England has recently introduced a new Fire Safety Act. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 was introduced in Mid May 2022 – read on to find out all the important information you need for to comply with this new Act.

Why are these changes being implemented?

We’ll all be familiar with the catastrophic Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, where a fire broke out in a 24-storey tower of flats in West London and where 72 people died. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was established to examine the circumstances leading up to and surrounding this disaster, and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 were created to address the Phase 1 recommendations from the inquiry.

Where does this apply?

The Act applies to England and Wales, however, the Regulations themselves only apply to England, which means that if you have responsibility for buildings in Scotland, Wales and Ireland only you can use the below links to navigate to government guidance specific to those locations.

• Scotland: https://www.gov.scot/policies/fire-and-rescue/non-domestic-fire-safety/
• Wales: https://gov.wales/fire-rescue
• Ireland: https://www.nifrs.org/home/staying-safe/business-fire-safety/fire-safety-guides/

What does the Fire Safety Act do?

The Act clarifies that where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, the Fire Safety Order applies to:

• the building’s structure and external walls such as cladding, insulation, fixings, windows, balconies, and any common areas
• all doors between common areas and domestic entrances (flat entrance doors or any other relevant door)

Does this apply to me?

The Act specifies that the responsibility for Fire Safety falls on the “Responsible Person” of buildings, this could be the building owner, the leaseholders or managers. If this is you, then good news – we’ve created a brief overview of the Act and the new Regulations for multi-occupied residential buildings:

We’ve created a separate post that outlines the new requirements for the following:

• Multi-occupied residential buildings, of two or more sets of domestic premises

Where do I start?

The government has launched the Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool (FRAPT) which is an online assessment tool that can assist responsible persons in developing an appropriate prioritisation strategy which ensures that the updated Act is considered. The FRAPT doesn’t replace any of your other Risk Assessments, it is added to your suite of assessments and the Responsible Person must continue to act on any potential hazards identified in all these assessments.

It’s also worth considering what steps may be necessary to be ready to share information with Fire and Rescue Services – this is expected to start between Winter 2022 and Spring 2023 prior to when the Regulations are expected to come into force on 23^rd January 2023.

When will the changes take effect?

The Fire Safety Act came into place on 16^th May 2022 which means that you should now be using the FRAPT and considering when to review their fire risk assessments to ensure these take account of any risk from the external walls. Detailed guidance on this can be found below.

Where can I find out more information?

• The Fire Safety Act 2021
• The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
• The Home Office has also produced a series of fact sheets providing detailed guidance.