Fire safety legislation in the UK places clear legal duties on those responsible for the management and maintenance of buildings. This, in turn, helps ensure the protection of lives and property from fire risks.
Over recent years, updates to the UK’s fire safety laws have heightened scrutiny and accountability for building owners, managers, and dutyholders.
Understanding who qualifies as a “responsible person” or “dutyholder”, and what their obligations involve, is crucial for achieving compliance and mitigating life-threatening risks.
For organisations with complex property portfolios or shared buildings, such as multi-occupancy residential blocks or commercial complexes, responsibilities for fire safety are often split or unclear. This can create gaps in risk management practices and compliance, thereby increasing vulnerability to fires and potential legal repercussions.
In this guide, we will seek to explore these roles and duties in greater detail. Along the way, we will provide practical guidance to help you and your organisation navigate your fire safety obligations effectively.
What does “dutyholder” and “responsible person” mean in fire safety law?
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 – commonly referred to as the “Fire Safety Order”, or FSO – is the core legislation governing fire safety in non-domestic and multi-occupied residential buildings in England and Wales.
It is crucial to note that Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own separate fire safety legislation.
In recent years, the FSO has been amended by laws including the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022. These new legal provisions have expanded and clarified the fire safety responsibilities under the FSO.
So, let’s clearly define the roles:
- The “responsible person” (RP) is the central figure under the FSO. In general, the responsible person is any person who has control over the premises or part of the premises. If the building is a workplace, the responsible person could be the employer, or it may be the owner of the property or the person managing the site. Indeed, it is possible for there to be multiple “responsible persons” under the FSO, especially in shared or multi-occupied buildings.
- “Dutyholder”, meanwhile, is a broader term than “responsible person”. It encompasses the RP as well as others involved in fire safety, such as building owners, managers, contractors, and anyone with specific obligations under the law.
The key distinction between the two is that the responsible person holds primary accountability for overall fire safety, whereas dutyholders may have delegated or specific tasks, such as installing fire doors.
Again, it is vital to emphasise that multiple people may share fire safety responsibilities within the same building. For example, in a multi-tenanted office block, the landlord may be the RP for common areas, with each tenant being the RP for their leased office space.
This potential for shared responsibility underscores the importance of roles and responsibilities being clearly allocated in written agreements and contracts.
Who can be the responsible person in practice?
The identity of the responsible person is determined by who has control over the premises.
Examples of people who can potentially be the RP in practice therefore include:
- Employers or business owners using commercial premises
- Landlords or managing agents in charge of shared areas in multi-occupied residential or commercial buildings
- Facilities or estate managers acting on behalf of a larger organisation or property owner
- Occupiers of a domestic property used for business purposes, such as a care home or B&B.
In complex and multi-occupied buildings such as shopping centres and large apartment blocks, responsibility often varies.
Lease agreements, then, should explicitly define who is responsible for fire risk assessments, the maintenance of fire safety equipment, and emergency planning within shared communal areas versus individual units.
What are the core legal duties of the responsible person?
The FSO sets out core duties for the responsible person, which must be fulfilled continuously:
- Conducting and maintaining an up-to-date fire risk assessment (FRA)
- Implementing and maintaining fire precautions, including alarms, signage, escape routes, and firefighting equipment
- Training staff and ensuring fire safety awareness among occupants
- Planning and practising evacuation procedures, such as fire drills
- Maintaining records, including FRAs, maintenance logs, and test certificates
With regard to the FRA, competency is key. The assessor must have relevant qualifications and experience, so that they can ensure the FRA they perform is “suitable and sufficient”.
It is also essential to note the ongoing nature of these duties; they are not “one-off” exercises. This applies particularly strongly given that reviews will be needed after any building changes, occupancy shifts, or incidents.
What are the additional responsibilities for dutyholders under recent fire safety legislation?
Recent legislation introduced since 2021 has strengthened fire safety duties, particularly in relation to higher-risk buildings:
- The Fire Safety Act 2021 clarifies that the structure, external walls, and flat entrance doors in multi-occupied residential buildings fall under the FSO. Explicit responsibilities are placed on dutyholders to manage these risks.
- The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 introduced duties for high-rise residential buildings, including fire door checks, floor plans, and residential information sharing. Specific obligations are set out for residential buildings over 11 metres, with enhanced requirements for those over 18 metres or seven storeys.
Parties that are affected by these changes include housing providers, local authorities, and building owners in higher-risk residential settings. In practical terms, this means more rigorous inspections, documentation, and cooperation, shifting from reactive to proactive compliance.
How should dutyholders manage fire safety competently and proportionately?
It is essential that dutyholders appoint competent persons for such tasks as fire risk assessments, maintenance, and training.
When we use the word “competent”, we are referring to individuals who possess demonstrable knowledge and skills tailored to the risks of the given premises. Such competence can be shown by qualifications, experience, and third-party accreditation – for example, from bodies like the Institute of Fire Engineers (IFE).
Whatever fire safety measures are ultimately put in place, they should be proportionate to the given building’s size, use, and risk level. A small office, for instance, will typically require fewer such measures than a high-rise block.
Integrated compliance management systems, such as our own Vision Pro Software here at Assets & Compliance Managed Services, can help by linking fire safety to other areas of risk management and compliance, such as asbestos and water hygiene. The right digital tools can greatly support processes like tracking and audits.
How can organisations stay compliant and confident in their fire safety responsibilities?
Taking the following practical steps can greatly help to embed compliance across your organisation’s fire safety management approach:
- Conducting regular reviews of responsibilities and agreements
- Maintaining a live compliance register or digital compliance system
- Scheduling periodic fire risk assessments and re-assessing after changes to buildings or occupancy
- Providing ongoing training and communication
- Engaging the services and expertise of third-party accredited fire safety professionals
Adopting a proactive ethos in your organisation’s risk management will go a long way to fostering a safety-first culture, and can help prevent issues before they become breaches.
How can an integrated approach simplify fire safety compliance?
When your organisation makes moves to integrate fire safety into a broader compliance management framework with the help of a cloud-based platform such as Vision Pro Software, it can be well-placed to unlock advantages such as:
- The centralised oversight of multiple risk areas at once. These can encompass such vital elements as asbestos, legionella, and health and safety management
- Shared reporting, data and auditing tools, accessible to authorised users from almost anywhere with an Internet connection
- Improved efficiency and assurance for property portfolios. Otherwise, if your organisation has many different premises to manage, it can be easy for variations to emerge in the standards of fire safety management and compliance from site to site.
Ultimately, it can barely be emphasised enough that fire safety is an ongoing and shared responsibility, best handled through collaboration, competence, and continual improvement.
Closing summary: fire safety is an imperative and non-stop process
As a takeaway, it is essential to understand and appreciate that fire safety duties in the UK are legal, continuous, and often shared among responsible persons and dutyholders.
In light of this, the achievement of the highest standards of compliance depends on clarity of roles, competence in execution, and thorough documentation.
Integrated systems such as Vision Pro Software can streamline management, reduce complexity, and enhance safety. Organisations using such cloud-based platforms can put themselves in a much stronger position to fulfil their obligations consistently and effectively.
Our team, then, would urge you to review your fire safety responsibilities today. This will enable you to ensure your organisation meets its legal and moral responsibilities, thereby protecting lives and avoiding costly pitfalls.
Contact our experts at Assets & Compliance Managed Services to find out more about our asset, compliance, and risk management services, whether via email or by calling us today.
