An assessor arriving at a building with plans, records, an informed contact and keys to everything will produce a better report, faster, than the same assessor arriving to a locked riser cupboard and a receptionist who has never heard of them.
Preparation is not a courtesy. It changes the output. Here is what to have ready.
Why it matters more than people think
The first of the nine steps in PAS 79-1:2020 and BS 9792:2025 is to obtain information about the building, the fire strategy where a documented one exists, the premises, the processes and the people. Much of that comes from a meeting with management before the physical inspection.
Both standards also require the report to record any significant areas that could not be accessed. Every locked door is a gap in your assessment, permanently recorded in a document you will hand to insurers, buyers and enforcing authorities.
And note the practical point: where an assessor has to establish a building's construction from first principles because nobody knows what is above the suspended ceiling, that is time you are paying for.
Documents to gather
Do not worry if you cannot find everything. Tell the assessor what is missing rather than saying nothing because absence of records is itself a finding and is better recorded accurately.
Essential
- Previous fire risk assessment and its action plan with completion status
- Floor plans, ideally showing escape routes, exits, compartment lines and the location of fire safety equipment
- Fire alarm records: installation and commissioning certificates, servicing records, weekly test log, fault and false alarm records
- Emergency lighting records: commissioning certificate, monthly function test log, annual duration test records
- Firefighting equipment: annual extinguisher service records
- Training records: fire awareness, fire warden or marshal and induction
- Fire drill records: dates and findings
- The emergency plan or fire procedure
- Details of anyone needing assistance to evacuate and any personal emergency evacuation plans
Where applicable
- Fire strategy and the regulation 38 fire safety information handed over at completion. If you took over a building post-2023, ask for the acknowledgement notice too
- Sprinkler or suppression system records
- Smoke control system commissioning and servicing records
- Fire door inspection records and any survey
- Compartmentation or fire stopping survey reports
- External wall information: PAS 9980 appraisal, EWS1 form, cladding remediation records
- Electrical: EICR and PAT records where relevant
- Gas safety certificate
- Lift records, including firefighting and evacuation lifts
- Dangerous substances: safety data sheets, DSEAR assessment, hazardous area classification drawings
- Licences and their conditions: premises, HMO, care registration
- Any correspondence with the fire and rescue authority, including notices and deficiency letters
- Lease or management agreement extracts showing who is responsible for what
- Contact details of other responsible persons for the building
- Details of recent or planned building works
For residential buildings specifically
- The evacuation strategy and whether stay put or simultaneous evacuation applies
- Any temporary simultaneous evacuation arrangements and waking watch details
- Resident engagement arrangements and the information issued under Article 21A
- The regulation 10 fire door check records
- Secure information box and wayfinding signage details, for buildings above 18 metres
- Details of residents with specific evacuation requirements, subject to data protection
Access: the part that goes wrong
Arrange in advance and put someone with keys at the assessor's disposal for the whole visit.
The assessor will need to reach:
- Every floor, including basements and roof level
- Plant rooms, boiler rooms, electrical intake rooms and switch rooms
- Riser cupboards, on every floor. These are inspected on a sampling basis and are one of the most productive places to find fire stopping defects
- Roof voids, where the building has a pitched roof. BS 9792:2025 expects a Type 1 assessment to extend into roof voids unless access is impractical, in which case that must be recorded
- Store rooms, cleaners' cupboards and under-stair spaces
- Refuse and bin stores
- Sub-let, tenanted or vacant areas, which need arranging with occupiers well ahead
- Lift motor rooms
- External areas, car parks and the full perimeter
For flats, where a Type 3 or Type 4 assessment is being carried out or where flat entrance doors are being sampled, access has to be arranged with residents in advance. Write to them, offer a range of times and keep a record of the attempts. Common practice is to sample around 10% of dwelling entrance doors, with a minimum of two.
Practical tip: the single most common cause of a return visit and a return visit charge, is a locked riser cupboard where nobody can find the key.
The right person on site
The assessor will want to speak to someone who can answer questions about how the building actually works. That means someone who knows:
- What happens when the alarm sounds and who does what
- How the building is used out of hours
- What the occupancy numbers actually are, not the design figures
- Whether anyone needs assistance to evacuate
- What works have been carried out and by whom
- Who maintains what and when it was last done
- What has gone wrong before: fires, near misses, alarm faults
That person is often a facilities manager, caretaker, site manager or long-serving member of staff. A receptionist who was told an assessor was coming cannot supply any of it and step five of the assessment, fire safety management, will be thin as a result.
