Tony Carlyon: UK Compliance & Fire Safety

Most small businesses have a fire alarm, a few extinguishers and a fire exit sign over the back door. