Mssy; this is a good question and one in which I come across often. Sorry I do not have an answer for you, but something that may interest you. This is where the Fire (Scotland) Act (2005) differs and is more clear that the RRFSO. In Scotland we have 'duty holders' and these can be different people for example section 53 dealt with 'duties of employers to employees' and section 54 deals with 'duties in relation to the premises'. This can be the same or different duty holders. Then there is section 56 duties of employees. We operate care homes, many are owned by Housing Associations (HA). So... we do our fire risk assessment relation to, alarm and emergency light testing, fire drills, checking extinguishers and training our staff, etc. The property owner, (HA) does their fire risk assessment relating to the fabric of the building, maintenance of fire doors, alarm maintenance, building fit for purpose, fixed wiring checks etc. Now this is where it gets interesting, section 21 of the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 talks about co-ordination and co-operation between the parties. Your question is much clearer to answer in the Scottish legislation, but sorry this does not help you.

The RRFSO is rather nebulous when it comes to defining your type of scenario. I suggest to answer your question there may be more than one Responsible Person. My reasoning is if you look at RRFSO 3. (a) Responsible Person, it states in relation to a workplace, the employer, if the workplace is to any extent under his control; Now the second part of my reasoning I refer to 22.—(1) Where two or more responsible persons share, or have duties in respect of, premises (whether on a temporary or a permanent basis) each such person must— (a)co-operate with the other responsible person concerned so far as is necessary to enable them to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on them by or under this Order; . (b)(taking into account the nature of his activities) take all reasonable steps to co-ordinate the measures he takes to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on him by or under this Order with the measures the other responsible persons are taking to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on them by or under this Order; and . (c)take all reasonable steps to inform the other responsible persons concerned of the risks to relevant persons arising out of or in connection with the conduct by him of his undertaking. So, in effect all those in the building have duties. I appreciate from a practical perspective someone needs to be 'designated' the RP in order to carry out FRAs and associated remedial work. I suggest this should be whoever maintains the property or contracts out the mainteance, which is generally the case in a domestic block of flats, where the RP could be the building owner, the letting agent or the maintenance company if not the same.

I have always used the list provided in Article 3 as hierarchal - in that if there's an employer, then he is the RP (as employers always have the H&S responsibility for their staff & others) If there's no employer (say flats), the person in control = RP or if all else fails, the owner take the title. So in my example: The Healthtrust would occupy 99% of the premises, and as such have control in that it's their staff (re training), and any defects are the Heathtrust's responsibily to repair (via a request to the PFI provider) Of course, the PFI company, the coffee shop and the sweetshop would need to carry out their own FRA as far as their demise and MOE from their demise, although the sweetshop would not be required to record theirs (as its a family run SME) In other words, the RP relationship would be like any other multi-occupied building with shared responsibilities & duties. The bit that confuses me, is when two occupiers share exactly the same space (as in the Healthcare Trust & PFI provider)

Who is the Responsible Person? (Fire Safety Order 2005) In this situation it all boils down to control. The trust do the FRA of the wards and the areas they have control over. The Maintenance areas such as above ceilings, voids and switchrooms where the trust do not have control are done by the FM company The 3rd party areas for the coffee and sweetshop do there own FRA they all sit down to confirm that the whole building is covered and a shared document shows who is responsible for each area as the trust has the majority of staff all companies follow the trusts evacuation procedure so the answer is you have 4 responsible persons who are each responsible for there areas. However -- you will have the 3rd party persons trying to wriggle out of it and they may start to look into contracts. so alot is determined on the initial PFI contract and if the building was built prior to or post October 2006 when the RRO was brought into force, some pfi companies will actually charge you for them doing there FRA.