Fire Safety Act 2021

The Act clarifies that where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, the Fire Safety Order applies to:

• The building’s structure and external walls (including windows, balconies, cladding, insulation and fixings) and any common parts.

• All doors between domestic premises and common parts such as flat entrance doors (or any other relevant door).

The Act provides greater clarity on where the Fire Safety Order applies in multi-occupied residential buildings. RPs must manage and reduce the risk of fire for:

• The structure and external walls of the building, including anything attached to the exterior of those walls, such as cladding, balconies and windows and

•  entrance doors to individual flats that open into common parts.

Following the devastating Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry was established. Following the Inquiry’s Phase 1 report and associated recommendations, it was recognised by the Government that greater clarity was required around the application of the Fire Safety Order through additional legislation.

In addition to this, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (the Regulations) were introduced as a direct result of the reports recommendations.

The Act applies to England and Wales. However, the Regulations only apply to England. Information on how the Act applies within Wales can be found on the Welsh Government website.

The NFCC has supported the Home Office Task and Finish Group in the production of the Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool (FRAPT). 

The FRAPT is an online tool designed to assist responsible persons to develop a strategy to prioritise their buildings and fire risk assessments, to ensure that they take into account the clarifications outlined in the Act.

This approach is also designed to ensure that competent professionals who have the required skills to assess external walls (such as fire engineers, fire risk assessors, surveyors, or architects) prioritise their resources to buildings identified as high priority.

It is important to note that The Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool does not constitute a fire risk assessment in itself, nor does it remove the need or requirement for both Fire and Rescue Service’s and RPs to act upon known or suspected risk in all premises.

RPs are encouraged to use the Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool (the FRAPT), to form their fire risk assessment review prioritisation strategies.

RPs should first consider the accompanying guidance. RPs should ensure their reviewed assessments take into account the requirements of the FSO (as amended). 

The FSA formally commenced on 16 May 2022. This means that RPs should now (if they have not already done so) consider when to review their fire risk assessments, to ensure that these take account of any risk from the external wall. It is important that RPs are directed to and consider the more detailed guidance from the Home Office about when and how to go about this.

A new Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool has been made available. The prioritisation tool is an online tool designed to support Responsible Persons to develop a prioritisation strategy for updating their fire risk assessments, following commencement. The prioritisation tool can be accessed within The Fire Safety Act commencement guidance.

View The Fire Safety Act and factsheets and guidance.

You can find out more by visiting the NFCC website.