Keeping Public Safety Front of Mind

It’s about ensuring people can have confidence that the homes, workplaces and public buildings they occupy have been properly assessed for fire risks by competent professionals. Yet across the market, there’s still significant variation in terms of how this is demonstrated, assessed and maintained.

The current consultation process represents a huge opportunity to address this issue and shape a framework that supports competent practitioners, improves public confidence and creates greater consistency across the market.

Need for change

The sector doesn’t lack expertise, but visibility and consistency around how competency is demonstrated is low. The sector is full of highly-skilled and experienced professionals, but the difficulty for ‘Responsible Persons’ and other buyers of fire risk assessments is that these competency levels are not always evidenced in a clear or consistent way.

At present, organisations and individuals can point to a wide range of qualifications, memberships and experience when presenting their credentials, but the standards and oversight underpinning those claims can vary significantly. The current approach places the responsibility for understanding what does and doesn’t represent competency squarely on the shoulders of those procuring fire risk assessments. It’s a burden they should not bear.

One potential solution is the creation of a central and independent register of competent fire risk assessors. A properly structured and independently overseen register would afford ‘Responsible Persons’ far greater clarity around who they are appointing and the standards against which those individuals or organisations have been assessed.

Crucially, any register would need to operate independently and transparently, underpinned by clear competency requirements and consistent assessment standards. The objective should not be to elevate one organisation, scheme or commercial interest above another, but instead to create a framework that’s trusted and centred firmly around public safety outcomes.

Flawed approach

One of the central debates is whether tighter regulation should apply only to assessors working on higher-risk buildings and premises, but such an approach may simply increase inconsistency rather than reduce it.

Understanding the true nature of a risk takes into account factors such as occupancy, management standards, building alterations, enforcement history and the vulnerability of occupants. A large premises may be exceptionally well managed, while a smaller commercial or residential building with poor fire safety controls could present far greater danger.

Many commentators would argue that it’s impossible to determine whether a building is truly ‘high risk’ before a competent fire risk assessment has taken place as the assessment itself is the process through which those risks are properly identified and understood.

There are also practical concerns around market distortion and capacity. If regulation only applies to part of the market, assessors may naturally gravitate towards less regulated areas, creating unintended pressure on capacity for higher-risk premises, while maintaining inconsistent standards elsewhere.

Competency and professionalisation

The debate around regulation is not just about oversight or enforcement. It’s also about recognition. Across the UK, there are fire safety professionals who have invested significant time, money and effort into developing their competency, achieving independent certification and maintaining high professional standards. A more consistent regulatory framework would help to reinforce the value of that commitment, while in tandem encouraging others to strive to meet the same standards.

Any future framework must be practical and proportionate, but there’s a growing recognition that professions carrying serious public safety responsibilities require clear competency expectations, transparent accountability and recognised professional standards. Fire risk assessment should be viewed through the same lens.

Demonstrating clear career prospects will also help the sector to confront a more practical challenge: that of capacity. Like many professions across the UK, the fire safety sector has an ageing workforce. Many highly experienced assessors have spent decades developing the technical knowledge, judgement and practical understanding required to properly assess complex risks. Retaining that expertise for as long as possible, while ensuring that it’s passed on to the next generation, will play a crucial role in building the long-term resilience of the profession itself.

The sector needs a stronger pipeline of new entrants, with clearer and more visible career pathways, accessible apprenticeships and clear routes for individuals with transferable skills to move into fire safety. Greater professional recognition and more consistent competency frameworks could well play an important role in making the sector more attractive to new talent.

Opportunity to strengthen

While all of these potential outcomes are important, there’s a fundamental motivation that the sector must never lose sight of and that’s improving public safety.

The consultation process represents a rare opportunity to achieve that, while shaping the future direction of fire risk assessment in the UK for years to come. Meaningful progress will depend on collaboration, with Government, certification bodies, training providers, fire safety professionals, ‘Responsible Persons’ and industry organisations all engaging positively in the process. Just as importantly, the consultation must hear from as many voices and perspectives as possible.

The detail of regulation will continue to evolve, but the wider objective should remain constant throughout: to create a fire safety profession that’s trusted, transparent, sustainable and, above all, centred firmly around public safety.

Dr Justin Maltby-Smith CEng FIET CMgr FCMI is Group CEO of BAFE Holdings (www.bafe.org.uk)