I'd be interested in opinions from those who carry out and those who need to action fire risk assessment reports.

Currently I categorise additional controls needed in to High and Medium Priority but have been thinking about changing to "Essential", "Desirable" and "Good Practice" so that open containers of flammable liquids will require essential action, Cat L1 alarm may be desirable, depending on the circumstances, whilst inviting the local FRS for familiarisation may be Good Practice

Bearing in mind that many of my assessments are not merely basic compliance but more often for risk management purposes, what do people think about the change in presentation?

Mine are High, Medium or Low and I suggest timescales for action to be completed.

I also run through all action items with the Client before handing over my invoice once everything is understood.

IMO it doesn't really matter what you call the action items as it's up to the RP to have the action carried out and it usually comes down to cost.

If they don't want it done they won't get it done.

David: I believe it depends on the level of understanding of your audience and the level of compliance of their business... Most commonly I would guess your clients will not be familiar with the technical aspects of your assessments. Anything you can do to help them understand the "why" has to be good. I believe most business managers will understand the distinction between essential desirable and good practice - I think its a good way to describe things for many clients.

If you have clients who are long way from compliant - the report can become a long list of 'essential' items that 'MUST' be done 'Immediately'. Unfortunately this is likely to frighten many clients and may be counterproductive in the long run - they can't do everything so they do nothing. In such cases, I try to offer an opinion of which are 'breach with serious and imminent danger' and which are 'breach with risk of FFI'. Most clients seem to appreciate this distinction. I will not condone any breach but in practice I know that cash is tight and I would rather it is spent on reducing risk to people rather than chasing some bureaucracy...

Some good thoughts here. Thank you.

Keep 'em coming.

David

Hi mssy - I cannot disagree with your exposition of "the law" with regard to the finalised FRA document.

However, as I understood Davids original post, the question is about how the FR Assessor highlights to the recipient the importance of any identified remedial measures and that definitely requires some form of meaningful prioritisation.

With that in mind, could we just consider that inbetween the finalised FRA [or any RA] that you refer to and the working document produced by the Assessor there will be stages where additional remedial measures will be identified that are considered necessary to achieve the final standard that is considered acceptable [or "suitable and sufficient"]. This is the stage that I understood we were being asked to consider.

Perhaps David could confirm, or otherwise, whether I have interpreted his post as he intended?

Frank Hallett

From a risk management perspective there will be degrees of importance attached to risk improvement measures e.g. absolute legal obligation, published official guidance, required property protection measure specified by an insurer, recommended procedure to minimise damage or to achieve a specified standard.

Each of these will be considered by a business who will weigh up the effect on the business of either implementing or choosing not to do so, either from a full-informed standpoint or based solely on headline costs and perceived exposure.

A good consultant will give his client sufficient advice to enable them to make a well-informed decision.

Thus the thought behind my posting is the categories of risk control will be an added reminder to the end-user of the report on the basis for the recommendation, once the explanatory discussion has taken place.