With respect, I think your premises is incorrect from the outset. “We all know……” 

In fact in the Order, there is no requirement for the ‘assessor’ to be competent as long as he produces a compliant FRA

Your leading phrase perhaps should read, ‘We all know that the Responsible Person has to carry out and record a suitable and sufficient (fire) risk assessment’​​​​​​​

The term ‘competent person’ is mentioned and defined in a couple of areas within the Order - for example in Article 18 - but not in Articles 9 or 11 that refer to risk assessment and emergency procedures.

The rationale is a simple one - the Govt of the day was obsessed with reducing red tape for business and all new legislation had to go through certain tests to ensure it wasnt a burden. 

So - those who guided HMG on fire safety policy argued the following case: - Consider a married couple who own a corner shop with no staff, a meagre turnover and a premises which presents a low risk of fire. Is it reasonable for them to employ an expensive professional for such a risk? They concluded it wasnt.

To back that idea up they mentioned that a SME owner has to provide a huge amount of paperwork to HMRC and others. They usually have the choice of doing themselves or getting someone competent in. 

So fire safety should be manned in a similar way, and to allow DIY FRAs a suite of easy to read (??) Fire Safety Guides were published 

So we have ended up in this curious hybrid of you don't need to be competent, but the document needs to be compliant 

So - from my observations - you get:

The big companies - often with the bigger risk but lots of cash - employing competent fire safety professionals

Smaller one-man-bands with low risk premises may provide a DIY FRA (if you are lucky) but no real harm is done in terms of placing people at risk

Then we have the medium sized SMEs, with medium to high risk premises - maybe single story staircase builds etc. They cant afford a fire constant so ask their H&S guy to have a look. Or they will ask their caretaker to scribble something down. These are where the biggest problems and risks are I have no idea what’s happening in the world of compulsory registering for fire professionals - but post Grenfell - I am surprised its not mandatory - at least for certain types and sizes of buildings

The RRO did not require the fire risk assessor to be competent.  The requirement that the assessment be suitable and sufficient has indeed been taken by some to imply that the assessor must be competent.  You will apparently even find some online summaries of legislation that tell you the assessor has to be competent though this is not stated in the Order.  So the internet knows it, but it's wrong.

Following Grenfell,  the Building Safety Act 2022 has created an amendment to the RRO about assessor competence:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/section/156

This introduces a new article 9A, the gist of which is that you must not appoint an assessor who is not competent.

This has however I think not yet been brought into force as the practical definition of competence has not been precisely established (some kind of recognised register of certified assessors is going to be required).  So that's why you don't see it in the current version of the Order.

The reason for the amendment was precisely that the competence of the Grenfell Tower assessor was questioned without a sound legislative basis for competence being a legal requirement.

Originally Posted by: Messey

With respect, I think your premises is incorrect from the outset. “We all know……” 

In fact in the Order, there is no requirement for the ‘assessor’ to be competent as long as he produces a compliant FRA

Your leading phrase perhaps should read, ‘We all know that the Responsible Person has to carry out and record a suitable and sufficient (fire) risk assessment’​​​​​​​

The term ‘competent person’ is mentioned and defined in a couple of areas within the Order - for example in Article 18 - but not in Articles 9 or 11 that refer to risk assessment and emergency procedures.

The rationale is a simple one - the Govt of the day was obsessed with reducing red tape for business and all new legislation had to go through certain tests to ensure it wasnt a burden. 

So - those who guided HMG on fire safety policy argued the following case: - Consider a married couple who own a corner shop with no staff, a meagre turnover and a premises which presents a low risk of fire. Is it reasonable for them to employ an expensive professional for such a risk? They concluded it wasnt.

To back that idea up they mentioned that a SME owner has to provide a huge amount of paperwork to HMRC and others. They usually have the choice of doing themselves or getting someone competent in. 

So fire safety should be manned in a similar way, and to allow DIY FRAs a suite of easy to read (??) Fire Safety Guides were published 

So we have ended up in this curious hybrid of you don't need to be competent, but the document needs to be compliant 

So - from my observations - you get:

The big companies - often with the bigger risk but lots of cash - employing competent fire safety professionals

Smaller one-man-bands with low risk premises may provide a DIY FRA (if you are lucky) but no real harm is done in terms of placing people at risk

Then we have the medium sized SMEs, with medium to high risk premises - maybe single story staircase builds etc. They cant afford a fire constant so ask their H&S guy to have a look. Or they will ask their caretaker to scribble something down. These are where the biggest problems and risks are I have no idea what’s happening in the world of compulsory registering for fire professionals - but post Grenfell - I am surprised its not mandatory - at least for certain types and sizes of buildings

Messey, I'm sure, or think I'm sure you will remember the OSRP Act "Pink Cards".  Many many years ago when I was a young fireman we occasioanally went out on FP with a handful of PinkCards to the local shops to inspect their fire prevention arrangements.

