Howard Passey, Senior Technical Consultant for the Fire Protection Association, discusses the crucial role of fire risk assessors in light of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report and the call for standardised competent behaviour across the profession.

For years, industry roundtables and working groups have been dominated by demands for better regulation, improved certification and practicable methods for assessing the competency of fire risk assessors (FRAs). Chapter 12 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report offers a comprehensive timeline for those interested in tracking the efforts of both the fire safety sector and the government to reach some kind of solution to fix the competency gaps of commercial FRAs that we have become so accustomed to hearing about.

The inadequacy of the fire risk assessments that were carried out at Grenfell Tower came under significant scrutiny in Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s lengthy report, leading to concerns about the FRA profession as a whole. The assessments carried out for Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) failed to identify critical fire hazards, such as the flammability of the external cladding system, inadequate fire door performance, and the lack of adequate evacuation strategies for vulnerable residents. Relying too heavily on visual inspections, the assessments were not thorough enough, with insufficient oversight by relevant authorities, such as the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), to ensure that assessments complied with the necessary fire safety regulations (see below for a full summary).

The recommendation for the government, as detailed in the inquiry report, is to “establish a system of mandatory accreditation to certify the competence of fire risk assessors by setting standards for qualification and continuing professional development and such other measures as may be considered necessary or desirable”.

The report continues: “We think it necessary for an accreditation system to be mandatory in order to ensure the competence of all those who offer their services as fire risk assessors.”

Regulating competency

Even before the devastating Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, the industry had made numerous efforts to engage government officials in designing regulatory requirements that would introduce “mandatory minimum standards of competence for training and accrediting fire risk assessors”. A review of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and its requirement for a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of risks unearthed serious concerns over unqualified FRAs, further propelled by Sir Ken Knight’s report on the fire at Lakanal House in 2009 and another report by the London Assembly in 2010.

Initially, the government decided that prescriptive regulation was unnecessary, and that the industry could sufficiently define the parameters of what a competent FRA looked like by itself, with the Fire Risk Assessment Competency Council’s proposal of a passport scheme referred to as ‘control freakery’. Yet, calls for a nationally recognised quality assurance scheme for FRAs were resolute, and organisations such as the Fire Sector Federation (FSF) continued to push for a licensing scheme that would provide the public with the “assurance that the holder was competent to perform the tasks covered by the licence”.

Post-Grenfell, competency has once again become a primary focus, and, despite its initial qualms, the government has moved ahead of the curve in trying to disentangle deficiencies in the FRA process when it comes to competency, registration and certification. The British Standards Institute (BSI) withdrew the original PAS 79 Fire Risk Assessment Standards from 2012 and replaced it with PAS 79-1:2020 and PAS 79-2:2020. In 2022, the Building Safety Act (BSA) 2022 included a ‘Fire Safety’ clause in Section 156(4), which specifies that an FRA’s competency needs to be proven for buildings in scope.

Whilst it has not yet been enacted due to an insufficient number of fire risk assessors registered to meet the demand, amendments to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 place the statutory duty for ensuring competency on the responsible person (article 9A).

As the Home Office states, responsible persons can undertake fire risk assessments of their premises using the statutory guidance provided, but for anything other than a simple premises, appointing a competent FRA is recommended. Then comes the additional challenge for a responsible person of wading through various and varying professional membership bodies and competence certification or registration schemes that each have their own understanding of what a competent FRA looks like, albeit with some common factors. In a bid to unify industry organisations, the FSF and the Fire Risk Assessors Working Group published an industry benchmark standard at the end of 2022 to help improve assessor competency and understanding by establishing and supporting the delivery of “comparable standards across the sector”.

Split across low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk premises, the industry standard reflects the tier system adopted by some voluntary FRA schemes and registers:

• Foundation – low-risk premises such as small shops, low occupancy non-residential workplaces
• Intermediate – medium- or normal-risk premises
• Advanced – high-risk premises, in particular those defined as higher-risk buildings (HRBs) in the BSA.

