And its implications for building and fire professionals
Designed to amend the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005 and provide greater clarity on accountability for reducing the risk of fires, the Fire Safety Bill passed through the parliamentary process on 29th April 2021 to become The Fire Safety Act 2021.
In collaboration with Addleshaw Goddard LLP, we provide an overview of what the Act entails, and what it means for fire safety professionals, building owners and responsible persons.
Set to amend the Fire Safety Order 2005, the Fire Safety Act 2021 has been designed to “ensure that people feel safe in their homes, and a tragedy like the Grenfell Tower fire never happens again” in England.
The Home Office has set out clarification to who is accountable for reducing the risk of fires – the duty-holder/building owner for multi-occupied, residential buildings, though this may also include leaseholders or managers. They must manage the risk of fire for:
The fire risk assessment for a building/premises will therefore be required to cover both of these areas where applicable. The Act applies to all multi-occupied residential buildings (any building that contains two or more domestic units).
It also allows the Fire and Rescue Service to enforce against non-compliance in relation to the external walls and the individual doors opening onto the common parts of the premises.
The Fire Safety Act is also designed to complement the Building Safety Act once it has been passed, and provide a foundation for secondary legislation which won’t require another Act of Parliament, based upon the recommendations made from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. Extra measures may include responsibility for lift inspections, the reviewing of evacuation plans and fire safety instructions to residents.
It is applicable to England and Wales only. At the time of writing (February 2022), the Act is not yet fully in force.
The legislation is likely to affect around 1.7m residential properties in England and Wales, with a significant impact on workload for fire risk assessors needing access to balconies, doors, etc., as well as the overall construction/refurbishment processes.
Put simply, responsible persons (RP) could now be held personally liable for any future breaches, and therefore there is a requirement for fire risk assessments to be renewed or updated to cover the additions, and for the RP to address any issues identified in the assessment.
Fire risk assessors will be called upon to undertake much of this work. One challenge to this, as highlighted for IFSEC Global in July, is that many assessors currently do not have the qualifications or knowledge to carry out assessments of external facades and cladding, and will need to obtain training and insurance on top of this to ensure they are covered.
PAS 9980:2022 and the Fire Safety Act are designed to go ‘hand-in-hand’ with the new code of practice acting as approved guidance to fulfilling some of the requirements of the new legislation.
In January 2022, PAS 9980:2022 Fire risk appraisal of external wall construction and cladding of existing blocks of flats – Code of practice, was published by the British Standards Institute to support the changes introduced by the Fire Safety Act. It should be noted, the Code is voluntary.
The new code of practice is for use by fire engineers and other competent building professionals when undertaking a fire risk appraisal of external walls. It will therefore be very useful for building owners, landlords, fire risk assessors, managing agents and premises managers.
The standard, which can be scaled up or down dependent on the complexity of the building in question, uses a five-step risk assessment process to assist in the identification of risk factors, such as the overall risk rating of a building. It adopts a risk-based approach primarily to satisfy the statutory obligations under the Fire Safety Order/Fire Safety Act, as opposed to a compliance-based approach under the Building Regulations.
The new code of practice also offers advice on the competency of professionals undertaking such appraisals and aims to increase the number of competent professionals by providing the knowledge on fire risk arising from various aspects of wall construction. The focus is on residential buildings over 18m, but best practice applies to 11-18m and hotels.
A spokesperson from the BSI commented: “The outcome of an FRAEW is intended to inform fire risk assessments of multistorey, multi-occupied residential buildings and other types of building, including student accommodation, sheltered and other specialised housing and buildings converted into flats, where the evacuation strategy will be similar in nature to a purpose-built block of flats.”
The Fire Safety Act was commenced into law on 18 May 2022.
Read more about the legislative process, here.
