The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the duty behind every fire risk assessment

What it requires

The Fire Safety Order places a duty on the Responsible Person for premises to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk from fire, to take general fire precautions that are adequate to that risk, and to keep both under review. It applies to almost all non-domestic premises in England and Wales, and to the common parts of buildings containing more than one dwelling.

Three features of it matter more than the rest in practice. The duty is continuing, not one-off. It attaches to a person — whoever has control of the premises to the extent of the matter concerned — rather than to a building. And it does not prescribe a methodology or a technical standard: the test is whether the assessment is suitable and sufficient, which is a question about competence and judgement rather than about paperwork.

What this means in practice

Because the Order is written in terms of outcomes rather than specifications, the technical benchmarks it is measured against come from elsewhere — from published methodologies such as PAS 79-1 and BS 9792, and from codes of practice such as BS 9999 and BS 9991. Those documents are not law, but a departure from them tends to need explaining.

The most common misunderstanding we see is that having a fire risk assessment discharges the duty. It does not. An assessment that no longer describes the building, or that was carried out by someone without the competence for that building type, does not become suitable and sufficient by existing.

Where it stands, and what has not yet been applied

The Order remains in force and has been substantially amended twice — by the Fire Safety Act 2021 and by section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022.

There are outstanding effects: amendments that have been made but which legislation.gov.uk has not yet incorporated into the revised text, so the text a reader sees is known to be incomplete. Twenty-two are recorded at the date checked, from three sources.

The one with the most practical significance is the pending article 9A, which would introduce a competence requirement for persons appointed to assist with a fire risk assessment. It is provided for by section 156(4) of the Building Safety Act 2022, and that subsection is not in force. Commentary that describes statutory competence requirements for fire risk assessors as already in effect is wrong.

The remaining outstanding effects come from two Acts of Senedd Cymru made in 2026, and bear principally on Wales. They are listed above and should be read alongside the official text rather than instead of it.

Jurisdiction

The Order extends to England and Wales and applies there. It does not extend to Scotland, where the equivalent regime is Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, nor to Northern Ireland, which has its own regime under the Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.