Surrey Fire and Rescue Service have a Community Fire Protection Team, who are responsible for the regulation and enforcement of fire safety legislation in non-domestic premises.

Our Fire Safety Inspectors will provide information which is consistent, appropriate, transparent and timely, and the inspection of premises in regard to commerce and industry will be prioritised by risk. We will continue to give basic fire safety advice to local businesses that will help them comply with current legislation.

For general business advice relating to fire safety, ERWIN (Everything Regulation, Whenever It’s Needed), is a one-stop web site for all business related information across England and Wales.

Fire Safety Legislation

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Order) affects any place, in particular workplaces, and you are required to carry out a mandatory fire risk assessment.

The Order is designed to achieve three main objectives:

• To consolidate the existing fire safety legislation into one set of Regulations, thereby reducing burdens on business and overlap of enforcing authorities;
• To align fire safety legislation with health and safety law, reducing prescriptive requirements;
• To put the onus for fire safety of people in premises on the 'responsible person' (owner / occupier / employer / landlord) as a result of the significant findings of the fire risk assessment which the 'responsible person' has a duty to carry out.

The law directly affects you if you are:

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

Although there are a small number of exclusions such as transport, the Order applies to designated 'places' including almost every premises which does not constitute a single private dwelling. This includes the common areas of flats and houses in multiple occupation, together with marquees and movable structures.

The Order places a general duty on a responsible person to:

• ensure the safety of all relevant persons within their premises
• ensure the safety of all other persons who may be affected by fire at their premises
• carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and act on the significant findings.

How do I meet the Order?

If you are the responsible person, you must make sure you carry out a fire risk assessment although you can pass this task to some other competent person. However, you will still be responsible, in law, for meeting the Order. The Communities and Local Government Department has produced a set of guidance documents to support businesses.

Enforcing the Order

Our key objective is to reduce the risk from fire to our communities. Surrey Fire and Rescue Service are the main delegated enforcing authority for the Order in non-domestic premises in the county of Surrey. Our enforcement policy is to audit premises identified as being most at risk. This can also include an audit of premises following a fire.

Our aim is to provide a consistently high quality service to the business community in accordance with the Enforcement Concordat (see attached below) as published by the Better Regulation Unit of the Cabinet Office.

Where breaches of the Order occur Surrey Fire and Rescue Service will provide practical advice or, where the risk is serious, formal notices. Except in the most serious cases, the fire authority will work in partnership with the responsible person in order to achieve a satisfactory level of fire safety.

Where there is a very serious life risk we are able to issue a notice preventing the premises being used for certain things, (such as sleeping) or prohibiting all or part of the premises being used at all.

In all cases there will be a right of appeal.

For information about home fire safety please see fire safety advice in the home and the community.