Part 5: Other provisions about safety standards, etc. Fire safety Section 156: Amendment of Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 Background
At present Responsible Persons are required to implement appropriate measures for their premises to enable effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review in order to comply with the requirements of the Order. At present recording is required only where they employ five or more employees or where there is a licence in place, or an alterations notice under the FSO requiring recording. We are introducing a requirement for all Responsible Persons to record fire safety arrangements to assist Responsible Persons to more easily demonstrate compliance and enforcing authorities to evidence a breach of the Order. This amendment will ensure consistency in approach with article 9A of the Order. The Responsible Person will be able to access guidance to assist their recording of their fire safety arrangements.
Example
The Responsible Person owns an office and has only three employees. They must make and give effect to fire safety arrangements as are appropriate, having regard to the size of their undertaking and the nature of its activities, for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures. Another responsible person also owns an office but has 50 employees. They must make and give effect to fire safety arrangements as described above and they must record the arrangements.
Under this new provision all Responsible Persons, regardless of their individual circumstances, must record their fire safety arrangements in full. The intention is to ensure enforcing authorities and other relevant persons (i.e. residents or employees) are able to access the fire safety arrangements to aid authorities when enforcing the FSO and to provide assurance to relevant persons that fire safety issues in the building where they live or work are being safely and appropriately managed.