Can I Do My Own Fire Safety Risk Assessment?

Question

Can I do my own fire safety risk assessment?

Answer

In simple terms yes, there is no reason why you cannot complete your own fire safety risk assessment. However there are two key aspects of the legislation that you need to make sure that you cover, these are:

The Fire Safety Risk Assessment must be completed by a “Competent Person”. Therefore you must have the necessary knowledge, skills and experience.

The Fire Safety Risk Assessment must also be “Suitable and Sufficient”. That means that it must take into considerations all of the fire safety hazards, people at risk, and arrangements in place. The risk assessment needs to be documented clearly and key aspects of your fire safety arrangements considered. Therefore any risk assessment that relates to a simple one word answer i.e. YES or NO, without any further considerations is unlikely to be either “Suitable or Sufficient”.