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I am often asked how often a fire risk assessment should be completed and reviewed.  There is not a definitive answer as it all depends on the type of premises and the risk involved.   

If you have a residential property (block of flats, HMO) then should ideally review your fire risk assessment on an annual basis.  This is because of the sleeping risk and allows a fire risk assessor to ensure the responsible person is keeping up with the necessary arrangements.  It also allows an assessor to check if there are any new risks or have been any material alterations to the property.

If you have a commercial property, again we do recommend every year but can accept every couple of years.  This is on the basis that you carry out an in-house review every year that it is not carried out by a professional.

This all depends on the attitude and competence of the responsible persons.  As a qualified fire risk assessor, I will always make a judgement of this and how efficient they are at record keeping and compliance when following fire risk assessments.

Therefore to summarise, to ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, you must ensure you review your fire risk assessment on a regular basis (normally every year) or at any time if there are any material alterations or other significant changes to the property to warrant a new one.

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The Childcare Register for childcare in both domestic and non-domestic premises is issued and controlled by Ofsted.  They state “The registered person must ensure that the children receiving childcare are kept safe from harm” and this naturally includes fire safety.  It requests that a fire risk assessment of the premises is completed which should identify and address and hazards and risks in the property.

Broadly speaking, childcare facilities can be divided into two main types (although a whole range of premises could be used).  These are:

• Day-care providers, eg, full day care, sessional day care, out-of-school care, crèches etc  - this is in non-domestic premises.
• Child minding that takes place in domestic premises.

It is a legal requirement under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to have a fire risk assessment completed.  Therefore, if you require a fire risk assessment for your commercial premises or within the communal areas of flats, it is illegal to not have completed a fire risk assessment in the eyes of the law.

Many responsible people put off carrying out a fire risk assessment because they think it entails too much work and they don’t want to pay for the resulting work.  However, what they fail to realise is that the cost of not having one completed can be huge in form of a fine or even too people’s lives.

By ensuring you have a fire risk assessment completed, you can stay on the right side of the law, make sure that you are protecting the occupants of your building and staying in compliance with your local Fire and Rescue service.

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You need a fire risk assessment for the communal areas of blocks of flats rather than the flats themselves.  This is to ensure that a fire in one flat does not impact the safety of occupants in other flats and to ensure all other occupants can escape safely.

Having said that, the flat entrance doors to flats do form part of the assessment and we also need to determine what level of smoke detection you have in your flats.  So, we don’t necessarily have to access all of the flats, other than check a sample of flat entrance doors and ask about the detection.

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, it’s the communal areas which require a fire risk assessment.  This is also a requirement under the new Building Safety Bill and up and coming Fire Safety Act 2021.

Only in extreme cases, where the compartmentation of the block of flats is in severe doubt, would we need to inspect and assess the flats as part of a more intrusive survey (types 2-4 fire risk assessments).  This is rare though.

What needs assessing is the communal areas to ensure it is adequately protected and compartmentalised to protect the occupants means of escape route.

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The frequency of a fire risk assessment is generally related to the risk.  Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, you must ensure the assessment is reviewed on a regular basis and the general rule is that these should be done annually.  This is always the case for high rise blocks of flats and the fire brigade would not expect anything less.

I would always advise that all residential properties have their fire risk assessments reviewed annually.  This is because each of these buildings is a sleeping risk and therefore, requires the highest standard of compliance. 

Where you have lower risk blocks of flats of say 2 floors or less and say less than 3 flats, then it can be agreed to carry our a fire risk assessment every 2 years and in extreme cases, every 3 years.  Some managing agents review their fire risk assessments in house every other year and use a qualified company every two years. 

We can work with you and offer a range of options for carrying out fire risk assessments on a risk based and client friendly basis.

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The fire regulations for the communal areas of flats falls under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Building Safety Bill and Fire Safety Act 2021 which is due to come into force soon.

The requirement is for the responsible person to carry out a fire risk assessment for the communal areas which should ensure that the flat entrance doors are fire resisting and have self-closing devices. 

Each flat should have mains-wired smoke detection.  The requirement for a fire detection system in the communal areas depends on whether the flats are converted or purpose-built.  It also depends on the number of floors and flats in the building and number of escape staircases.

The fire risk assessment for the communal areas will include all flat entrance doors (although generally speaking only one-two doors need to be checked) so the cost can be shared between all tenants/landlords etc.

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If you require a fire risk assessment for the communal areas (otherwise known as common parts) of your block of flats, then we would be delighted to help you carry this out.

We have a team of qualified assessors who specialise in carrying out these assessments for both purpose-built and converted blocks of flats.  Sometimes these communal areas can comprise of just a few metres and be just a single storey.  It is often frustrating for landlords who feel such a small communal area should not be subjected to this legislation.

However, the size of the communal areas is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned but of course, can lead to fewer recommendations in a fire risk assessment report.

We need to know the age of the building, how many flats, floors and communal staircases.  Whether you have an existing fire alarm system and emergency lighting is important as well as the location of your gas and electrical meters.

Whatever the answers to these questions, Whale Fire can help and carry out these fire risk assessments to your communal areas quickly and for a competitive fee.

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