Statutory regulation
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO) is the statutory instrument that imposes the duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment on the Responsible Person of any non-domestic premises and the common parts of any multi-occupied residential building. This page explains the key duties, who they fall on, and how they interact with the FRA methodology.
Scope
The FSO applies to almost all non-domestic premises in England and Wales: offices, shops, factories, warehouses, schools, hospitals, care homes, hotels, restaurants, places of worship, sports venues, transport hubs. It also applies to the common parts of multi-occupied residential buildings, including blocks of flats and houses in multiple occupation. It does not apply to the inside of an individual private dwelling.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 amended the FSO to put beyond doubt that the common parts of multi-occupied residential buildings include external walls, doors and windows, attachments such as cladding and balconies, and shared walkways. This was a direct response to the post-Grenfell uncertainty about whether the FSO covered the building envelope of high-rise residential buildings. It now does.
For Scotland, the equivalent regime is the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006. For Northern Ireland, it is the Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 and Fire Safety Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010. The methodology used to discharge the duty is largely the same across the three jurisdictions; the statutory instrument behind the duty differs.
The Responsible Person
The Responsible Person (RP) is the entity legally accountable under the FSO. In a non-domestic workplace, the RP is the employer where they have control of the premises, or otherwise the person with control of the premises in connection with their trade, business or other undertaking. In the common parts of a multi-occupied residential building, the RP is whoever has control of those common parts, typically the freeholder or the entity acting for the freeholder (a managing agent, a managing residents association, or in social housing the registered provider).
A building can have more than one RP. A block of flats with a managing agent for the common parts and individual leaseholders for their flats has multiple RPs in different scopes. A mixed-use building with retail on the ground floor and residential above has different RPs for different parts. Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 strengthened the requirement for these RPs to cooperate and share information, including sharing the FRA itself when the RP changes.
Article 9
Article 9 of the FSO is the article every UK fire risk assessor is working under. It requires the Responsible Person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions needed to comply with the FSO. The assessment must be reviewed regularly, and reviewed without delay if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid or if there has been a significant change in the matters to which it relates.
Where the RP employs five or more people, or where the premises are licensed under any enactment, or where any other condition prescribed by the Secretary of State applies, the significant findings of the assessment must be recorded together with any group of persons identified as being especially at risk. In practice almost every FRA on a multi-occupied residential building or workplace meets at least one of these recording triggers, so the recorded report is the norm rather than the exception.
BS 9792:2025 is the methodology a competent assessor uses to discharge the Article 9 duty. The FSO does not specify how to do the assessment. It specifies what must be assessed and that the assessment must be suitable and sufficient. BS 9792 fills in the methodological how.
Article 11
Article 11 of the FSO requires the assessment to be reviewed by the Responsible Person regularly so that it is kept up to date. It must be reviewed without delay if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, or if there has been a significant change in the matters to which it relates, including when the premises, special technical and organisational measures, or organisation of the work undergo significant changes, extensions or conversions.
In practice this gives rise to the two-track review model BS 9792 expects: a periodic cycle (typically annual for higher-risk residential buildings, longer for lower-risk settings, set against the building risk profile) and a significant-change trigger that can pull the next assessment forward. Neither overrides the other: the periodic clock keeps running, and a significant change resets it.
Section 156
Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 made several amendments to the FSO that came into force on 1 October 2023. The amendments do not change the fundamental Article 9 duty; they tighten the operating expectations around it.
Enforcement
The FSO is enforced by the local Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA, the same acronym as the assessment itself, unfortunately). Inspecting officers can request a copy of the fire risk assessment and supporting documentation, inspect the premises, and issue Alteration Notices, Enforcement Notices or Prohibition Notices depending on the seriousness of any breach. In the most serious cases, breach of the FSO can result in prosecution, with unlimited fines and, for corporate officers found to have consented to or connived in a breach, individual criminal liability.
For higher-risk residential buildings, enforcement of the FSO continues to sit with the local Fire and Rescue Authority, but the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) now has additional enforcement powers under the Building Safety Act 2022 in relation to the broader building safety case. The two regimes overlap. A serious finding on an HRB FRA can attract the attention of both.
In practice
For a housing-focused FRA programme, the FSO duty translates into a continuous operational rhythm. Every block of flats and HMO in the portfolio carries an active FRA. Each FRA has a periodic review date in the calendar. Each significant change to a building (cladding work, fire door replacement, change of occupancy profile, post-incident review) triggers a re-assessment that resets the clock. Each RP change triggers a handover that includes the FRA itself, the recorded fire safety arrangements, and prior contact details, beyond a simple "new managing agent appointed" letter.
For the assessor and the consultancy, this means a programme management discipline as much as a competence discipline. Knowing when each assessment is due, what the action plan status is, who the current RP is, and where the latest signed report lives. Software that treats the FRA as a one-off document to be produced and emailed misses the operational shape of the FSO duty completely.
Software
FRA Flow is built around the FSO dutyholder model. Every property record carries the Responsible Person and the dutyholder details; every assessment names them on the issued report. The reviewer queue surfaces work waiting for the competent person sign-off the methodology assumes. Periodic review dates are tracked at the property level so an FRA programme can see at a glance which buildings are due, due soon, and overdue. When the RP changes, the audit trail surfaces the prior reports and the recorded fire safety arrangements ready to hand over. The FSO duty becomes operationally manageable rather than a folder of PDFs nobody can find.
FAQ
Yes. The FSO is the principal statutory source of fire safety duties on non-domestic premises and the common parts of multi-occupied residential buildings in England and Wales. It has been amended (by the Fire Safety Act 2021 and Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022) but not replaced.
In a workplace, the employer where they have control of the premises, or otherwise the person with control in connection with their trade, business or undertaking. In the common parts of a multi-occupied residential building, whoever has control of those common parts, usually the freeholder, managing agent, or registered provider in social housing.
No. The FSO does not apply to the inside of an individual private dwelling. It applies to the common parts. The Fire Safety Act 2021 confirmed that the common parts include external walls, doors, windows and attachments such as cladding and balconies.
Section 156 amended the FSO to require all FRAs to be recorded (removing the previous five-employee threshold), to require fire safety arrangements to be recorded, to require RPs to cooperate and share information where there is more than one, to require the FRA to be handed over when the RP changes, and to require resident information in multi-occupied residential buildings. The amendments came into force on 1 October 2023.
The local Fire and Rescue Authority. Inspecting officers can request the FRA, inspect the premises, and issue Alteration, Enforcement or Prohibition Notices. Serious breaches can result in prosecution. For higher-risk residential buildings, the Building Safety Regulator has additional enforcement powers in relation to the broader safety case.
Book a 30-minute walkthrough and see how FRA Flow tracks Responsible Persons, periodic review dates, action plans and audit trails across a housing portfolio.
