Fire Safety Audits in Merseyside: The Data
Fire safety enforcement varies more between areas of the country than most responsible persons realise, so we analysed the official data to see how Merseyside compares. We worked from two datasets published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: FIRE1202, which records the fire safety audits each fire and rescue authority carries out and their outcomes, and FIRE1204, which records the enforcement action taken and the duties cited where premises fall short, both covering the ten years to the financial year ending March 2025. We isolated Merseyside and its North West neighbours, calculated the share of audits found unsatisfactory, broke the results down by type of premises while pooling three years so the sector figures are stable, measured how much of the building stock is actually inspected, and cross-referenced the independent HMICFRS inspection grade for the service. What follows is what that analysis shows for Merseyside.
Where Merseyside stands
In the year ending March 2025, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service carried out 2,076 fire safety audits, of which 22.6 per cent were unsatisfactory. That placed Merseyside 10th of the 44 fire and rescue authorities in England, comfortably below the England average of 41.8 per cent, so a premises audited in Merseyside was more likely to be found compliant than one audited nationally.
Within the North West the spread is wide, and Merseyside sits towards the better-performing end of it.
These figures show how many audited premises were found compliant. Services choose which premises to audit and record their outcomes in their own way, so we set them out here to help responsible persons understand what fire safety inspection looks like in their area.
The trend over time
Merseyside’s rate has moved around a good deal over the period, starting at 16.1 per cent in 2016/17 with sharp swings in the years since.
Across the same period the England average climbed to 41.8 per cent, and Merseyside has held below that national figure in the most recent years.
Which premises fail most often
The county average covers a wide range of building types, and this is where the data becomes useful to an individual owner. Breaking the audits down by premises type, and pooling the last three years so the sector figures are stable, the likelihood of an unsatisfactory result varied considerably.
The buildings most likely to fail an audit in Merseyside were high-rise flats, other sleeping accommodation and licensed premises, with hotels close behind, while offices and schools sat at the lower end. If you manage a block of flats, run a hotels or operate an hmos, your sector’s record is good reason to keep the fire risk assessment current, since these are the premises where inspectors most often find shortcomings.
How likely your building is to be audited
The same breakdown answers a different question that owners often ask, which is how likely their type of building is to be audited at all. Merseyside audited around 1.4 per cent of its known premises during the year, and that limited resource is directed at the higher-risk end of the building stock.
Schools were the most likely type to receive a visit, at 28.4 per cent of those known, followed by hotels and care homes.
If your premises is one of the more heavily audited types, it is worth understanding what to expect from an FRS fire safety audit before one is arranged.
What premises actually fail on in Merseyside
We also examined what premises on Merseyside actually fail on. The official data records the duties most often cited where Merseyside premises fell short, and the pattern here leans heavily towards planning and people.
The single most common failure on Merseyside, accounting for around a quarter of all recorded shortcomings, concerns emergency plans and procedures, the documented arrangements for what people should do when a fire breaks out. The fire risk assessment itself comes next, followed by the general duty to take fire precautions, the protection of emergency routes and exits, and firefighting equipment and detection. The maintenance of fire safety equipment and fire doors appears too, and a fire door inspection is the way to confirm fire doors will hold back fire and smoke as they are meant to.
What stands out on Merseyside is how much of this concerns people and planning instead of hardware. Emergency procedures, the management arrangements behind them, set out in a clear fire safety policy, informing employees about the risks, and staff fire safety training all feature among the recorded failures. Inspectors do check whether your staff have been trained, whether they know the evacuation procedure, and whether they understand the risks where they work.
Yes, staff training is checkedFire safety training for staff is a legal duty under article 21 of the Fire Safety Order, and on Merseyside, where inadequate procedures and arrangements are the most common failures of all, it goes hand in hand with making sure people know what to do. A fire risk assessment identifies the training your staff need, and delivering it is one of the clearest ways a responsible person turns a written assessment into real protection. It is also one of the three services we provide.
What this means for businesses in Merseyside
An independently well-rated serviceHMICFRS, the independent inspectorate, rated Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service good across its most recent inspection, with no areas requiring improvement and an outstanding grade for responding to major incidents. Its protection work follows a risk-based programme focused on the highest-risk premises, with the resources to carry out audits and enforcement to a high standard.
What do enforcement and prohibition notices mean?If an audit finds a problem, a fire and rescue authority can act formally. An enforcement notice, served under article 30 of the Fire Safety Order, sets out the failings and requires the responsible person to put them right within a stated period. A prohibition notice, under article 31, is more serious, and is used where the risk to life is so great that the use of all or part of a building is restricted or prohibited until the danger is dealt with, sometimes with immediate effect. The most serious breaches can lead to prosecution under article 32.
If you are responsible for a building on Merseyside, we recommend you note the following. The service audits a wide range of premises, with schools, hotels and care homes the most likely to receive a visit, so the chance of an audit is real. Failing one carries real consequences, with 60 enforcement notices and 33 prohibition notices recorded in the latest year. And the failures inspectors record most often fall into three areas, the fire risk assessment itself, the upkeep of fire doors and fire safety equipment, and the training and procedures your staff depend on. Those are precisely the areas we work in, and we provide independent fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training across Merseyside, so that your premises is ready if an audit comes.
About this research and the analystsThis analysis was carried out by Fletcher Risk Management, an independent fire safety consultancy based in Chester. Our assessors are qualified to ABBE Level 4 in fire risk assessment and bring significant hands-on experience of inspecting premises across the region, and we have applied that suitably qualified and experienced judgement to interpret the official data and draw conclusions of practical use to responsible persons. The figures are our own analysis of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government fire statistics, tables FIRE1202 and FIRE1204, for the year ending March 2025, with sector figures pooled over three years and very small samples excluded, and inspection grades taken from published HMICFRS reports. Journalists who would like further comment are welcome to contact us through our contact page.
Be ready for your audit
We provide independent fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training for businesses across Merseyside and the wider region, covering the very things inspectors check. If you would like to discuss your premises, please get in touch.
Get in touchFire Risk AssessmentsThis article is provided for general guidance and does not constitute professional advice for any specific premises. Figures are Fletcher Risk’s analysis of published MHCLG fire statistics (FIRE1202 and FIRE1204, year ending March 2025) and HMICFRS inspection reports, accurate to the source data at the time of writing. Fletcher Risk Management Limited provides Fire Risk Assessments, Fire Door Inspections and Fire Safety Training across the North West, North Wales and the West Midlands.