Table of Contents
Fire safety compliance for businesses depends on ongoing management as well as a fire risk assessment. Precautions have to work every day, people have to know what to do, and records have to show that the arrangements are actually managed. For non-domestic premises in England, that means knowing who holds the duties, what a sound assessment looks like, the main precautions, evacuation, training and the records that show the work is done.
Who is responsible for workplace fire safety?
Fire safety duties sit with whoever controls the premises. In a single-occupier building that is usually simple. Offices in shared blocks, retail units and mixed-use sites can involve several parties. Before you review any precautions, you need to know who controls which area, system and route.
The law for non-domestic premises in England
For most non-domestic premises in England, the main fire safety law is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The Fire Safety Order applies in England and Wales, although additional requirements and guidance can differ. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate fire safety legislation. This article focuses on England. Three points shape how the Order applies:
- Premises-specific precautions: the precautions you need depend on the building, the work done there, who uses it and the risks involved, according to GOV.UK guidance for offices and shops.
- Later amendments: the Fire Safety Act 2021 and section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 both change how the current Order applies.
- Building-specific duties: some particular buildings carry extra duties, but these are not standard requirements for every workplace.
In practice, two businesses on the same street can need quite different arrangements. The fire safety regulations employers need to check are the same for both, but the precautions those duties lead to are not.
Responsibility follows control of the premises
An employer that controls its workplace is generally the Responsible Person. A landlord, managing agent or another occupier can also hold duties to the extent of its control, including control that comes from maintenance or repair obligations in a lease or contract (Article 5 of the Order).
The duties of the responsible person for fire safety stay with them when they bring in outside help. Government guidance confirms that appointing an assessor or contractor does not transfer the duty to make sure arrangements are suitable and that the findings are acted on.
Shared buildings and additional duties
Responsible Persons in shared premises have to cooperate and coordinate the measures that affect one another. Take a tenant whose stock or processes create risk next to a common escape stair the landlord controls. Both parties need to agree who manages that stair, the alarm and the evacuation route.
Since 1 October 2023, section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 has required Responsible Persons who share premises to take reasonably practicable steps to identify one another. They also have to share and record specified responsibility and contact details. When a Responsible Person leaves, they have to pass relevant fire safety information to the person taking over. This is a building safety point that is easy to miss when a lease ends.
Where commercial premises sit in a building that also contains homes, check whether residential-specific duties affect the building and your areas of control. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 mainly cover specified multi-occupied residential buildings. They are not a standard package for a standalone office, shop or factory.
What makes a fire risk assessment effective?
The assessment is where everything else starts. It identifies the precautions your site needs, the people those precautions protect and the gaps that need closing. A good assessment describes the building as it is used today. One written from a template or from how the site looked five years ago is far less useful.
Assess the actual premises and people
Article 9 of the Order requires the Responsible Person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to relevant people, so that the necessary general fire precautions can be identified. A fire risk assessment has to reflect the site’s layout, construction, activities, occupancy and existing controls. Generic wording that misses a site’s real hazards does not meet that test.
The GOV.UK five-step checklist lists who may be at risk: employees, temporary and agency workers, contractors, customers, visitors and lone or night workers. It also includes anyone who may need help to escape. A night cleaner working alone, for example, faces different risks from daytime office staff.
Competence and recording requirements
The government’s fire risk assessment process has five steps:
- Identify the fire hazards.
- Identify the people at risk.
- Evaluate the risk and reduce it.
- Record your findings and plan.
- Review the assessment.
A competent Responsible Person may assess simple, low-risk premises without an external assessor. Complex buildings, hazardous activities or difficult evacuations may need specialist competence. A competent fire risk assessor brings knowledge, experience and an understanding of the type of premises being assessed.
Since 1 October 2023, every Responsible Person has to record the full assessment, including its findings, and their fire safety arrangements. This applies whatever the number of employees. The old five-employee threshold no longer decides whether you record. Where someone is engaged to undertake or review the assessment, record their name and, where applicable, their organisation. Salusphere Global provides building-specific fire risk assessments where a professional fire risk assessment is the proportionate choice. We can also carry out an independent review of an existing assessment.