The FSF has since, with BSI, been developing the framework into a British Standard as part of the BS 8670 Built Environment – Core criteria for building safety in competence frameworks. It has been working alongside the Home Office to form a Fire Risk Assessor Competency Verification Project Board that has the task of implementing competency standards for FRAs under the BSA. This includes the development of a ‘conformity assessment’ process based on ISO standards and the forthcoming BS 8674 and is an initiative that aims to make fire risk assessors a ‘quasi-regulated’ profession, with registration systems recording individuals certified under a UKAS-accredited scheme and a simple consolidated listing for ease of access by responsible persons.

In addition to the establishment of several FRA-specific working groups, Experienced Worker Route (EWR) activities have led to discussions with approved training centres to develop regulated qualifications and ensure current FRAs are certified in the future.

Current estimations suggest that around 50,000 FRAs are operating in England, but only a small percentage will be part of an existing voluntary assessor scheme (through the Institute of Fire Safety Managers (IFSM), the Institution of Fire Engineers or similar). Consider, then, the following predicament: an individual who has spent more than three decades working in fire safety and has numerous qualifications, but none necessarily fall under the criterion of regulated qualifications. Even their degree may not be relevant to their role as an FRA. In this case, under the proposed mandatory scheme, what happens to them if they are not already listed on a register? This is an issue the EWR scheme is aiming to address.

At the end of September 2024, some weeks after the publication of the Grenfell phase 2 report, the Home Office published its survey findings of FRA competency, capacity and experience in England in an attempt to counter the limited existing evidence about the functional characteristics of FRAs and how they differ in their capacity and competency. While not a complete representation of FRAs in England, with around 1,400 responses received, the findings show that there is a “great deal of variety in the background of FRAs in terms of factors like experience, background and qualifications”.

The report also suggested that many FRAs were not certificated and did not undertake formal refresher training, which suggests there are clear opportunities to “professionalise and establish higher professional standards of FRAs” and for the “standardisation and verification of competence through compulsory channels”. Prior to fire risk assessment, FRAs may have worked in health and safety or the fire and rescue service, with a small number coming from a fire engineering background. With 65% aged 50 years and over, the likelihood of them undergoing mandatory certification is slim, with many already opting to leave the industry entirely or, at the very least, no longer undertake the assessment of high-risk premises. This has the risk of exacerbating the existing shortfall of experienced FRAs at a time when more buildings will require advanced-tier assessments.

Defining competency and expectations

While these initiatives allow for good guidance to be shared across industry, offering useful cues to the responsible person, they have also led to further discussions about how competency can and should be defined. What this ‘competence’ looks like is not clear, however. The inquiry has recommended reforms to ensure that fire risk assessments are more thorough and are conducted by suitably qualified professionals. Unfortunately, the report’s use of the phrase “reasonably competent” does not help clarify, and the government’s unwillingness to offer further clarity has meant that the industry has needed to pick up the pieces.

For support, many have looked to other industries to analyse how competence is defined and applied to the working practices of professionals. For instance, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) shares the view that “people should be competent for the work they undertake”, while the Office for Rail Regulation clarifies, “competence is a combination of practical and thinking skills, experience and knowledge” and that “development through practical experience is crucial if a person is to move from the completion of a training course to attain the level of competence required to carry out the activity reliably”. Where practical experience cannot be routinely gained, other methods must be introduced into the workplace, such as simulation. Much of this can be equated to FRA activities and behaviours and could offer a more detailed understanding of expectations.

However, when considering competency and the requirement for FRA certification, one must also consider the expectations being placed on an FRA, and how much responsibility should reasonably be placed on an individual FRA’s shoulders.

The inquiry report sheds an interesting light on the roles and responsibilities of FRAs versus fire engineers – the demarcation between the two remaining a notable issue. What falls under the scope of fire engineering versus what remains under the parameters of FRAs is something the government needs to better understand, noting the differences between the two professions and framing legislation, regulation and guidance accordingly.

