Compliance
Why fire risk assessments matter for your business
Not just a box to tick. What the Fire Safety Order 2005 requires of you, whatever the size of your premises — and what a good assessment actually gets you.
Pro-Active Fire Safety · 4 min read
If you are an employer, or you have control over premises or what happens in them, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts the duty on you. A fire risk assessment is how that duty gets discharged — and evidenced.
It is easy to treat it as paperwork. It is not. It is the document every other decision about your fire protection is built on: what system category you need, where extinguishers go, whether your escape lighting is adequate, who needs training. Get it wrong and everything downstream is guesswork.
Four reasons it is worth doing properly
Faulty wiring, blocked fire exits, flammable stock stored badly, extinguishers that are wrong for the risk, an alarm nobody has serviced. All of it is cheap to fix now and expensive to fix later.
Fire moves fast. The assessment is what makes sure the alarm, the emergency lighting and the firefighting equipment are the right ones, in the right places, working — so people get out.
Failing to assess can mean enforcement notices, fines, prosecution and in serious cases closure. It also matters to your insurer: inadequate fire protection affects premiums, and can affect whether a claim is paid.
A fire stops a business for weeks, sometimes permanently. Knowing your risks and having a plan is the difference between an incident and a closure.
How we carry one out
An assessor visits your premises — on site, walking the building with you, not working from a floor plan. We identify the hazards, review the control measures already in place, look at your existing equipment and maintenance records, and speak to staff where that helps.
Assessments follow PAS 79:2020 and HM Government fire safety guidance. You get a written report in plain English with action points and suggested timescales — the kind you can actually work through, rather than a list of standards to go and look up.
If you cannot answer “when was it last reviewed?” with a date, it is out of date.
How often does it need reviewing?
Annually is the usual recommendation, and immediately whenever something changes — a layout alteration, a change of use, more people on site, new equipment or a near miss. A review is quicker and cheaper than a fresh assessment, provided the original was done properly.
And then the actions
A report full of recommendations helps nobody if the works never happen. We support the remedial and upgrade works the assessment identifies on the active side — alarms, emergency lighting, extinguishers, signage and training — so it gets closed out rather than filed.
Where the report flags passive works, such as fire doors or compartmentation, we will tell you plainly and point you to a specialist. We only quote for what we are the right people to do.
When was yours last reviewed?
Tell us about your premises and we will take it from there. No obligation.
