Who can actually carry out a fire risk assessment?
There's a persistent misconception that carrying out a fire risk assessment requires a specific, named qualification — a single certificate that makes someone legally entitled to sign one off. That's not quite how the current Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 frames it. What the Order actually asks for is that the assessment is carried out by a "competent person," and competence is a broader, more situational test than a single piece of paper.
What "competent" means in this context
Competence generally means having enough training, knowledge and experience to identify the risks in a given building and judge what's needed to address them. For a small, simple, low-occupancy building, a responsible person with reasonable fire safety knowledge might reasonably carry out their own assessment. For anything more complex — mixed occupancy, vulnerable residents, unusual layouts, sleeping risk — that bar rises quickly, and self-assessment becomes a harder position to justify.
Why 'in-house' assessments carry more risk than they look like
The appeal of doing it in-house is obvious: it's cheaper and faster than bringing in an external assessor. The risk is less obvious until something goes wrong — an in-house assessment that misses a significant finding a genuinely competent assessor would have caught is a harder position to defend afterwards, because the responsible person had the option of an independent, qualified view and chose not to take it.
What to look for in an external assessor
- Relevant fire risk assessment qualifications or accreditation through a recognised professional body
- Demonstrable experience with buildings of a similar type, use and complexity to yours
- Professional indemnity insurance appropriate to the work
- A clear, structured report format with significant findings and a prioritised action plan, not just a pass/fail summary
- A track record you can actually verify — references, or membership of a body that maintains standards
Competence isn't transferred by hiring someone
It's worth being clear that hiring a competent assessor doesn't hand the responsible person's legal duty to someone else. The responsibility for fire safety in the building stays with the responsible person — the assessor's job is to inform that duty with an expert, independent judgement, not to take it on wholesale.
Multiple assessors, multiple buildings
On a portfolio, it's common to use several different assessors across different buildings over time — different firms, different individual assessors as staff move on. That's not a problem in itself, but it does mean the format and thoroughness of assessments can vary noticeably between buildings, which makes consistent tracking of actions across a portfolio harder unless it's pulled into one place rather than left across separate PDFs and separate filing systems.
Key takeaways
- The RRFSO requires a 'competent person' to carry out an FRA, not a specific named qualification for every building type.
- Competence requirements scale with the complexity and risk profile of the building.
- For anything beyond a simple, low-occupancy building, an independent, appropriately qualified assessor is the safer position.
- Hiring an external assessor doesn't transfer the responsible person's legal duty — it informs it.
- On a portfolio using multiple assessors, tracking actions consistently across buildings needs a deliberate system.
What counts as sufficient competence for a specific building is ultimately a judgement call best made with reference to current official guidance and, where there's any doubt, a conversation with a genuinely independent fire safety professional.
The FireOptix team
Written by people who work daily with responsible persons on fire risk assessment, fire door checks and the records that hold up under a inspection.