Choose a competent fire risk assessor

Decide who carries out the assessment

As the responsible person for non-domestic premises, you must make a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment. You can carry it out yourself if you are competent to do so. If you are not, you appoint someone who is. Your local fire and rescue authority may give advice but cannot carry out the assessment for you.

For small, low-risk premises the government publishes simple step-by-step guidance that a competent owner or occupier can follow. They cover premises with no more than a basement, ground floor and first floor and no floor larger than 280 square metres, such as small offices and factory units, newsagents, hairdressers, food outlets, small bars and restaurants, workshops and community halls. Larger premises have their own technical guidance. You can use it yourself, but most responsible persons for larger premises engage an assessor.

If you cannot do the assessment yourself, the Home Office strongly recommends a professional fire risk assessor.

What competence means

The Order sets no required qualification. It asks for a competent person, and the test is whether the person has enough training and experience, or knowledge and other qualities, to do the job properly.

Competence also depends on the premises. An assessor with plenty of experience in offices, factories and shops may not have enough for a residential care home, a high-rise block of flats or a heritage building, and the reverse is true too. Experience in the fire and rescue service, or working in the fire sector, does not by itself make someone a fire safety specialist.

Prefer third-party certification

The Home Office advises giving preference to companies certificated by a recognised third-party certification body, and to individuals certificated under a recognised scheme or registered by a professional body. An assessor without certification may still be competent, but it is hard to judge competence from adverts.

BAFE SP205, Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment, is one such scheme. Providers are assessed by certification bodies accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. Certification requires evidence of experience, training and continuing professional development, assessors' competence is reviewed at least every 36 months, and a separate validator checks and signs off every assessment before it reaches the client. Check the provider's registration on the BAFE register rather than relying on a logo, and make sure it is for fire risk assessment, because BAFE runs separate schemes for other fire safety services.

Check before you appoint

Warning signs

• They cannot show certification or any other independent evidence of competence.
• Their experience is all in a different type of premises from yours.
• They rely on a fire and rescue service background alone as proof of competence.
• They will not give references or proof of insurance.
• They produce a generic document that does not reflect your premises, so it cannot be suitable and sufficient.

What you should get

A certificated assessor's report should set out every significant detail found, the nature and severity of each risk, and the actions recommended to remove or reduce it, in a form that anyone reading it can follow.

The assessment only protects people if you act on it, and you must action its significant findings within the period it sets. Ask your assessor how often to review it. For small, simple premises an annual review is recognised good practice.