Hi All
Doing fire risk assessments for a major 'blue chip' company. They include an action plan for each area which porvides amongst other things an 'Action By' date. The client has asked me to substitute the 'action by' date for a high, medium or low risk identifcation for each action instead. I have provided a risk evaluation for each completed area of High, Medium or Low and felt suitable realistic 'action by' dates for each action by myself were the best way forward for them. Obviously the client wants some flexibility with dates. So, question, am I leaving myself open by not putting 'action by' dates and is high, medium or low suitable. Or should I stick with the status quo?

I would tend to agree with Kate, and low, medium, high is the format that I tend to use. If I feel that something is a particular priority, I will highlight this and explain why.

We also use low, medium, or high risk but prioritise actions required from 1 to 4 - 1 being within 1 month, then 6 months, 12 months then long term improvements over 2 years, though to be honest we are at a level now where anything requiring doing would probably be a 1, perhaps new training maybe a 2 or a 3.

Nothing inherently wrong with High, Medium, Low. However, how can you factor in review dates if there are no guidelines on action completion timescales?

In my opinion, (note the long hand there...), if the site were visited by a Fire and Rescue Service Officer and they asked to see the fire risk assessment; how would they be able to suitably quantify the actions?

Very many thanks to all of you for the responses and advice and especially nickh re: 'quantify the actions'. So I've decided to stick with the current format. Each building / area has been given a High, Medium or Low risk rating and the actions prioritised with dates, according to their level of seriousness...... I think you can probably guess that the change request has come about as my FRAs have led to 'squeaky bum' time in terms of what I have 'discovered'.

Agree Victor, your advice is for the recipients of your report to consider and decide upon. If they choose to adopt a different timeframe for implementation then their decision may need to be justified and their decision may be perfectly valid, as they will have access to additional data that may affect the decision.

Bob, sometimes we need to come to conclusions, make decisions and offer advice based on our own expertise. It is not always possible nor necessarily advisable to work as a committee. In those circumstances, yes, we may well be exposed to scrutiny. That's what many of us are employed to do, some for wages or salary, some for professional fees (and the latter will usually pay insurance companies to transfer some risk).