How to Commission a Fire Risk Assessment That Actually Protects You
As cut-price assessors flood the market, professional property managers across the North West face a growing problem: a compliant-looking document that, on scrutiny, is anything but. Understanding what separates a rigorous, legally defensible assessment from a cheap imitation has never been more important.
In fire safety, the paperwork can look reassuring long after its value has expired. A fire risk assessment bearing an authoritative logo, a reference number, and a confident conclusion — that the premises are broadly compliant — can sit in a filing cabinet for years without anyone questioning whether it actually means anything. Many do not.
Across the North West, a race to the bottom has been underway for some time. Online platforms and directory services now allow building owners to procure a fire risk assessment for less than a round of drinks at Chester Racecourse. The result is a proliferation of documents produced by unqualified individuals, assembled from templates, and signed off without anyone having looked properly at a building. For professional property managers — those who carry legal accountability under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the consequences of relying on such a document can be severe.
The regulatory landscape
The FSO, strengthened through the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022, places the responsibility for fire risk assessments firmly on the responsible person. In the context of managed residential blocks, commercial premises, and mixed-use developments, that typically means the property manager or managing agent. The legislation mandates that an assessment be conducted and that the person conducting it be competent.
Competence, however, is not defined in law with the precision one might hope. There is no statutory licensing regime for fire risk assessors in England and Wales, which means anyone can print a business card, build a website, and begin selling assessments. The question for the property manager is therefore not simply whether an assessment has been carried out, but whether the person who carried it out actually knew what they were doing.
What a substandard assessment looks like
The most common failure mode is not outright fraud, though that exists too. It is the template-driven, tick-box assessment produced at pace by someone whose understanding of fire safety principles is superficial. The signs are consistent across the buildings we are asked to review where a previous assessment has already been commissioned.
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1Generic risk descriptions
Copy-and-paste language with no reference to the specific building — the same phrases appearing verbatim across assessments for structurally different premises, with nothing that could only have been written after a physical inspection of that particular site.
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2No evidence of physical inspection
Travel distances, fire door conditions, and means of escape not specifically documented. An assessment that could have been written without the assessor visiting the building at all, or one whose visit was clearly brief enough to have missed significant features of the premises.
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3Vague or unweighted action points
Recommendations that are general, uncosted, and carry no priority weighting, so that the responsible person has no basis for deciding which actions require urgent attention and which can be addressed over a longer programme. An assessment that identifies twenty actions with equal apparent urgency is providing the responsible person with a list, not a plan.
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4No consideration of construction or occupancy
No treatment of the building's construction type, occupant profile, or recent material alterations that may have affected compartmentation, means of escape, or the fire detection system. A converted HMO and a purpose-built residential block present entirely different risk profiles, and an assessment that does not reflect this is unlikely to be suitable and sufficient for either.
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5Unverifiable assessor credentials
Assessor qualifications that are absent, unverifiable, or from a body that does not appear in any recognised register of fire safety competency schemes. Third-party accreditation through a recognised body such as the IFE, FPA, or IFSM is the most reliable indicator of professional competence in the absence of statutory licensing.
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6A document too brief for the premises
A two-page assessment for a six-storey block. A single-sheet report for a hotel with multiple occupancy floors. The length of a fire risk assessment is not a proxy for its quality, but a document that is plainly too brief to have addressed a complex building in any depth is a signal that the assessor did not spend the time the job required.
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7No review date or trigger mechanism
No review date, or a review date set arbitrarily far in advance with no mechanism for earlier review if the building's use, occupancy, or condition changes. Regular review is a legal obligation, and an assessment that does not establish when and how it will be revisited is treating a recurring duty as a one-time task.
The consequences of relying on a substandard assessment are not theoretical. The FSO requires that where an assessment is found to be inadequate, the responsible person may be prosecuted, with unlimited fines and possible custodial sentences. Civil liability exposure in the event of a fire is substantial, and insurance claims can be contested if the insurer determines that due diligence on fire safety was not exercised. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry cast a long and searching light on what happens when the paper compliance of fire safety documentation diverges from the physical reality of a building.
What a quality assessment actually looks like
A properly conducted fire risk assessment begins before the assessor arrives on site. A competent practitioner will review the building's history, existing fire safety strategy documents, previous assessments, and any recent works that may have affected compartmentation, means of escape, or the fire detection systems. Arriving at a building with no prior knowledge of it is a choice that costs time and increases the risk of missing context that would have been visible in the documentation.
