Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 came into force on 1 October 2006. It was designed to bring previous fire safety legislation into a single regulatory regime and it replaced the fire safety requirements of over 70 different pieces of legislation.

The new regulations removed the requirement for businesses to obtain a fire certificate from the local fire authority, introducing a single, comprehensive fire safety regime based on risk assessment.

Under the new regime, responsibility for ensuring fire safety rests with the person responsible for the premises. In a workplace, this is the employer and any other person who may have control of any part of the premises, for example, the occupier or owner. In all other premises, the person or people in control of the premises will be responsible. If there is more than one person responsible in any type of premises, for example in multi occupancy premises, all must take all reasonable steps to work with each other.

The responsible person must undertake a risk assessment to identify any fire hazards on their premises, and put measures in place to reduce these hazards as far as they reasonably can. The assessment must focus on the safety of all 'relevant persons'. It should pay particular attention to those at special risk, such as the disabled and those with special needs, and must include consideration of any dangerous substance likely to be on the premises. They will also need to implement fire precautions to protect people from any remaining risks.

Organisations employing five or more people must record the significant findings of the assessment. The role of the enforcement authority will be to check what measures the responsible person has put in place and, if they are not adequate, to ensure that action is taken to bring the premises in line with the law.

The Regulatory Reform Order is not designed to place any significant additional burden on businesses, as most of the new legal duties already existed in previous fire safety legislation. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to England and Wales.  Similar legislation applying to Scotland and Northern Ireland was introduced in 2005 and 2006.

Last reviewed 7/11/2011

Source:  Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.

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