Review findings and complete actions
The Order requires the assessment to be reviewed regularly. It also has to be reviewed when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, or after a significant change. The Order sets no fixed annual reassessment interval. In the action plan, record each deficiency with the proposed response, a named owner and a timescale, and set priority by risk. The document alone removes no hazard, so check that each repair or other control actually works before you close the action. That evidence is the core of fire risk management.
Which fire precautions should premises have?
General fire precautions do three jobs. They prevent fires, they protect escape and they warn people early enough to leave. The Fire Safety Order requires appropriate general fire precautions, informed by a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment. No single specification fits every business.
Prevent fires arising from everyday work
Workplace fire safety requirements start with the ignition sources and fuel on site. GOV.UK guidance asks you to look at the following areas:
- Ignition sources: damaged electrical equipment, portable heaters, cooking areas and how smoking is controlled.
- Fuel and housekeeping: combustible stock, packaging and waste, especially when stored close to an ignition source.
- Contractor activity: hot work such as welding or grinding brings in fire hazards that routine operations do not have.
Contractor work needs agreed controls before it starts. These are part of managing the risks the work creates, which sits alongside the wider risk assessment duty in the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
Where lithium-ion batteries are used or charged on site, include them in the assessment, including any changes to their storage. The Order also places specific duties on businesses that use dangerous substances: they have to eliminate or reduce the risk so far as reasonably practicable, including during handling, storage and transport.
Keep escape routes and protection effective
The number and layout of exits has to suit the building and the people in it. Escape routes have to stay usable whenever the premises are occupied, and exit doors have to open when needed. A well-designed corridor still fails if it is full of deliveries, bins or spare chairs. Keep designated escape routes clear of stock, packaging and personal items, and ensure emergency exits can be opened easily and immediately whenever the premises are occupied.
Fire doors and compartmentation (the walls and floors that slow the spread of fire and smoke) need regular checks and maintenance. A fire door that is damaged, wedged open or fails to close properly gives little protection. Doors on key routes or with heavy use may need more detailed inspection than routine visual checks provide. Check during routine inspections that safety signs are still visible and legible.
Match warning and equipment to the risk
Under Article 13, fire detection, alarms and firefighting equipment have to be appropriate where they are needed. That takes account of the premises’ size and use, the equipment and substances present and the maximum number of occupants. Emergency lighting is needed where people could not escape safely if the normal lighting failed. Where it goes should follow the assessed routes and risks.
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service guidance says your fire risk assessment should identify the firefighting equipment needed, and staff expected to tackle a small fire must receive appropriate training. British Standards such as BS 5839-1:2025 for fire alarms, BS 5266-1:2025 for emergency lighting and BS 5306-3:2017 for extinguishers can guide design and maintenance. They are codes of practice, not universal legal specifications.
How should people be prepared to evacuate?
Precautions only protect people who know how to respond. Evacuation arrangements have to reflect the actual building, the people using it and their shift patterns, so that everyone, including staff who cannot use the stairs, can get out.
Set out workable emergency procedures
The Order requires the Responsible Person to set up appropriate procedures for serious and imminent danger, including safety drills where necessary. They also have to nominate enough competent people to carry out the evacuation.
Your fire safety procedures should explain how to raise the alarm, how to contact the emergency services, which routes to use and where the safe assembly point is. If they do not cover all four, people will have to improvise when it matters most.
In shared buildings, evacuation arrangements for common routes and systems need to be coordinated between the Responsible Persons. For example, a tenant’s procedure that relies on a landlord’s alarm only works if both parties have agreed how that alarm is tested and what it signals.
Plan assistance for people who need it
Evacuation planning should cover disabled employees and visitors. GOV.UK guidance on means of escape supports individual plans where appropriate and workable general arrangements for members of the public. Plans for someone waiting in a refuge should not rely on the fire and rescue service to carry out a rescue that the people managing the premises could have planned.
We recommend that anyone who may need help has a realistic, documented plan. Review it when their circumstances, the building or working arrangements change. A move to a different floor, for example, can make an existing plan unworkable.
Train staff and practise the plan
Article 21 requires adequate fire safety training for employees when they start work and when they are exposed to new or increased risks, repeated periodically where appropriate. It sets no universal annual refresher interval. We recommend giving new starters premises-specific information before they work unsupervised, in a form they can understand and use.
