Meet fire safety requirements for your business premises

The rules here are for England and Wales.

Check whether you are a responsible person

The Order covers workplaces, commercial premises, premises the public can enter, the common areas of multi-occupied residential buildings and premises where you have paying guests, such as a bed and breakfast, guesthouse or self-catering let.

Anyone else with control of part of the premises has the same duties for the part they control. So does anyone who must maintain or repair the premises, or keep them safe, under a contract or tenancy, such as a managing agent or facilities manager. In a building with two or more homes, the Order also covers the structure, the external walls, the common parts and every door between a home and the common parts.

Work with other responsible persons

In shared premises, such as an office block, shopping centre or business park, the landlord, freeholder or managing agent is usually the responsible person for the common and shared areas. Take reasonable steps to find out who else shares the premises or has duties there. Tell each of them your name and a UK address where you will accept notices, and which part of the premises you consider yours, and keep a record of that.

Carry out and record a fire risk assessment

You must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the fire risks to everyone who may be on or around your premises, so that you know which fire precautions you need. Review it regularly, and straight away if you suspect it is out of date or something significant changes, such as the premises, the way you organise the work or the number of people there. Update it if the review shows it needs it.

Your fire and rescue authority can advise you on the assessment but cannot carry it out for you.

Work through five steps:

Put fire safety measures in place

What is appropriate depends on your premises, the work done there, the hazards and the most people who may be present. Your risk assessment sets what you need. Where it is necessary to keep people safe, you must:

• provide fire detectors, alarms and fire-fighting equipment that suit the premises, and keep any equipment people use by hand easy to reach, simple to use and signed
• keep routes to emergency exits, and the exits themselves, clear at all times
• make escape routes lead as directly as possible to a place of safety, with enough exits for the most people who may be present
• make emergency doors open in the direction of escape, and never lock or fasten them so that people cannot open them easily and at once in an emergency
• sign every emergency route and exit, and fit emergency lighting of adequate intensity wherever they need light if the normal lighting fails
• remove dangerous substances such as flammable liquids, or reduce the fire and explosion risk they cause
• nominate enough competent people, with adequate training and equipment, to tackle fire and to carry out evacuations
• arrange contact with the emergency services

Plan for an emergency

Set up and write down procedures for serious and imminent danger, including fire drills, so that everyone can stop work and reach a place of safety. Plan help for anyone with mobility needs, for example people to help a wheelchair user downstairs. Hold at least one fire drill a year, as government guidance advises, and record the results with your evacuation plan.

Keep your equipment working

You must keep the premises and every fire safety facility and piece of equipment under a suitable system of maintenance, in efficient working order and good repair. Check regularly that:

• fire alarms and emergency lighting work
• escape routes are clear and the floor is in good condition
• fire exits open easily
• automatic fire doors close correctly
• fire exit signs are in the right place

Record any faults you find and put them right.

Tell and train your staff

Give your employees clear information about the risks your assessment found, your fire safety measures and procedures, and who you have nominated to carry out evacuations. Tell the employer of anyone from another organisation who works on your premises what the risks are and what you do about them, and give anyone working for you who is not your employee appropriate instructions and information about the risks to them.

Expect inspections and enforcement

Your local fire and rescue authority visits premises to check the assessment and the measures. It can give informal advice, or serve a formal notice.

You can appeal to a magistrates' court within 21 days of a notice being served. An appeal suspends an alterations or enforcement notice, but not a prohibition notice unless the court directs it.