that must be checked once every 6 months and issued to Council and Fire & Rescue NSW once every 12 months.

AFSS, must be signed by the Owner of the building, or their appointed agent (Such as Strata Manager) on Section 8 of the AFSS, titled as “Section 8: Annual fire safety statement declaration”.

The date of issue on Section 8 cannot be more than 3 months from the date of assessment shown on Section 4 of the AFSS. This section (Section 4 of the AFSS) lists the fire safety measures that were tested and found to be performing to the applicable minimum standards of performance.??

It is the responsibility of the Owner or their appointed agent (Such as Strata Manager) to ensure that any annual fire safety statement is signed off by an Accredited Practitioner- Fire Safety, registered under the Fire Protection Association Australia (FPAA) accreditation scheme. To access the register visit Fire Protection Association of Australia website.

The owner of a building, or their appointed agent (Such as Strata Manager) must maintain each essential fire safety measure for the building to a standard no less than that specified in the fire safety schedule, or no less than that to which the measure was originally designed and implemented, in accordance with Clause 81 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Regulation 2021.?

Definitions of other related terms (Listed below) can be found in the Dictionary section of the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Regulation 2021.

• critical fire safety measure
• essential fire safety measure
• fire safety requirement
• relevant fire safety system
• Category 1 fire safety provision?
• Category 2 fire safety provision?
• Category 3 fire safety provision?

Please feel free to comment and give me feedback in case I have missed anything. ??

Regards

Firas Naji

6th of March 2022

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