Using a prescriptive approach, with the help of Approved Document B and other guidance to assess a building, those who are competent to carry out a fire risk assessment should also be competent to provide advice on simple, low-risk buildings. Buildings of higher complexity are more likely to call for a fire-engineered solution, which will go beyond the capability of an FRA. It may be unreasonable to expect, for example, an FRA to understand the impact on the safety of occupants of a faulty smoke control system in a corridor and come up with a solution to mitigate it – a fire engineer might need to be included in this process, or the original fire strategy referred to.

The inquiry also recommended reviewing the current stay-put strategy and ensuring that future fire risk assessments take into account evacuation strategies and the specific needs of vulnerable residents.

There appears to be a view developing that when it comes to building assessments, FRAs are the final arbiters of all things fire safety and that their process includes a complete metaphorical deconstruction of a building to its constituent parts.

There is an undue expectation that FRAs will be able to analyse the construction of an external wall, be an expert on the installation of fire doors, and even understand the individual needs of vulnerable residents when considering evacuation strategies. When it comes to the latter, understanding occupant vulnerability is complex, and leads to a number of questions, including ‘How will an assessor be able to competently and confidently consider the suitability of a stay-put policy as part of a building’s evacuation strategy’? This may be an impossible feat for an FRA, but the responsible person may have no other option but to rely on the FRA’s ability to assess and recommend a viable strategy.

With the new government proposing legislative requirements for personal emergency evacuation plans or ‘residential PEEPs’, are we also to assume that FRAs will need to review all individual plans according to the vulnerability of a building’s residents, and how can a premises be deemed fire safe unless they have been reviewed? Where does this leave the extent of liability placed on an FRA?

Even with competency being such a key focus for both industry and the government, there is still little clarity on how such certification for competency could be achieved and what the expectations are for FRAs in the future. But further clarity is needed from the government on where a fire risk assessment starts and ends, and how much FRAs are expected to report on in their assessments.

Responsible persons and golden threads

While it is currently up to the responsible person to make the judgement as to whether an individual has the suitable and sufficient skills, knowledge and experience to do a fire risk assessment, the call for mandatory accreditation does have the potential to take some of the pressure away from the responsible person.

The draft British Standard considers three tiers of training and three tiers of registration, so there is the opportunity for mandatory accreditation at different tiers. For example, a shop in a town centre may only require Tier 1 accreditation, while a multi-storey office building might require Tier 2. However, with more complex premises, such as a construction site or high-rise residential block, it will still be down to the responsible person to assess the competency of an FRA, based on their level of experience or whether they have any training within the relevant environment.

Another key concern of the inquiry panel was the lack of more robust oversight mechanisms to ensure that issues identified in fire risk assessments are addressed in a timely and effective manner. The report highlighted that recommendations in previous assessments at Grenfell Tower were either overlooked or ignored completely. Sadly, this is not unique to Grenfell. For the most part, a lack of understanding on the responsible person’s part means there is little cohesive information for the FRA to be able to understand the circumstances of a building, the issues that have been identified and addressed, and the strategies that have been put into place.

It brings into focus the need for better records of building information – a nod to the government requirements for a golden thread of building information – that allows for digitised versions of information that can be assessed by the FRA, such as documents for maintenance work or any other changes that may have been introduced. This may be plausible for HRBs that fall under the criteria of the BSA, but considerations need to be made for other buildings that potentially have far greater life risks associated with them than residential high-rises. Currently there is no requirement for information to be produced for those buildings other than through Regulation 38, which experience suggests is commonly ignored, and we have yet to see how the government will begin to introduce other premises types under the requirements of the BSA.

Regulating behaviour

The inquiry report also highlights how various parties involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower did not behave appropriately. Even many years on from Grenfell and the introduction of new legislation and BS requirements, instances of dishonest behaviour still exist in the industry. In March 2024, nearly six years on from the publication of Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, the Industry Safety Steering Group (ISSG) released a report in which it shared concerns that many developers were still not implementing changing regulations and evidencing appropriate behaviours when building new high-rises.