What not to do
Do not tidy up for the visit. It is a natural instinct and it is counterproductive. If stock is normally stored in the escape corridor, the assessor needs to see that because that is the risk. Presenting an unrepresentative snapshot produces an assessment that does not describe your building, which helps nobody and protects you from nothing.
Do not unwedge the doors on the morning of the visit. Same reason. If doors are habitually wedged, that is a finding and the recommendation that follows will address why rather than simply telling you to stop.
Do not brief staff to give particular answers. Assessors ask staff what they would do if the alarm sounded. The honest answer is the useful one.
Do not hide the areas you know are bad. They will be found and concealment converts a finding into a conversation about credibility.
During the visit
Expect the assessor to:
- Hold an opening discussion with management before inspecting
- Walk the building systematically, including areas you may not have thought relevant
- Take photographs, which both standards expect where relevant to illustrate particular issues
- Open riser doors, lift a sample of ceiling tiles where demountable and look into voids
- Test a sample of fire doors for closing and latching
- Speak informally to staff or residents
- Examine records
- Ask questions that seem tangential, about cleaning contracts, waste collection, who holds keys, when the boiler was last serviced
Expect a closing discussion covering anything requiring immediate attention. If something presents an immediate serious risk, a competent assessor will tell you on the day rather than waiting for the report.
Afterwards
Read the report properly. All of it, not just the action plan.
Check that it contains:
- The type and scope of assessment and what was excluded
- The assessor's name, qualifications and any certification
- Areas that could not be accessed and why
- The benchmark standards applied
- A risk rating with a visible methodology, using at least five categories
- Written justification wherever an existing measure departs from current guidance but no upgrade is recommended
- A prioritised action plan with timescales
- A review date
Then act on it. An action plan you have received and not implemented is a documented record that you knew. Under Article 32(8) of the Fire Safety Order, a director can be personally liable where an offence is attributable to their neglect and an untouched action plan is difficult to characterise as anything else.
Practical steps:
- Assign every action an owner and a target date
- Address anything flagged as immediate risk immediately, including interim measures where permanent works will take time
- Keep evidence of completion: invoices, certificates, photographs, dated
- Track progress on a live document, not annually
- Record the review when you do it. Since 1 October 2023, Article 9(6) requires a record of the assessment or review
- Query anything you do not understand. A good assessor expects questions and should include a post-issue query period
A one-page checklist
Two weeks before
- Confirm date, arrival time and expected duration
- Identify who will accompany the assessor
- Write to residents or tenants where internal access is needed
- Start gathering documents
One week before
- Send documents to the assessor in advance where possible
- Confirm keys for every plant room, riser, roof and store
- Notify staff that the assessment is happening, without coaching them
- Flag any areas of known concern
On the day
- Nominated person available for the whole visit
- All keys in one place
- Records available on site or accessible
- Do not tidy
After
- Read the whole report
- Assign owners and dates to every action
- Deal with immediate risks first
- File evidence of completion
- Diarise the review date
Frequently asked questions
How long does a fire risk assessment take? A small simple premises, a couple of hours on site. A large or complex building, a day or more. Residential blocks with flat access can require multiple visits.
Do I need to close while it happens? No. Both standards note that assessments are most effective when carried out on premises in use so that actual working conditions, practices and procedures can be taken into account.
What if we cannot get into some flats? Sampling is normal. Record the attempts and the report will record which doors were sampled and what could not be accessed. For buildings above 11 metres, regulation 10(5) separately requires you to record the steps taken to try to gain access to flats for door checks.
What if we have no records at all? Say so. The assessor will record it as a finding and recommend what needs establishing. It is far better than an assessment based on assumptions nobody stated.
Should I be present? Someone who knows the building should be. It materially improves the fire safety management part of the assessment, which is where most action plan content originates.
How soon do we get the report? Varies by provider and complexity. Where a report is validated or peer reviewed before issue, which it should be under a third-party certificated scheme, allow time for that.
