Fire Safety Act 2021
Ensuring domestic premises building safety
The Fire Safety Act 2021 is now enforceable. The act applies to any building containing two or more domestic premises. The act makes buildings safer for everyone.
There are additional responsibilities placed on the 'responsible person' for each building.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 amends the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (opens new window) (the "Fire Safety Order").
In addition, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 have been introduced to meet the recommendations within Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.
Additional responsibilities for the 'responsible person'
The Fire Safety Act 2021 provides greater clarity on the areas the 'responsible person' is responsible for within a building. The 'responsible person' is responsible for:
- The structure and external walls of the building, including anything attached to the exterior of those walls, such as cladding, balconies and windows; and entrance doors to individual flats that open into common parts
The 'responsible person' is under the legal duty to manage and reduce the risk of fire for these parts of the building. The fire risk assessment will need to consider these parts.
If you are the 'responsible person', when you audit your building Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service will need to see:
- How these parts have been assessed in your fire risk assessment, or
- How do you plan to assess these parts
Fire risk assessment prioritisation tool
The National Fire Chiefs Council has supported the Home Office to produce the fire risk assessment prioritisation tool.
The tool aims to help 'responsible persons' develop a strategy to prioritise your buildings when you update your fire risk assessments.
The tool is only a guide that is based on a defined set of characteristics that may apply to your building. If there are other factors impacting the overall risk of your building that are not considered in the tool, you should prioritise the review of that building's fire risk assessment.
The tool does not remove the need or requirement for both the 'responsible person' and fire and rescue services to act upon known or suspected risks. Even where those premises are determined as low or very low priority by the tool.