If you run a business from any kind of premises, an office, a shop, a restaurant, a workshop, a warehouse, or a care setting, you almost certainly need a fire risk assessment, and since October 2023 you almost certainly need it in writing. This guide sets out who is responsible, what changed in the law, what the assessment covers, and what happens if you do not have one.
Who is responsible
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places the duty on the responsible person. In a business that is usually the employer, the owner, or whoever has control of the premises. If you occupy the building, that responsibility is generally yours, even if you rent rather than own. Where more than one business shares a building, the responsible persons must cooperate and share relevant fire safety information.
You cannot fully contract this duty away. You can appoint a competent person to carry out the assessment, and a competent contractor to do the resulting work, but the legal responsibility for making sure it happens stays with you.
What changed in 2023, and why it matters for small firms
The most important recent change is Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which took effect on 1 October 2023. Before that date, a written fire risk assessment was only mandatory where a business had five or more employees. Section 156 removed that threshold.
The result is that every responsible person must now record the fire risk assessment in full, regardless of the number of staff or the size of the premises. A sole trader running a small shop, a two-person office, a single-unit takeaway: all are now expected to have a written assessment. The same change increased the maximum fine for relevant offences to an unlimited amount.
If your business has fewer than five staff and has been relying on the old exemption, that exemption no longer exists. This is the single most common compliance gap we see among smaller Essex and London businesses.
What a commercial fire risk assessment covers
A competent assessment of business premises looks at the whole building and how it is used. Expect it to consider:
- Ignition and fuel sources: electrical installations and equipment, heating, commercial kitchens, and stored stock or materials.
- People at risk: staff, visitors, customers, and anyone who may need extra help to evacuate.
- Means of escape: escape routes, final exit doors, travel distances, and whether routes stay clear and usable.
- Fire detection and warning: the alarm system, assessed against the relevant British Standard, and whether it is adequate for the building.
- Emergency lighting: on escape routes, assessed against BS 5266.
- Fire-fighting equipment and signage: extinguishers, notices, and evacuation information.
- Management: training, testing, record keeping, and how often the assessment is reviewed.
The output is a written report with a prioritised action plan. Higher-risk settings such as care homes, where occupants may not be able to evacuate unaided, are assessed to a correspondingly higher standard.
What happens if you do not have one
The consequences fall into three areas:
- Enforcement. Local fire and rescue authorities can inspect premises and take enforcement action. Since the 2023 change, penalties for serious breaches can be substantial, with unlimited fines available for the most serious offences.
- Insurance. A commercial insurer may decline a claim, or challenge cover, if a required fire risk assessment was not in place. The cost of a refused claim after a fire dwarfs the cost of the assessment.
- People. The underlying point of the duty is that an unassessed building is a building where a foreseeable risk to staff and customers has not been managed.
The single-provider advantage
A fire risk assessment that simply produces a report is only half the job. The value comes from acting on the action plan. J&L Security arranges the assessment through a fire risk assessor we work with who holds AIFSM, TMIFPO and NEBOSH, then carries out the resulting work directly: fire alarm installation and servicing to BS 5839 (we are BAFE-accredited for the installation and maintenance of fire alarms), emergency lighting, electrical testing, and fire door works. For a busy business owner, dealing with one company from assessment to compliant premises removes the burden of coordinating several trades.
We work with offices, retail, hospitality, warehousing and care settings across Essex and Greater London. See our fire risk assessments page and our fire alarms page, or call 0204 538 5925 or 0208 220 4770 to discuss your premises. You can also request a call back.