Partner’s son completes Prudential Ride London 2018
1st August 2018Stuart Buckley now a member of IFSM
24th September 2018Fire Risk Assessments – Fire Safety for Social Housing
In our article ‘Fire Safety – The Hidden Dangers’ we look at how fire stopping arrangements are often overlooked when a fire risk assessment is carried out. But how can you ensure that other areas are not being overlooked too? Here we look at what should inform a robust fire risk assessment for social housing landlords.
Our fire experts are fully versed with the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) guidance, which offer guidance to landlords and fire safety enforcement officers on fire safety measures in different types of residential accommodation.
One consideration for fire safety in social housing is the overlap in enforcing authorities, the local housing authority (Housing Act 2004) and the local fire and rescue service (Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005).
The Housing Act 2004 and Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
With different authorities, of course, differing guidance is often given. As a result, two types of risk assessments exist for social landlords to consider:
1) The Housing Act 2004
The Housing Act 2004 brought in a new system of regulation for fire safety in existing residential premises by way of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), licensing provisions for houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and management regulations for HMOs. HHRS uses a risk assessment approach to look at the condition of all properties and for HMOs, assessments take account of:
- Type/size of the building;
- Number of different dwellings;
- Each individual unit;
- Degree of fire separation between each dwelling; and
- Effectiveness/presence of detection/alarm systems/primary firefighting equipment such as sprinkler systems.
2) Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
The FSO requires landlords to carry out fire risk assessments in the common areas of HMOs, flats, maisonettes and sheltered accommodation. Duty is placed on a responsible person to carry out a fire risk assessment and take specific action to minimise the risk of fire in the common parts
That said, LACORS states:
“The responsible person must carry out a fire risk assessment for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions and other measures needed to comply with the FSO. Although under the FSO this requirement only applies to the common parts of premises, in practice the responsible person will need to take into account the entire premises – including, to some extent, the units of accommodation themselves.”
Given this advice, whilst the FSO has limited application to certain types of property, the principles of fire safety risk assessment apply across the board, and their application should ensure compliance with all the legislation.
Key areas and aims of a fire risk assessment
A robust fire risk assessment should cover the five keys areas of:
- identify fire hazards
- identify people at risk
- evaluate, remove or reduce, and protect from risk,
- record, plan, inform, instruct and train
In turn, the aims of the fire risk assessment are to:
- identify the fire hazards;
- reduce the risk of those hazards causing harm to as low as reasonably practicable; and
- decide what physical fire precautions and management arrangements are necessary to ensure the safety of people in the premises if a fire does start.
Fire safety within the home is an extremely important issue, especially in mixed-use premises and where unrelated occupiers, live independently. Podium Surveying LLP would be happy to assist any clients that have concerns regarding fire risk assessments or other areas of fire safety.