Who is the responsible person for fire safety?

Fire safety law puts the duty on a specific role: the "responsible person". If you don't know who that is for your premises, you don't know who is accountable if something goes wrong — and in many buildings it turns out to be more than one person or organisation.

The legal definition

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 in England and Wales, the responsible person is: for a workplace, the employer (so far as the workplace is under their control); and in any other case, the person who has control of the premises in connection with carrying on a trade, business or other undertaking, or the owner where that person does not have control. In plain terms, it is usually the employer, owner, landlord or managing agent — whoever is actually in control of the premises.

Scotland and Northern Ireland use different terminology and legislation — for example Scotland refers to the "duty holder" under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 — but the underlying idea is the same: the law identifies who is accountable for fire safety at the premises.

What the responsible person must do

The responsible person's core duties include making a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and keeping it up to date; putting in place and maintaining appropriate fire precautions; providing information, instruction and training to staff; preparing an emergency plan; and, since 1 October 2023, recording the fire risk assessment and the fire safety arrangements in full. The duty is ongoing — it is not discharged by commissioning a single assessment and filing it away.

Responsible person vs competent person

These two roles are often confused. The responsible person holds the legal duty and cannot delegate it away. A competent person is someone with sufficient training, knowledge and experience to assist the responsible person in complying — for example, by carrying out the fire risk assessment. The responsible person can, and often should, appoint a competent person, especially for higher-risk premises. But appointing them does not transfer the legal responsibility: the responsible person remains accountable for ensuring the work is done and acted upon.

When there is more than one responsible person

Many buildings have several responsible persons at once. In a multi-tenant office, each employer may be a responsible person for their own area, while the building owner or managing agent is responsible for the common parts. Where two or more responsible persons share a premises, the law requires them to cooperate and coordinate their fire safety measures and to take reasonable steps to inform each other. A fire strategy only works if these duties are joined up rather than each party assuming someone else has it covered.

Blocks of flats and HMOs

For residential blocks, the responsible person for the common parts is typically the freeholder, resident management company or managing agent in control of those areas — not the individual leaseholders. This is a common source of confusion, and building-safety reforms have sharpened the focus on identifying and recording who holds these duties. If you manage residential property, being clear about who the responsible person is for each building is the foundation of everything else.

Getting it recorded and coordinated

Because the assessment and arrangements must now be recorded in full, and because responsibilities frequently overlap between owners, agents and employers, it pays to keep the responsible person named on each assessment, the assessment itself current, and the review dates visible in one place — especially across a portfolio where different people are responsible for different buildings.

FAQs

Related: what is a fire risk assessment, the five steps, how often to review, and fire risk assessment software. General information, not legal advice.