Home Office to commission Fire Safety Order guidance documents

The guidance in this requirement, which is the third tranche of its programme, will be needed by Q3 of 2022 when the fire safety provisions in the Building Safety Bill may be enacted.

Five new guides are required including a brief explainer on fire doors that captures any regulatory changes, a summary of the sanctions available for proven breaches of the FSO, an implementation guide for the primary fire safety changes planned through the Building Safety Bill, a comprehensive overarching fire risk assessment guide and an overlap guide explaining the difference between a ‘Responsible Person’ and an ‘Accountable Person’ under the Bill.

Further, the Home Office is looking to rationalise and update all of the premises specific guides on GOV.UK as well as the guidance documents on Specialised Housing and Means of Escape for Disabled People.

The final element will be the requirement to update all of the guides published  in Tranche 2 of the Home Office’s programme in order to make sure they include the fire safety changes made through the Building Safety Bill. All guides must be consistent with the FSO at the time of publication.

All of these guides must be accessible and provide details for the ‘Responsible Person’, the fire risk assessor or the enforcing authority on how to discharge their duties. All guides should be displayed as a PDF or, where appropriate, be turned into HTML text on GOV.UK where it’s the intention of the Home Office to host each and every document.

*Further detail is available online at GOV.UK