Given this, and in the context of the behaviours of the contractors, manufacturers and suppliers at Grenfell, how is an FRA going to be able to assure themselves that what is being installed is appropriate and as expected? When considering the changes to the fire risk assessment system, we must remember the interconnected nature of the industry and the impact other recommendations from the phase 2 report will have on the wider built-environment sector.

An FRA can also choose not to do the right thing as well and take advantage of a responsible person’s lack of fire safety knowledge or their obligations. Rooting out these poor performers is something the industry may continue to struggle with, as the only way to ensure appropriate behaviour is through enforcement activity and whistleblowing.

Work towards a national central register of FRAs, combining information from the various registers, has begun, with further decisions to be made about how this will be hosted, and it is likely that this will remain under the care of the industry rather than a government body. Whilst this work is important for being able to hold FRAs to account for their work, it should be noted, however, that accountability still exists even if an FRA is not listed on a register. The relevant authorities and fire and rescue services can still bring enforcement action against an FRA if they find an assessment is not suitable and sufficient.

Since the tragic events of that night at Grenfell Tower, both industry and government have been inching ever closer to finding a resolution to the competency debate that manages the expectations and abilities of FRAs while also prioritising life safety within all types of premises. The recommendations of the inquiry panel are, of course, welcome, but as highlighted by this article, there is still further work to be done by all to ensure that competency can become a core fixture of fire safety and fire risk assessment.

A summary of the report’s findings in relation to fire risk assessment is listed below:

Inadequate fire risk assessments

The fire risk assessments carried out by Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) were found to be inadequate. The assessments failed to identify critical fire safety hazards, including:

• The external cladding system’s flammability
• Insufficient fire door protection
• Lack of adequate evacuation strategies for vulnerable residents
• The fire risk assessments relied too heavily on visual inspections, which led to the omission of significant fire safety risks.

Failure to address known issues

Despite several fire risk assessments being carried out in the years prior to the fire, many significant issues were left unresolved. For example:

• The non-compliance of fire doors was noted in some assessments but not acted upon
• Fire compartmentation concerns within flats and between floors were not adequately addressed
• There was a pattern of overlooking or downplaying issues raised in the assessments, often with no clear plans for remediation.

Role of contractors and consultants

Fire risk assessments were often outsourced to external consultants. However, these consultants were found to have insufficient knowledge or expertise about the complexities of Grenfell Tower’s specific fire safety risks.

The report highlighted a lack of coordination between contractors responsible for refurbishment work (eg, installing cladding) and those conducting fire risk assessments, resulting in a failure to assess the cumulative impact of the changes on fire safety.

Limited oversight and enforcement

There was insufficient oversight by relevant authorities, such as the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), which should have ensured that fire risk assessments were thorough and compliant with fire safety regulations.

The inquiry criticised both the TMO and RBKC for not responding to the fire risk assessments in a timely and effective manner, allowing dangerous conditions to persist.

Absence of evacuation planning

Fire risk assessments did not account for the needs of vulnerable residents (eg, those with mobility issues or disabilities) in case of evacuation, nor did they consider alternative evacuation plans beyond the ‘stay put’ policy.

The lack of consideration for individualised evacuation plans was a significant failure, leaving many residents vulnerable during the fire.

Regulatory failures

The report identified shortcomings in the broader regulatory framework governing fire risk assessments, noting that current laws and guidance did not sufficiently emphasise the need for a comprehensive, proactive approach to fire safety.

This was compounded by unclear responsibilities between various bodies (local authorities, managing agents and contractors), which contributed to a fragmented approach to fire risk management.

Recommendations

The inquiry recommended reforms to ensure that fire risk assessments are more thorough and are conducted by suitably qualified professionals.

It called for more robust oversight mechanisms to ensure that issues identified in fire risk assessments are addressed in a timely and effective manner.

There were also recommendations for reviewing the current ‘stay put’ strategy and ensuring that future fire risk assessments take into account evacuation strategies and the specific needs of vulnerable residents.

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Howard Passey is a Senior Technical Consultant (formerly Deputy Managing Director) for the Fire Protection Association. This article was originally published on the Fire Protection Association website, here, and has been republished with permission.