I have been asked to risk assess a High Voltage room and make an addendum to a Fire Risk Assessment.  The Fire Risk Assessment was undertaken by someone else and I feel uncomfortable with making an addendum to someone else’s FRA.  Can you even do an ‘addendum’?

Is there is a legal implication in ‘changing someone else’s FRA’ and possibly taking ownership of that previous FRA when adding to it.  What if they have failed to pick some risk up in their FRA that you are adding to, does it become your legal liability as you added to the FRA?

Although the organisation I work for has Crown indemnity, should there be a fire resulting in a fatality and the FRA came into question what would be the position?

I agree with Kate that any addendum will by its very nature address its limited scope

Addendum to assessment XYX originally prepared by & Dated

Reason for addendum

Assessment

Signed & Dated by yourself.

Ignoring the Crown Immunity aspect I am getting a hint that you are not feeling confident with this request.

If it is not within your personal competence you should rightly refuse especally if it is merely the case someone does not want to pay the origial assessor for a follow up visit - after all any FRA is only valid on the day it is written and does rquire regular review.

Hello Lindoor and  welcome to the forum

There is one  mantra that regular users of this forum make which is:” risk assessment is process not a form”. More importantly it is a process that the organisation carries out to make sure that they are compliant  with the relevant legislation and more importantly ensure that work activities are carried out in a safe manner. As far as the Fire Safety Order is concerned the  risk assessment,  has no fixed  format or anything so as long as it is clear you can add an addendum; you don’t get extra marks for a nice form!

You mention Crown Indemnity, that usually refers to the fact that government department do not have Employer’s Liability insurance; so if someone sues the government for negligence etc   the treasure coughs up the money. Crown Immunity, refers to the legal principle that the government(the Crown)   cannot prosecute itself, so although the Fire Safety order applies to Crown premises the bits about being prosecuted or inspectors issuing notices does not apply. Instead the organisation involved is censured and the responsible people have their cards marked. So for example a Knighthood is down graded to a CBE, which hurts career civil servants.  

Hi Lindoor

I am with others on the principle that there is no problem with an Addendum to a risk assessment.

But with one caveat.

Assuming this HV room existed at the time of the previous FRA, what did that FRA say about both the HV room and how it could impact the rest of the building?

As whether or not it existed, it might well have implications for the validity of the whole FRA as the risks that you deal with in the Addendum are very unlikely to be entirely separate from the risks pertaining to the building as a whole.

Now suppose for a moment that this HV room is in the Basement. The risks at and from the HV room will almost certainly be relevant to other parts of the Basement and likely Ground Floor too. Whether or not the risks from the HV room are refevant to the Attic floor would depend on multiple variables such as services in the building.

So at the same time as doing a specific FRA for the HV room, it seems to me essential that this be done with an eye to the content of the existing FRA for the building and what amendments to that might be needed.

From your personal perspective it would be important to clearly set out what the limits of your scope of work may be.