Responsible Person

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places its duties on the Responsible Person. In a workplace that is normally the employer. Elsewhere it is whoever has control of the premises — the occupier, or the owner where no one else has that control.

What the role requires

Making sure a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment is carried out and kept up to date. Putting in place and maintaining the general fire precautions the assessment identifies. Providing information, instruction and training to the people who use the building. And keeping the arrangements under review as the building and its use change.

Where control is shared

Many buildings have more than one Responsible Person — a landlord with control of common parts and structure, and individual employers or occupiers with control of their own demises. Where that is the case, the duty is not exclusive to any one of them, and each is expected to cooperate and coordinate with the others.

The practical failure mode is a gap: an area everyone assumes someone else is assessing. Recording who holds which responsibility, in writing, is what closes it.

Jurisdiction

The Order applies in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under their own separate fire safety legislation, so a portfolio spanning more than one nation cannot rely on a single framework.