Fire risk assessment for blocks of flats.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to the common parts of any building containing two or more sets of domestic premises: the entrance hall, stairs, corridors, landings, plant and bin rooms. The responsible person, usually the freeholder, the right-to-manage company or the managing agent, must carry out and record a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of those parts and act on it. Since the Fire Safety Act 2021, that assessment must also take in the structure, the external walls, and the flat entrance doors that open onto the common parts.

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, in force from January 2023, added legal duties scaled by height. In every multi-occupied residential building the responsible person must give residents fire safety instructions and information about fire doors, and re-issue them at least every twelve months. In buildings over 11 metres, communal fire doors must be checked quarterly and flat entrance doors annually, on a best endeavours basis, with records kept. In buildings over 18 metres or seven storeys there are further duties on floor plans, a secure information box, external wall information, wayfinding signage and monthly checks of firefighting lifts and equipment.

The benchmarks are the Home Office edition of the LGA guide Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats for blocks built as flats, and LACORS Housing Fire Safety for houses converted to flats where the conversion was not built to the 1991 Building Regulations. Which one applies to your building depends on how it was built, and that is why we ask for the conversion or construction records before the visit.

• The evacuation strategy: whether the building was built or converted with fire-resisting compartmentation between each flat and the common parts, which is what stay put depends on, and whether there is evidence for it.
• Flat entrance doors: whether they are FD30S fire doors, whether they self-close fully into the frame, and whether they have been altered. A single propped or non-closing flat entrance door undermines stay put for the whole block.
• Compartmentation: walls and ceilings around the stairs and corridors, fire stopping around pipes and cables, and service risers and cupboards that open onto the escape route.
• The common parts themselves: whether they are kept clear, and what has been stored in them: bikes, prams, mobility scooters, bins. The case for no communal alarm rests on the common parts having nothing in them to burn.
• Fire detection: whether a communal system is present or warranted, and what in-flat detection the strategy relies on.
• Emergency lighting and signage: escape route lighting to BS 5266-1 where needed, and wayfinding signage in the taller buildings that require it.
• Firefighting provision: access for the fire and rescue service, dry risers, the information box and floor plans in high-rise buildings, and whether extinguishers in the common parts are helping or encouraging people to stay.
• The 2022 Regulations record: whether residents have had the fire safety instructions and fire door information, and whether the door checks are being done and logged in buildings over 11 metres.

The standard assessment is a Type 1: non-destructive, common parts only. Where what we find raises doubt about the construction or about the flats themselves, we tell you and explain what a more intrusive Type 2, 3 or 4 assessment would involve and why, rather than carrying it out unannounced.

The right benchmark depends on how the building was constructed. Getting this wrong in either direction is the most common fault we see in existing assessments: a communal alarm fitted in a sound purpose-built block, or a converted Victorian house treated as if it had 60-minute compartmentation.

Stay put is only as good as the compartmentation and the doors. The LGA guide is clear that mass evacuation of a sound block adds risk without removing any, and equally clear that stay put cannot be assumed where the construction has not been proven. We want evidence, whether that is a completion certificate, building control records or what we can see on site, and the report says which it was.

You receive a written assessment of the common parts with the significant findings, a risk rating, the evacuation strategy and the reasoning behind it, and a prioritised action plan. Each action names the location, the defect, the remedy and the finished outcome, so a managing agent can issue it directly to a door contractor, a fire stopping specialist or an electrician.

The report sets out which of the 2022 Regulations duties apply to your building by height, and whether each one is being met, because those are legal requirements enforceable by the fire and rescue service and most responsible persons have never been told about them. Where resident information has not been issued, that is a finding, not a maybe.

Where the action plan calls for communal alarm, emergency lighting or electrical works, we can quote for them separately. Fire door replacement and fire stopping are specified as outcomes for the appropriate trade, and the assessment fee is fixed regardless of findings.

We assess converted houses and purpose-built blocks across Greater Manchester, and as qualified electricians we install and certify the communal detection and emergency lighting a converted block needs, so the specification in the report is one we would be prepared to build.

• NFRAR: National Fire Risk Assessors Register.
• IFSM: Associate member of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers.
• Qualified electricians in-house: for the alarm, lighting and electrical works that follow.
• Fixed fee: the assessment costs the same however many findings there are, and you are free to use any contractor.