On site, the assessment is a rigorous physical examination. Every storey is walked. Every fire door is checked — not observed from a distance, but checked for intumescent seals, self-closing mechanisms, correct ironmongery, and the absence of damage or unauthorised modifications. Escape routes are assessed against the anticipated occupant profile. Plant rooms, roof voids, and basement areas receive attention. The assessor considers the construction type, identifies any materials of concern, and evaluates the quality of any compartmentation.
The resulting document is specific, detailed, and actionable. It categorises risks according to a recognised methodology, typically aligned to PAS 79:2020, the British Standard for fire risk assessments in buildings. Action points are clearly prioritised, with immediate risks distinguished from medium-term improvement recommendations. Costs are estimated where possible to assist the responsible person in planning works. A review schedule is proposed, with triggers for earlier review if the building's use, occupancy, or condition changes materially.
Experience and specialism matter. An assessor with a background in managed residential blocks, HMOs, or care environments will bring a qualitatively different understanding to those property types than one whose experience is primarily in single-occupancy industrial units. The complexity of a purpose-built block of flats, with its varying tenures, communal areas, and fire strategy, is genuinely different from a warehouse, and the assessment should reflect that difference.
Price as a diagnostic signal
It is reasonable to ask what a fire risk assessment should cost. The honest answer is that it varies — by building type, by size, by complexity, and by the depth of the report. What can be stated with reasonable confidence is that an assessment for a multi-storey residential block that costs less than a couple of hundred pounds almost certainly does not reflect the time required to do the job properly.
A competent assessor working alone cannot physically inspect, document, analyse, and report on a complex building in under two hours, and if the fee implies that they have, the fee is telling you something important. The value that quality assessors deliver — protection from prosecution, reduction of civil liability, and the genuine identification of life-safety risks — substantially exceeds their fee. For managing agents overseeing portfolios across the North West, the risk of commissioning a substandard assessment extends beyond any individual building: a regulator or enforcing authority that identifies a pattern of inadequate assessments across a portfolio is unlikely to reach a charitable conclusion about the responsible person's commitment to compliance.
The review obligation
A fire risk assessment is a living document, not a one-time exercise. PAS 79:2020 and the FSO together require that assessments are reviewed periodically — typically annually for higher-risk premises, and at minimum every five years for lower-risk buildings — and more frequently whenever there is a significant change to the building, its use, or its occupancy. Refurbishments, changes of tenancy, alterations to means of escape, introduction of new sleeping risk, and incidents that give rise to concern all trigger a review obligation.
Cheap assessments typically treat this obligation as an afterthought. A review date, if it appears at all, may be set arbitrarily far in advance, with no mechanism for the responsible person to be alerted when conditions change. The result is that outdated assessments persist, giving a false picture of compliance, until an inspection, an incident, or a legal challenge makes the gap impossible to ignore. For schools, hotels, care homes, and warehouses where the risk profile can change significantly with relatively modest operational changes, the review obligation is particularly important to manage actively rather than defer.
Commissioning an assessment you can rely on
Fletcher Risk provides professional, accredited fire risk assessments for property managers, landlords, and building owners across Chester, the Wirral, Cheshire, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchester, and Warrington. Our assessors are fully qualified, independently verified, and experienced across the full range of residential, commercial, and mixed-use premises. If your current fire risk assessment has not been reviewed in the last twelve months, or if you have any doubt about the competence of the assessor who produced it, please get in touch.
Commission a fire risk assessment you can rely on
We provide professional, accredited fire risk assessments for buildings across Chester, the Wirral, Cheshire, North Wales, and the wider North West.
The information contained in this article is intended for general guidance only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, or professional advice. Fire safety legislation and regulatory guidance is subject to change, and readers should not rely solely on this article when making decisions about fire safety compliance. The responsible person for any premises should always seek advice from a qualified and competent fire risk assessor and, where appropriate, independent legal counsel. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd accepts no liability for any loss, damage, or regulatory sanction arising from reliance on the contents of this article. References to legislation, British Standards, and accreditation schemes are correct at the time of publication and should be verified against current editions before being acted upon.