Your mention of the corner shop made me think of the Bucher's shops with only two or three rooms without Fire extinguisher.  We were told to advise a single 2 gallon bucket of water would suffice, and that near to the rear exit.

Originally Posted by: Kate

This introduces a new article 9A, the gist of which is that you must not appoint an assessor who is not competent.

Once again HM gov lets everyone down with the detail: A person is to be regarded as competent for the purposes of this article where the person has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable the person properly to assist in making or reviewing the assessment.

Not defined

- sufficient training (nor what subjects that training should be in)

- experience (life, general, detailed, topic specific)

- knowledge (of?)

- "other qualities" (such as?)

Personally I have always used the services of members of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers

https://ifsm.org.uk/fire-risk-assessors/

That kind of detail is something that I would expect to see in guidance, rather than in legislation.

But I agree it is needed.  For one thing, someone competent to assess one kind of premises may not be for another and any precise practical definition of competence will have to address that.

1 of my clients had our annual Citation audit today. Their office is 50m2 up a single flight of stairs with a toilet and a sink on the landing area.

I completed the Citation FRA ( from their Website). They have a fitted alarm, extinguishers, emergency lighting, running man signs so completely compliant.

But the assessor stated the FRA had to be completed by a NEBOSH Fire course (or equivalent). He stated that my NEBOSH Gen qualification didn't cover me to conduct the FRA. Despite completing it for this office for the last 14 years with no changes.

My client isn't keen on spending a load of money to be told exactly the same information that I've told him.

Originally Posted by: Mark-W

1 of my clients had our annual Citation audit today. Their office is 50m2 up a single flight of stairs with a toilet and a sink on the landing area.

I completed the Citation FRA ( from their Website). They have a fitted alarm, extinguishers, emergency lighting, running man signs so completely compliant.

But the assessor stated the FRA had to be completed by a NEBOSH Fire course (or equivalent). He stated that my NEBOSH Gen qualification didn't cover me to conduct the FRA. Despite completing it for this office for the last 14 years with no changes.

My client isn't keen on spending a load of money to be told exactly the same information that I've told him.

So, they could not find anything wrong with your assessment other than in their view you are not competent.

You of course checked their credentials thoroughly and asked exactly where it is written a fire risk assessor must have done a NEBOSH course.

Originally Posted by: ShaunBaker91

So what deems you to have the required competence, i.e. knowledge, skills and understanding of fires and fire prevention? 

If you feel that you are a competent fire risk assessor then you should be able to inform Citation of what qualifies you to undertake this assessment, i.e. alternative training.

Think this was explained quite well by Messey at Post 2 and Kate at Post 4.

Unfortunately we are currently in a vacuum whilst HM Gov absorbs the recommendations from Grenfell and then decides upon an appropriate course of action.

There are many sectors busily adapting in the hope that what they conclude will satisfy any regulatory change - unfortunately until the regulation becomes known there remains uncertainty.

Just as the recommendation is for a "competency register" in the construction of High Risk Buildings so too it follows there should be a register of assessors for fire risk - that does not necessarilty translate that everyone involved in either activity must be on the list.

Originally Posted by: Mark-W

the assessor stated the FRA had to be completed by a NEBOSH Fire course (or equivalent)

The delights of interpretation by a (hopefully qualified) assessor in the absence of a black and white definition.

I sense a sales pitch on the horizon.

In my experience it is usually the fire risk assessor agency that states the requirement for competency as they are selling (or trying to) sell their company's registration.

I remember on this forum a few years back someone writing about the comparison between an ex fireman and someone who has attended a course and gained the registration.  No argument from me this time but I know who I would prefer.

I could name a few but won't as it may indicate my preferences, I have been on a few registers and gained some work (but not a lot), so not a member of any now.  Like Messey I am almost retired but do keep up to date.

As for my Competency I know my limitations.  I would not attempt to fra a high rise building on my own, a medium height yes and anything below.

