A clearer view of the fire regulations

The Grenfell Tower fire of June 2017 fundamentally transformed fire safety regulation in the UK. What emerged was not merely a series of incremental shifts in attitudes towards safety but a recalibration of the regulatory framework governing fire safety, particularly in residential buildings.

For the fire safety industry and dutyholders, the last few years have brought unprecedented legislative activity, creating a complex web of overlapping regulations that continues to challenge the sector.

The regulatory fire safety frameworks have developed since Grenfell, and they rely heavily on concepts introduced by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO), which has served as the cornerstone of fire safety enforcement in England and Wales for nearly two decades.

The FSO established the risk-based approach familiar to most practitioners, placing duties on ‘responsible persons’ to conduct fire risk assessments and implement appropriate fire safety measures.

However, the Grenfell fire exposed critical ambiguities in the FSO’s scope, particularly regarding the application of fire safety duties to the external envelope of buildings and to individual flat entrance doors within multi-occupied residential buildings. These uncertainties had created enforcement gaps that proved potentially catastrophic and difficult to overcome.

This act received Royal Assent in April 2021 and commenced in May 2022, directly addressing the legal ambiguities surrounding who was responsible for assessing fire safety risks within the common parts of a relevant building. 

The act clarified that the FSO explicitly covers the structure and external walls (including windows, balconies and cladding) of buildings containing two or more domestic premises, as well as individual flat entrance doors opening onto common parts. 

This seemingly straightforward clarification carried profound implications for responsible persons, who now faced unambiguous duties to assess and manage fire risks associated with building facades and internal compartmentation interfaces.

Perhaps more significantly, the act extended enforcement powers to fire and rescue authorities in relation to these previously ambiguous areas. Fire authorities can now take action against non-compliance concerning external walls and flat entrance doors, eliminating the regulatory blind spots that had existed under the previous interpretation of the FSO.

While the Fire Safety Act 2021 clarified scope, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, which came into force in January 2023, provided the operational detail necessary to implement the Phase 1 recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. 

These introduced specific, prescriptive requirements for buildings containing two or more domestic premises, with enhanced provisions for high-rise residential buildings of at least 18 metres or seven storeys (higher-risk buildings, or HRBs).

All buildings with at least two dwellings must provide clear and relevant fire safety instructions to residents and provide residents with fire door information. Those buildings that are more than five storeys or 11 metres in height must carry out annual checks of flat entrance doors and quarterly checks of all fire doors in the common parts.

The regulations imposed several new duties on responsible persons dealing with HRBs. They must provide local fire and rescue services with up-to-date electronic building plans and detailed information about external wall construction and materials. 

For HRBs, responsible persons must conduct regular checks of fire doors to common areas, lift evacuation equipment and signage. They must also share critical fire safety information with residents, ensuring that evacuation strategies are clearly communicated and understood.

Additionally, the regulations mandate the installation of secure information boxes containing vital building information accessible to fire and rescue services during emergencies. These requirements reflect lessons learned from the operational challenges faced by firefighters at Grenfell, where incomplete building information hampered response efforts.

Running parallel to these fire safety reforms, the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) established a comprehensive new regulatory regime for HRBs. 

The BSA introduced a gateway-based approval process for HRBs throughout their life cycle, from design and construction through occupation. It imposes duties on multiple dutyholders, including the accountable person and principal accountable person for occupied buildings, who must demonstrate ongoing compliance with building safety requirements.

For fire safety professionals, the critical challenge lies in understanding the interaction between the BSA and existing legal duties under legislation such as the FSO and other health and safety regulations. Both regimes apply to all relevant buildings (albeit there are enhanced building safety duties for HRBs), creating potential for confusion about respective scopes, overlapping duties and the appropriate enforcement authority for particular issues. 

The Building Safety Regulator enforces building safety risk requirements under the BSA while considering the impact of fire safety non-compliances, while fire and rescue authorities continue to enforce the FSO. This division of regulatory oversight requires careful navigation, particularly where building safety risks and fire safety risks intersect. We still do not have enough collaboration between the various regulators that govern fire safety compliance.

The overlap between the FSO, the Fire Safety Act, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations and the BSA creates complexity, particularly regarding which regulatory framework applies to specific circumstances and which enforcement authority has primacy. 

The concept of the ‘responsible person’ under the FSO may not align perfectly with ‘dutyholders’ under the BSA or the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, particularly where multiple parties have overlapping responsibilities for different aspects of safety. Determining which party bears which responsibility, and ensuring coordination between different dutyholders, requires careful legal analysis and practical arrangements which are still up for debate.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 2 Report, published in September 2024, delivered 58 recommendations that promised to reshape the regulatory landscape further. 

