Who Is Responsible For Fire Safety In The Workplace?
Who Is Responsible For Fire Safety In The Workplace?

Fire safety should always be one of the critical considerations within the workplace. Beyond protecting assets and minimising damage to business premises, fire safety safeguards lives. Employers both big and small have a duty of care to both their employees and clients and or customers, and failure to prioritise fire safety appropriately can have disastrous consequences in the event of an emergency.
However, despite the importance of fire safety in the workplace, it’s often unclear where the all-important responsibility sits. When the management structure or decision-making hierarchy is complex, employees can often assume that somebody else has got it covered. For this reason, there are clear rules and regulations to help organisations understand who is responsible for fire safety in the workplace. In most cases, this responsibility falls on a designated individual referred to as the ‘Responsible Person’.
Who Is The Responsible Person?
In the UK, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 specifically stipulates that all workplaces must have a ‘Responsible Person’. It is their job to ensure that the building and its occupants are protected from fire risks and that fire safety laws are complied with at all times. Typically, this individual will be somebody already in a job role with significant control over the premises, such as the business owner, facilities manager or landlord.
Duties Of The Responsible Person In The Workplace
Regardless of who takes on the responsibility for fire safety in the workplace as the Responsible Person, their duties are comprehensive and legally binding. Quite simply, these duties can be described as the review and implementation of everything related to fire safety. However, it can be useful to break the duties down into the following areas so that you have a complete understanding of the different components of fire safety.
Fire Risk Assessment
One of the primary duties of the Responsible Person is to conduct and maintain a fire risk assessment. This assessment identifies potential fire hazards within the business premises and evaluates who might be at risk of fire in the event of an emergency.
Once the fire risk assessment has been completed to an appropriate standard, it is also the role of the Responsible Person to implement measures to reduce or eliminate the identified risks. These measures may include the removal of hazards and the installation of fire alarms, sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers.
Compartment Survey
The person who is responsible for fire safety in the workplace must also ensure that they have access to suitable information on the fire compartments within the building, usually in the form of compartment drawings. Compartmentation is a fundamental element of fire safety as it strives to contain the spread of fire and smoke within designated areas and create safe exit routes. A compartment survey therefore gives the Responsible Person a thorough understanding of whether the building supports fire containment and which walls, doors and floors should serve as the compartments.
Fire Door & Compartmentation Provisions
Once armed with a compartment survey, the Responsible Person can then have the condition and compliance of those compartments assessed to ensure they meet the needs of the building and implement any passive protection measures designed to control the spread of fire and smoke.
To capture the needs of the building fully it is important to assess the compartment walls themselves as well as the fire doors within them. Both of them form a critical part of the wider passive fire protection strategy to ensure the identified compartments can work as intended by withstanding fire for a specified period of time.
In order to implement suitable fire provisions within the workplace, the Responsible Person should first have a comprehensive survey conducted of the compartment spaces in the form of a fire door survey and a fire stopping survey, carried out by a suitably accredited company. This will uncover the information needed to make decisions about which (if applicable) repairs or remedial works should be prioritised. Should the Responsible Person not be the direct decision-maker, they can present the fire stopping and fire door survey reports to the relevant individual to facilitate the installation and/or repairs required.
Ongoing Fire Door Maintenance
The person who is responsible for fire safety in the workplace must also make sure that fire doors are regularly inspected and maintained. It is not enough to simply install fire doors – they require ongoing maintenance to ensure they work in a fire at all times over their lifespan.
Fire door maintenance tasks include checking for damage, ensuring the doors close properly and that all of the door components (e.g. hinges, latches and seals) are functioning correctly. However, it’s important to note that the Responsible Person does not necessarily have to complete this work themselves. While they must have proof of maintenance and repairs being completed, it is important that any maintenance is done by a qualified professional as this will ensure it meets the appropriate rules and regulations in the UK.
Additional Duties
The Responsible Person also has a number of additional duties not covered by the above. These more administrative responsibilities encompass tasks such as organising regular fire safety training in the workplace, collating and maintaining accurate fire safety information and appropriate records, as well as coordination of and liaison with both local authorities and other responsibility-holding individuals in the workplace such as Fire Safety Officers.
Next Steps For The Responsible Person Within The Workplace
If you are the Responsible Person within your workplace, it’s critical that you understand your duties as outlined in this article and begin to implement measures that will help you to meet them. By conducting appropriate risk assessments and compartment and fire door surveys, you can both be assured of the safety of your workplace but also feel confident that you will not face a penalty which could be as severe as a fine or even imprisonment as per the Fire Safety Order.
At WGP Maintenance, we pride ourselves on our ability to assist workplaces of all kinds in meeting their fire safety obligations. Our BM trada accredited team can work with you to fulfil your important role, from conducting a comprehensive fire door and fire stopping survey to implementing the recommendations from the corresponding reports. Get in touch with us today to find out how our fire door experts can help you.
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