Statutory Instrument | |
![]() | |
Citation | SI 2005/1541 |
---|---|
Introduced by | Jim Fitzpatrick |
Territorial extent | |
Dates | |
Made | 7 June 2005 |
Commencement | 1 October 2006 |
Other legislation | |
Repeals/revokes | Fire Precautions Act 1971 Fire Precautions (Loans) Act 1973 Smoke Detectors Act 1991 |
Made under | Regulatory Reform Act 2001 |
Status: Current legislation | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Text of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) is a statutory instrument applicable in England and Wales. The Order places the responsibility on individuals within an organisation to carry out risk assessments to identify, manage and reduce the risk of fire. The Order was made into law on 7 June 2005 [1] and came into force on 1 October 2006. [2]
Guidance for businesses is available in the form of 16 government-published documents, with general guidance, a 5-Step Checklist and 12 documents pertaining specifically to a particular type of business premises. [3] On 5 January 2016, responsibility for fire and rescue policy transferred from the Department for Communities and Local Government to the Home Office, who then became responsible for the guidance. The guidance does not normally apply to domestic premises.
Prior to the Order, under the Fire Precautions Act 1971, all public and commercial buildings, and all non-single-household domestic dwellings (apart from houses in multiple occupation), were required to hold a valid fire safety certificate issued annually after an inspection by the Fire Service. This regime was replaced with assessment by third-party fire-risk assessors contracted by building owners and landlords, with no mandated timeframe for checks, and no mandated professional qualifications.
In 2013, the Fire Service found that 14% of risk assessments were non-compliant with the law, and in 2018 it was found that 500 out of 800 of the UK's fire risk assessors were not registered with accredited bodies. [4]
The guides available are:
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is a United States law, passed by the 94th United States Congress in 1976 and administered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that regulates chemicals not regulated by other U.S. federal statutes, including chemicals already in commerce and the introduction of new chemicals. When the TSCA was put into place, all existing chemicals were considered to be safe for use and subsequently grandfathered in. Its three main objectives are to assess and regulate new commercial chemicals before they enter the market, to regulate chemicals already existing in 1976 that posed an "unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment", as for example PCBs, lead, mercury and radon, and to regulate these chemicals' distribution and use.
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that as of 2011 defines the fundamental structure and authority for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare within the United Kingdom.
Building regulations in the United Kingdom are statutory instruments or statutory regulations that seek to ensure that the policies set out in the relevant legislation are carried out. Building regulations approval is required for most building work in the UK. Building regulations that apply across England and Wales are set out in the Building Act 1984 while those that apply across Scotland are set out in the Building (Scotland) Act 2003. The Act in England and Wales permits detailed regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. The regulations made under the Act have been periodically updated, rewritten or consolidated, with the latest and current version being the Building Regulations 2010. The UK Government is responsible for the relevant legislation and administration in England, the Welsh Government is the responsible body in Wales, the Scottish Government is responsible for the issue in Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Executive has responsibility within its jurisdiction. There are very similar Building Regulations in the Republic of Ireland. The Building Regulations 2010 have recently been updated by the Building Safety Act 2022.
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
In England and Wales a fire authority or fire and rescue authority is a statutory body made up of a committee of local councillors which oversees the policy and service delivery of a fire and rescue service. Prior to the Fire Services Act 2004 many fire and rescue authorities were known as fire and civil defence authorities; this designation is no longer used.
The history of fire safety legislation in the United Kingdom formally covers the period from the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 but is founded in the history of such legislation in England and Wales, and Scotland before 1708, and that of the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800.
A water safety plan is a plan to ensure the safety of drinking water through the use of a comprehensive risk assessment and risk management approach that encompasses all steps in water supply from catchment to consumer.
The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), or H.R.1627, was passed unanimously by Congress in 1996 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 3, 1996. The FQPA standardized the way the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would manage the use of pesticides and amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. It mandated a health-based standard for pesticides used in foods, provided special protections for babies and infants, streamlined the approval of safe pesticides, established incentives for the creation of safer pesticides, and required that pesticide registrations remain current.
The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is the Canadian government agency responsible for the regulation of pest control products in Canada under the federal authority of the Pest Control Products Act and Regulations. The agency is a branch that reports to Parliament through Health Canada. The PMRA is responsible for providing access to pest management tools while minimizing the risks to human health and the environment by “using modern evidence-based scientific approaches to pesticide regulation, in an open and transparent manner”. Their main activity areas include: new product evaluation, post market review and compliance and enforcement.
PAS 79 is a Publicly Available Specification published by the British Standards Institution.
In the United Kingdom a fire safety inspector is a public law enforcement officer responsible for the enforcement fire safety legislation in the United Kingdom.
Lexcel is an accreditation indicating quality in relation to legal practice management standards. It was introduced by The Law Society of England and Wales in 1998. Until 2010, the Lexcel standard was attainable by law firms and in-house legal departments in England and Wales. A separate franchised scheme was available for practices in Northern Ireland. Since September 2010, Lexcel accreditation has been attainable by any law firm or in-house legal department in any jurisdiction in the world. The worldwide scheme continues to be administered by the Law Society of England and Wales.
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is the body responsible for the independent regulation of the pharmacy profession within England, Scotland and Wales, responsible for the regulation of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy premises. It was created, along with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, in September 2010 when the previous body responsible for regulation, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, was split so that representative and regulatory functions of the pharmacy profession could be separated.
The National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS) is the Australian government's regulatory body for industrial chemicals. NICNAS is designed to help protect workers, the public and the environment from the harmful effects of industrial chemicals. It does so by making risk assessment and safety information on chemicals widely available and providing recommendations for their safe use. NICNAS also informs importers and manufacturers of their legal responsibilities.
The Food Act is a New Zealand Act of Parliament passed in 2014. It came into force in 1 March 2016 and progressively replaced the Food Act 1981 for the next three years.
WorkSafe is New Zealand's primary workplace health and safety regulator.
The Top Storey Club was a nightclub in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. It achieved notoriety for a fire which occurred on 1 May 1961 in which 19 people perished.
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding and/or flammable insulation.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which arose out of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire and relates to fire safety in buildings in England and Wales with two or more domestic residences, making changes to the Regulatory Reform Order 2005. It was sponsored by the Home Office.
5. Fire Safety Risk Assessment UK accessed 20 September 2022