Your responsibilities

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places a legal requirement upon Responsible Persons to ensure all relevant people on or in the vicinity of their premises are safe from fire. These responsibilities and safety measures are designed to protect life regardless of Fire and Rescue intervention.

Under the Fire Safety Order 2005 a ‘responsible person’ must carry out, or appoint a competent person to carry out, a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to your employees and other ‘relevant persons’ from fire.

Who is responsible?

You are known as the “responsible person” for fire safety at a business or other non-domestic premises if you are:

• An employer
• The owner
• The landlord
• An occupier
• Anyone else with control of the premises, for example a Facilities Manager, Building Manager, Managing Agent or Risk Assessor

If there’s more than one responsible person, you have to work together to meet your responsibilities.

The Fire Safety Order also applies if you have paying guests, for example if you run a bed and breakfast, guesthouse or let a self-catering property.

Responsibilities

Don’t lose your business to fire

As the responsible person you must:

• Regularly carry out a fire risk assessment of the premises (we recommend at least once a year)
• Tell staff or their representatives about the risks you’ve identified
• Put in place appropriate fire safety measures and maintain
• Plan for an emergency
• Provide staff information, fire safety instruction and training

You can read about how to make sure your premises are safe from fire here.

Do I need a Fire Risk Assessment?

All business premises and every block of flats must have a Fire Risk Assessment by law. The Fire Safety Order includes premises with paying guests e.g. B&Bs, Guesthouses and self-catering properties.