Problem is most members of a register will be very negative about assessors who are not on a register and will advertise that, therefore losing me work.

You do need to have specific FRA training to demonstrate competence. I would always recommend completing the Fire Safety Risk Management on Construction Sites Diploma. It's very informative and equips you will all the tools you need, as long as you have the relevant experience to back it up.

Originally Posted by: Adam Crichton

You do need to have specific FRA training to demonstrate competence.

To help with understanding could you please provide the regulation where this is stated given yours is the first post making such an assertion in this thread.

On 22 October in post #8 Roundtuit wrote "to assist in making or reviewing the assessment".

The words "assist in making or reviewing" stood out and hit me in the face.  This seems to exclude the actual making of the fire risk assessment in the first instance.

That was point b) from the link to legislation provided by Kate at #4.

Point a) being: The responsible person must not appoint a person to assist them with making or reviewing an assessment under article 9 unless that person is competent.

Originally Posted by: Kate

And the point I was making about that legislation is that it has been passed (as part of the Building Safety Act creating an amendment to the Fire Safety Order) but not yet been applied (i.e. this bit of the Building Safety Act has not commenced, so the Fire Safety Order has not yet been amended to state this, so it is not yet current law).

The "making" of the fire risk assessment is now and will continue to be the responsibility of the Responsible Person who is defined in law, in that it is for the Responsible Person to make sure it is done and to decide who will assist them by actually doing it.  This amendment will place a restriction on who the Responsible Person may appoint to assist them by doing or reviewing the assessment on their behalf.

Now the Responsible Person in a typical business premises is the employer (the business) who is operating there.  The Responsible Person might appoint an employee such as their  health and safety adviser to do the assessment.  My reading of this is that this will be prohibited if the employee isn't competent and it will be the employer, not the adviser, who will have committed an offence if the employee isn't competent (although it might be possible to argue that the employee has done wrong under some other legislation).  So this does still fall slightly short of saying that a fire risk assessor must be competent.  There is a subtle difference between that and saying you musn't appoint someone who isn't competent.

That is exactly how I reads things too Kate (10/10 for your explaination) other than I think the Responsible Person AND Advisor will be held to account if the person helping is not competent There's case law under Article 5(4)(a) where the RP and a fire alarm engineer were prosecuted when the engineer was found to be not competent . The RP as he failed to appoint a competent person and the engineers under Article 5(4) as he was treated as the RP insofar as the matter that applied to him I think these changes are well overdue. It allows the owner of a SME to do the FRA himself but anyone helping him must be competent. It brings this area in line with when the RP employs a fire alarm engineer, trainer or electrician (EL) 

From HM gov "Explanatory Notes on the Building Safety Act:

The amendments to the Fire Safety Order build on the Fire Safety Act 2021, which clarifies that the FSO applies to the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors in buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises.

The amendments require that all Responsible Persons (RPs) must record their fire risk assessments; must not appoint a person to assist them with undertaking a fire risk assessment unless that person is competent; must provide specific, comprehensible and relevant information about fire safety matters to residents of buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises, and must keep records of this information; must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to identify other RPs in the same premises, inform each other of their name and United Kingdom address and of the parts of the premises for which they consider themselves to be an RP and to record that information; that a departing RP must provide specific fire safety information to incoming RPs; and, for higher-risk buildings including a domestic dwelling, must identify and co-operate with Accountable Persons (as defined in the Building Safety Act) in the same premises.

The government will never define “competence” in terms of holding a particular qualification or  being on a particular register. This is for two reasons 1) this scheme inevitably be run by some sort of industry body and somebody i.e the government will need to monitor that body to ensure that is is competent to set up the scheme and remains competent to run the scheme. There is no appetite for HMG to do this sort of thing and 2) any such scheme would need to be self-financing but not run for a profit. People on the scheme would complain about the costs etc and there was always the danger that the scheme might go bust. Who would then be responsible for the names held by the scheme and who would pay for replacing the scheme. The government is perfectly happy with a vague definition of “competent” which can be decided on a case by case basis  by the courts if it all goes wrong.

Possibly, but I think the reason the government hasn't yet brought the competence requirement into legal force is because they recognise that some kind of working definition of competence is required.  They are apparently still considering the recommendations of the Grenfell report, one of which is mandatory accreditation of fire risk assessors.  That means they will have to decide whether or not to go for a register (or who knows, possibly multiple rival registers).

Sorry yes, I meant it is owned by the HSE according to their website.