Management arrangements are part of fire safety

A Fire Risk Assessment can identify what is wrong. A Fire Safety Management Plan helps an organisation determine how fire safety will be managed every day thereafter. This distinction is important.

A technically good FRA may still achieve little if nobody knows:

  • Who owns the actions
  • Who checks the fire doors
  • Who organises training
  • Who reviews maintenance records
  • Who follows up defects
  • Who manages contractors
  • Who updates emergency arrangements
Government guidance for Responsible Persons emphasises not only physical fire precautions but also appropriate management arrangements. It identifies planning, organisation, implementation, monitoring, audit and review as relevant parts of effective fire-safety management.

What can a Fire Safety Management Plan contain?

Depending upon the organisation, a plan may cover:

  • Governance: who has overall responsibility?
  • Roles: who is responsible for specific buildings, systems or activities?
  • Fire Risk Assessment: who commissions, reviews and acts upon the FRA?
  • Fire doors: who conducts routine checks, commissions professional inspections and tracks remediation?
  • Fire alarm: who tests it and who reviews faults?
  • Emergency lighting: who oversees testing and maintenance?
  • Training: who receives training and when?
  • Fire Wardens: how is sufficient coverage maintained?
  • Fire drills: who organises them and follows up lessons?
  • Contractors: how are contractors controlled where their work could affect fire precautions?
  • Change management: how are refurbishments, changes of use or new processes assessed?
  • Records: where is evidence retained?
  • Audit: how does management know the system is actually working?

Fire safety operates at organisational level

Government guidance recognises that an organisation’s fire-safety policy may address board-level responsibility, local Responsible Persons, nominated roles and arrangements for monitoring whether individuals are fulfilling their fire-safety responsibilities.

That is particularly relevant to organisations with multiple buildings. Without a consistent management framework, different sites can develop very different standards.

Records are evidence of management

Good records may include:

  • FRA and action plan
  • Alarm tests
  • Emergency-lighting tests
  • Fire-extinguisher maintenance
  • Fire-door checks and inspections
  • Training
  • Fire drills
  • Defect records
  • Remediation evidence
Government guidance notes that the quality of records can be a useful indication of the overall quality of the safety-management structure.

A plan should remain alive

A Fire Safety Management Plan should not become another document stored in a folder. It should be reviewed when:

  • Responsibilities change
  • Buildings change
  • New risks appear
  • Legislation changes
  • Audits identify weaknesses
  • Incidents or drills reveal problems
Stanford Global Limited develops tailored Fire Safety Management Plans designed to convert fire-safety requirements into clear responsibilities, procedures, monitoring arrangements and evidence.