Among the most significant proposals was the establishment of a single construction regulator, which would consolidate oversight of construction activities on HRBs. This recommendation explicitly acknowledges concerns about regulatory fragmentation under the current system.

The inquiry also recommended that fire safety strategies for HRBs should be prepared by registered fire engineers and submitted at key gateway points in the building control process. This professionalisation of fire safety design represents a fundamental shift toward specialist expertise and accountability in fire engineering practice.

Other recommendations addressed the adequacy of product testing and certification regimes, improvements to information sharing between dutyholders and emergency services, and crucially, the competence of those working in fire safety roles. The government’s response, published in February 2025, accepted many of these recommendations in principle, though implementation timelines remain uncertain.

Perhaps no single issue has emerged more prominently from the post-Grenfell reforms than the question of competence. 

The Phase 2 Inquiry report was unequivocal in its assessment that the Grenfell Tower fire resulted in part from serious deficiencies in the skill, knowledge and experience of those engaged in the construction industry. 

This has catalysed a fundamental reconsideration of how competence should be defined, demonstrated and enforced across the fire safety sector.

The BSA established a statutory definition of competence to all dutyholders involved in the design, construction, refurbishment and maintenance that is now likely to serve as the template for fire safety regulation more broadly. 

Under the BSA, competence is defined as possessing the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours to perform one’s functions safely and effectively. 

This four-part definition represents a significant evolution from previous approaches, which often focused narrowly on qualifications or experience without adequately considering behavioural aspects such as professional ethics, communication and the ability to recognise the limits of one’s own competence.

These requirements are not satisfied merely by holding particular qualifications or memberships, but rather demand ongoing demonstration that individuals and organisations possess the necessary capabilities for the specific work they undertake, and that those appointing consultants are assured of their competence. 

This approach emphasises a ‘rebalance of responsibilities’ – with continual professional development and honest self-assessment about the boundaries of one’s expertise.

Fire safety practitioners should expect similar competence frameworks to emerge for those working specifically in fire safety roles. The Phase 2 Inquiry recommendations called for clearer definitions of fire safety competence and more robust mechanisms to ensure that only appropriately qualified individuals undertake fire risk assessments, design fire safety strategies or advise on fire safety matters. 

The inevitable direction of travel is towards a system where fire safety professionals, like their counterparts in building safety, must demonstrate competence through reference to established frameworks that encompass not only technical knowledge but also professional behaviours and ethical standards.

A concrete manifestation of this competence agenda appears in the proposed Article 9A(2) of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, introduced by Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022. Although not yet commenced, this provision will require responsible persons to ensure that anyone appointed to undertake or review a fire risk assessment is competent, defined as having “sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities” to perform that function. 

The deliberate delay in commencing Article 9A(2) reflects ongoing work to establish appropriate competence frameworks and assessment mechanisms before imposing this duty on responsible persons. 

This development raises important questions for the fire safety sector. Should fire risk assessors be required to hold specific certifications or demonstrate competence through third-party assessment schemes? Should fire safety consultants be required to maintain registers demonstrating their competence, and, if so, who should administer and maintain such registers? How should competence be assured for those working in specialist areas such as complex evacuations, fire engineering or the assessment of external wall systems?

The likely adoption of a BSA-style competence model also has implications for organisational capability. Just as organisations acting as dutyholders under the BSA must demonstrate adequate systems, resources and culture to discharge their functions competently, responsible persons under fire safety legislation may face similar expectations. 

This would represent a shift from viewing competence purely as an attribute of individuals to recognising that organisational structures, quality assurance processes and corporate culture all contribute to competent performance of fire safety duties.

The regulatory environment for fire safety in the UK has undergone transformational change since Grenfell. The amendments to the FSO, the introduction of new fire safety legislation and the establishment of the building safety regime represent the most significant reforms to fire safety regulation in decades. 

Yet implementation remains ongoing, and the full implications of Phase 2 recommendations continue to unfold. We hope that further guidance and assistance is on its way to help dutyholders perform their roles in a proactive and preventive manner.

For fire safety professionals, however, the challenge extends beyond mere compliance to encompass strategic understanding of how these various regulatory regimes interact. As further guidance emerges and case law develops, practitioners must remain vigilant, ensuring that the spirit of these reforms – preventing another Grenfell – is realised in practice through competent, coordinated, and comprehensive fire safety management across the built environment.

Kizzy Augustin is a partner (H&S, fire and environment), with Mishcon de Reya.