How does a Responsible Person choose a Fire Risk Assessor?

Kelly Donoghue: Head of Training and Education, looks at the importance of evidencing fire risk assessor competence.

The FPA Manifesto

In 2024, the FPA launched its 2024 Policy Manifesto to coincide with both a change of leadership within the association and a change of Government for the UK. The manifesto set out six targeted priorities to provide clear direction for the organisation and as a statement of commitment of purpose. One of the priorities focused on ensuring the competency of fire risk assessors. The FPA Manifesto proposed that all fire risk assessors are appropriately qualified and certified under a suitable, UKAS-accredited scheme, as well as being supported with ongoing development to maintain competence. 

Current situation

Establishing minimum standards for fire risk assessments ensures poor practices are identified and rectified efficiently.The BSI is due to publish ‘BS 8674: Built Environment- Framework for Competence of Individual Fire Risk Assessors’ which gives crucial guidance on the competence criteria for individuals conducting  fire risk assessments in occupied buildings. On 1 April 2025, Jenna Marsh, Deputy Director of the National Resilience and Fire Safety Unit penned, “It will be of significant interest to those of you interested in fire risk assessor competence, that we intend to bring into law, mandatory competence requirements for fire risk assessors, to be independently verified by a UKAS-accredited certification body and overseen by a regulator” and “certification bodies will also be required to use standards currently being developed by the British Standards Institution, against which they must assess competence”.

This step will provide accountability, enhancing the overall safety of buildings where the public live and work and improves the public’s confidence in the services provided. Without standards being mandated/formalised, historically some have chosen to ignore them and remain confused by the ambiguous landscape. To support this priority, end users must have an increased awareness and support the mandated requirement of the role. 

How to choose a competent professional in the current landscape

Whilst we await implementation of the British Standard and UKAS-accredited certification, we still operate in an unregulated industry where definitions of ‘competent’ are open to interpretations. 

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRO) states the responsible person (RP) is responsible for making “a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions he needs to take”. If employing a fire risk assessor, it requires effort for the RP to reassure themselves that they are receiving accurate and reliable information. Advice in this matter has existed for some time, for example some may lean on documents such as the Fire Sector Confederation’s ‘Guide to choosing a competent fire risk assessor’. 

However, those responsible may still be liable in the event of a fire if they cannot evidence that they have done what is reasonable to use a competent provider in ensuring that their fire risk assessment is suitable and sufficient.

According to the Fire Sector Confederation, there are currently two principal methods whereby a fire risk assessor can demonstrate their competence: professional body registration schemes and certification by a Certification Body that is UKAS accredited for the activity.  It is also important that the company who the fire risk assessor works for has adequate management systems in place, even if the fire risk assessor is self-employed. For a responsible person, understanding of the difference in meaning of schemes and registers can be confusing and therefore is defined within the aforementioned document in the following ways:

• A ‘scheme’ identifies what needs to be assessed and what methods of assessment are used.
• A ‘company scheme’ is operated by a certification body and looks at the competence of personnel and the management systems within the company.
• A ‘person certification scheme’ operated by a certification body and is concerned with the competence of the individual and not the competency of a company. 
• A ‘professional body scheme’ is operated by a professional body and is concerned with the competency of the individual and not the competency of a company. 

Certification bodies assess individuals or companies against the requirements of a scheme. UKAS will accredit certification bodies against agreed standards to confirm they are assessing correctly against the scheme.

By checking registrations and certifications, you will be able to ascertain that the chosen assessor and/or the assessment company meet competency criteria. As discussed, currently there is no legal requirement in the UK for fire risk assessors to be registered. However, we would advocate this is good professional practice as it means that the individuals or the organisation have evidenced competency. This registration allows the responsible person to locate and select a fire risk assessor that the third party has deemed competent. Ongoing accreditation will often require CPD evidence as part of these schemes, alongside other validation activities such as witnessed assessments. 

If you are considering an individual rather than a company, you should be aware that fire risk assessing is a very different skillset to any other fire safety profession such as a health and safety practitioner, installer, engineer, or maintenance professional to name a few. The different roles cannot be transposed or confused with each other. Complete your due diligence in reference to your criteria and record how you selected a professional who met the criteria at the time of employment. Once you have ascertained the scope, ensure this is agreed in writing with the fire risk assessor.

Individuals should provide you with a wealth of information regarding their competency. If this includes qualifications, you should request copies of certificates. You can confirm the qualification specification by using OFQUAL/SQA to check what they have learnt for the qualification. This can be conducted by inputting the qualification number to OFQUAL/SQA search engines. This will allow you to  seek further clarification. 

Fire risk assessors will likely have gained competence over a variety of ‘building types’. You should not only ensure a fire risk assessor is competent but that they are experienced in carrying out fire risk assessments on premises similar to your building or occupancy type. If you are responsible for a school, a church, or a leisure centre, you must ask whether they have previous experience with this type of building. Other questions might be what is the frequency, currency, or the independence of their fire risk assessment experience? Ask for references and contact their previous customers to see if they were satisfied with the service provided. A competent fire risk assessor should have no trouble in sharing this information with you.  Equally, you must ensure they have sufficient professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance.

British Standard 8674

Soon, it is likely that BS 8674 will recognise three levels of competence which are expected to support individuals across a wide range of occupied buildings and workplaces. The competence levels broadly relate to high, moderate, and low levels of risk where fire risk assessors will meet criteria of competence in advanced, intermediate, or foundation levels. Each level of competence will require meeting the criteria for skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours as a benchmark against which organisations and responsible persons can assess individual competence.

It is anticipated the new standard will have key principles for behaviours within a model code of conduct. Looking ahead, this aims to greatly assist with fire risk assessors understanding their competence and empowering refusal of tasks that are beyond their competence levels.