Other provisions Strengthened Fire Safety Order
To support the whole-system approach to the management of building and fire safety in higher-risk buildings in occupation, the Act includes provisions to strengthen the Fire Safety Order in order to support greater compliance and effective enforcement, which will better protect relevant persons’ safety in regulated premises. These amendments are proportionately aligned to risk. The amendments require that:
the Responsible Person must record their fire risk assessment;
the Responsible Person must not appoint a person to assist them with making or reviewing a fire risk assessment unless that person is competent;
the Responsible Person must record their fire safety arrangements;
for buildings consisting of two or more sets of domestic premises, the Responsible Person(s) must provide specific fire safety information to residents about relevant fire safety matters, and must keep records of the relevant fire safety matters;
the Responsible Person must take reasonable steps to identify themselves to all other Responsible Persons in the same premises, inform them of their name and United Kingdom address and the part of the premises they consider themselves to be Responsible Person for and keep a record of that information;
departing Responsible Persons must provide specific relevant fire safety information they hold to incoming Responsible Persons for premises or parts of premises for which they are responsible, keeping records of the fire safety information;
for higher-risk buildings in England, the Responsible Person must identify and co-operate with Accountable Persons in the same premises to enable them to carry out their duties under the Building Safety Act;
increased financial penalties of unlimited fines apply for the criminal offences of impersonating an inspector, failing to comply with any requirements imposed by an inspector, and failing to comply with requirements relating to the installation of luminous tube signs; and
Article 50 of the FSO (recently amended by the Fire Safety Act 2021) which relates to the provision of guidance for Responsible Persons, be amended to expressly provide that the Court may take compliance or non-compliance with such guidance into account when considering offences of breach of the Order.