Training should cover the actual alarm, routes and each person’s role. Anyone with evacuation duties, such as a fire warden, or anyone expected to use equipment needs instruction suited to that role. The law does not set a fixed number of wardens for every workplace. Our fire safety guidance for employers covers training gaps we commonly see.
Temporary workers and contractors need the emergency information relevant to their work, especially when they work out of hours or carry out hot work. How often you hold fire drills should reflect your circumstances. There is no universal statutory annual interval. After each drill, record what happened and update the procedure where it fell short.
How is fire safety managed over time?
Under Article 11, fire safety arrangements have to be planned, organised, controlled, monitored and reviewed. In practice, that means maintaining equipment, keeping records that show what was done, and noticing when a change in the business makes the arrangements out of date.
Inspect, test and maintain precautions
Article 17 requires premises and the relevant fire safety facilities, equipment and devices to be kept efficient, in working order and in good repair. Routine checks by staff do not replace competent inspection, servicing or repair. The GOV.UK small-premises guide gives these good-practice examples:
- Daily: visual checks of escape routes and exits.
- Weekly: a test of the fire alarm system.
- Monthly: a function test of the emergency lighting.
- Six-monthly and annually: a competent person inspects the alarm every six months, and the emergency lighting and extinguishers once a year.
These frequencies are examples from guidance, not a statutory timetable. Base your own schedule on your fire safety systems, the assessment, the relevant standards and the manufacturer’s or installer’s instructions.
Keep useful fire safety records
Useful fire safety records include the current assessment, your arrangements and the status of each action. They also cover training, drills, tests, servicing, defects and evidence that corrective work was completed. For each inspection, we recommend recording the date, location, what was checked, any issues found, who is responsible and the timescale. A certificate on file is little use while a recorded defect on the fire safety equipment is still open.
In shared premises, keep a record of how responsibilities are divided and what information you have exchanged with the other Responsible Persons. Repeated findings in the records can also point to a wider weakness in supervision, maintenance, training or fire safety management.
What to check in your business
Changes to layout, staffing, processes, equipment or building use can affect the assessment, the evacuation plan and the maintenance arrangements. Converting a workshop to storage, for example, changes the fire risk. The checks below are a starting point for your review. They are not an exhaustive legal checklist:
- Control and coordination: who controls each area and system, and whether you have recorded what you share with other Responsible Persons.
- Assessment and actions: whether the recorded assessment reflects current use, and whether its actions have owners and evidence of completion.
- Precautions in practice: whether routes, doors, alarms, lighting and extinguishers still work.
- People: whether everyone can evacuate, including people who need assistance, and whether training is up to date.
- Records: whether checks, servicing, drills and defects are logged and easy to find.
Salusphere Global supports organisations with building-specific fire risk assessments, reviews of existing assessments and fire safety arrangements, and help to prioritise practical actions. If you want support identifying gaps or working through actions already raised, contact our fire safety team.
Sources: Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (legislation.gov.uk); Building Safety Act 2022, section 156; GOV.UK fire risk assessment five-step checklist; GOV.UK offices and shops guidance; GOV.UK small non-domestic premises guidance; GOV.UK means of escape for disabled people; GOV.UK Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 guidance; Surrey Fire and Rescue Service guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I carry out my own fire risk assessment for my business?
Yes, if you are competent. An external assessor is not always required. If you bring in help, you have to consider that person’s competence, and you remain responsible for the result. A competent assessor needs knowledge, experience and an understanding of your type of premises. Salusphere Global also offers an independent review of an existing assessment, highlighting gaps and possible improvements.
What does fire safety compliance involve beyond having a fire risk assessment?
Article 11 of the Fire Safety Order requires fire safety arrangements to be planned, organised, controlled, monitored and reviewed. Those arrangements need to match your current premises, people, shift patterns and risks, not just exist on paper. Findings that keep coming back may point to a wider weakness in supervision, maintenance or training.
When must a new work activity involving a dangerous substance be assessed?
The assessment, and the measures it requires, have to be in place before the new activity starts. The Order also requires risks from dangerous substances to be eliminated or reduced so far as reasonably practicable, including during handling, storage and transport.
