Fire safety in the workplace

Wednesday 11th January 2017

1. Who is responsible?

You are responsible for fire safety in business or other non-domestic premises if you're:

  • an employer
  • the owner
  • the landlord
  • an occupier

or anyone else with control of the premises, eg a facilities manager, building manager, managing agent or risk assessor
You are known as the 'responsible person'. 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, eg if you run a bed and breakfast, guesthouse or let a self-catering property.

Fire safety rules are different in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Responsibilities
As the responsible person you must:

carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the premises and review it regularly
tell staff or their representatives about the risks you've identified
put in place, and maintain, appropriate fire safety measures
plan for an emergency
provide staff information, fire safety instruction and training

Non-domestic premises are:

  • all workplaces and commercial premises
  • all premises the public have access to
  • the common areas of multi-occupied residential buildings
  • Shared premises
  • In shared premises it's likely there'll be more than one responsible person. >You'll need to co-ordinate your fire safety plans to make sure people on or around the premises are safe.

For common or shared areas, the responsible person is the landlord, freeholder or managing agent.

Alterations, extensions and new buildings
When building new premises or doing building work on existing premises, you must comply with building regulations. This includes designing fire safety into the proposed building or extension.

Penalties and enforcement
You could be fined or go to prison if you don't follow fire safety regulations.

Local fire and rescue authorities inspect premises and can issue fire safety notices telling you about changes you need to make. Or you can contact ourselves and we will ensure that you are in compliance with Fire safety legislation!