Fire safety RRFSO

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO) SIN. 1541 was made on 7 June 2005. This chapter has been written on the assumption that the Order will be in force in October 2006. A summary of the Order has been included in Chapter 20. The Fire Precautions Act 1971 is repealed and The Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 are revoked by the Order. The Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996 are to be taken within the revised CDM regulations in April 2007. The five regulations in CHSW are likely to be removed. 

The RRFSO reforms the law relating to fire safety in non-domestic premises. The main emphasis of the changes is to move towards fire prevention. 

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRFSO) - Requirements... 

The RRFSO 2005 came into effect on 1 October 2006, at which time over 100 separate pieces of fire-related legislation have been revoked or amended. The RRFSO covers, with very few exceptions, all non-domestic premises and stands as the primary legislation for fire safety in England and Wales, with Scotland and Northern Ireland being responsible for their own fire safety legislation. Scotland s fire safety legislation is enacted by the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005. 

As in the case of the RRFSO and the MHSW Regulations the risk assessment should be subject to review and fire safety measures should be put in place to comply with the law. The latter are contained in Schedule 2 and are outlined below ... 

The RRFSO defines a key role for the management of fire safety in organisations as a responsible person . 

The RRFSO places additional legal duties for fire safety management on any person who is in control of a workplace. The RRFSO identifies the person in control of a premises as either ... 

Having identified the person who has controi over a premise the RRFSO defines them as the responsible person . The responsible person (see Chapter 1) then becomes the main duty holder for fire safety and has, as a result, overall responsibility for ... 

In terms of information relating to fire safety matters, the responsible person, in addition to providing information to employees, also has a duty under the RRFSO to provide relevant and complete information relating to both the risks and preventive and protective measures including the emergency arrangements in the event of a fire to ... 

Employees also have rights and responsibilities under the RRFSO broadly similar to those found in current health and safety legislation. The responsible person must consult employees on fire safety matters and provide information to them and ensure that they have been suitably trained to fulfil their role. 

The need to conduct a risk assessment The RRFSO has as its basis for ensuring safety from fire in all non-domestic buildings, an absolute requirement for responsible persons to conduct risk assessments. 

Obviously a system that is intended to provide protection for life will have a knock-on effect to the safety of the property and vice versa. It must be stressed that BS 5839 does not specify what types of systems must be used for any particular building. The type of system selected and installed will need to be identified as an outcome of the fire risk assessment for the premises as required by the RRFSO. 

While fire fighters are not deemed to be relevant persons under the RRFSO, the assessment must address key areas such as how they will be alerted in the event of fire, the ease of which they will gain access to undertake fire fighting and rescue operations and risks to fire fighter safety from processes, materials, chemicals or other noxious substances. Therefore each of these areas must also be included within the risk assessment. 

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