The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (the Regulations) have been introduced as an important step towards implementing the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report. The Regulations are being introduced under Article 24 of the Fire Safety Order and will come into force on 23 January 2023.
Most of the requirements set out in the Regulations are imposed on the responsible person (RP), which RPs need to plan and prepare for ahead of the Regulations coming into force.
The regulations require RPs in multi-occupied residential buildings to take specific actions, depending on the height of the building.
Over the course of 9 weeks, we will be providing a more in-depth look at each of the 9 provisions and we will start off with an insight into the Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool.
Section one of the Fire Safety Act amends the FSO to clarify that fire risk assessments for all multi-occupied residential buildings should be updated to include structure, external walls, and flat entrance doors.
Fire risk assessments by Responsible Persons should be updated as quickly as practicable to include an assessment of the building’s external walls.
In some cases, a more detailed fire risk appraisal of the external walls (under PAS 9980) will be required. In such circumstances, the Responsible Person will need to engage a competent professional to carry out this work.
It is recognised that the capacity of competent professionals, who can be commissioned by Responsible Persons to conduct fire risk appraisals of the external walls is limited. This means that the updating of fire risk assessments needs to be prioritised to ensure that the resources of competent professionals are focussed first on buildings where there may be greater fire safety concerns.
The Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool is an online tool developed by the government, with input from the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Fire Sector Federation and several housing organisations and local authorities. Its purpose is to support Responsible Persons to develop a prioritisation strategy for updating their fire risk assessments following commencement of section one of the Fire Safety Act 2021.
Use of the prioritisation tool is encouraged but is not mandatory. Some Responsible Persons would have already updated their fire risk assessments to include their external walls and flat entrance doors. Others will have their own system of prioritising the buildings that they are responsible for.
The prioritisation tool takes Responsible Persons through a series of fire safety related questions about a building. This information is then scored to assist them to determine the priority of their buildings for updating their fire risk assessments.
Our team are always readily available for any questions you may have…
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