New Fire Safety Legislation

New fire safety rules affecting all non-domestic premises in England and Wales came into force on 1 October 2006.

If you are:

- responsible for business premises
- an employer or self-employed with business premises
- a charity or voluntary organisation
- a contractor with a degree of control over any premises

...then you need to act now to ensure you have a suitable and sufficient risk assessment in place.

UK fire safety provisions were scattered across more than 100 different pieces of legislation, all with many implications on businesses, and some with overlaps between their requirements.

This was often confusing to businesses as they attempted to become compliant with this raft of legislation. The aim of the Fire Safety Order - that was introduced under the Regulatory Reform Act - is to ‘simplify, rationalise and consolidate existing legislation’.

Simultaneously, in Scotland, new legislation has been brought in as of the 1st October through Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act.