Hi All. Your views on this one please. I am currently employed as H&S advisor to a coporate company , the company are also the property owner, they have just had a brand new building built and want to instruct an external property management team ( well known and respected) to take on the responsibiliy role of all things fire safety management ( of which hey are happy to do as long as its all documented and agreed contractualy). Now the propoerty owner has a senior staff member with the budgetry requirements etc in place at the top of the fire safety management structure who will remain so). I believe this arangement is classed as passing of the responsible persons responsibiity but dthat oes not mean the property owner / client is stil not accountable. The way it looks like going is the external property management team will treat the client as a tenent in their own premises e.g. expected them to have a fire risk assessment, policies and procedures, fire safety training for all staff and fire emergency arrangements in place.The management team said they will hold/maintain all records e.g.the fire log books for the whole premises. Taking into account the accountabilitiy mentioned,  I added to this if the proposal is acceptable that the property owner should have an independant H&S audit done max once yearly to ensure the management team are fulfilling the role/s set out as contractually agreed.

Has anyone had a similiar expeiriance with what  I have mentioned and if so how did it work out Kind Regards Actsafe

Well, as from the title of this thread it is clear that to manager a fire safety system, there must a responsible person to keep his eye on it. In other words if you have installed a fire alarm system then you must give it timely check whether it is working correctly or not?

Originally Posted by: Actsafe

Hi All. Your views on this one please. I am currently employed as H&S advisor to a coporate company , the company are also the property owner, they have just had a brand new building built and want to instruct an external property management team ( well known and respected) to take on the responsibiliy role of all things fire safety management ( of which hey are happy to do as long as its all documented and agreed contractualy). Now the propoerty owner has a senior staff member with the budgetry requirements etc in place at the top of the fire safety management structure who will remain so). I believe this arangement is classed as passing of the responsible persons responsibiity but dthat oes not mean the property owner / client is stil not accountable. The way it looks like going is the external property management team will treat the client as a tenent in their own premises e.g. expected them to have a fire risk assessment, policies and procedures, fire safety training for all staff and fire emergency arrangements in place.The management team said they will hold/maintain all records e.g.the fire log books for the whole premises. Taking into account the accountabilitiy mentioned,  I added to this if the proposal is acceptable that the property owner should have an independant H&S audit done max once yearly to ensure the management team are fulfilling the role/s set out as contractually agreed.

Has anyone had a similiar expeiriance with what  I have mentioned and if so how did it work out Kind Regards Actsafe

https://www.gov.uk/workplace-fire-safety-your-responsibilities/who-is-responsible 

You’re responsible for fire safety in business or other non-domestic premises if you’re:

• an employer
• the owner
• the landlord
• an occupier
• anyone else with control of the premises, eg a facilities manager, building manager, managing agent or risk assessor

You’re known as the ‘responsible person’. If there’s more than one responsible person, you have to work together to meet your responsibilities.

The way i'd interpret that is that the person in charge at your company (director, CEO, whatever) is still the responsible person but that the company you're engaging to do the actual fire stuff is as well. So long as there's a clear distinction over who is responsible for doing what (in terms of papereork, inspections, training etc) then i can't see there being too much of a problem.

Edited by user 13 March 2017 12:25:06(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Originally Posted by: hannahbilson

Well, as from the title of this thread it is clear that to manager a fire safety system, there must a responsible person to keep his eye on it. In other words if you have installed a fire alarm system then you must give it timely check whether it is working correctly or not?

It's worth bearing in mind that whilst the responsible person is, well, responsible it might not actually be them doing the checks. For example, where i work the ultimate responsible person is the director of the company. He probably doesn't even know where the alarm panel is!

This approach is common. At my last employer we had an FM contractor (where did you find one that is actually “well known and respected”!) who looked after the fire safety systems for the site including the FRA.  Nevertheless we still had to chase them up (a lot) to make sure that they did what was needed and we were willing to challenge them if we felt that they were not doing enough to ensure the safety of our site and staff.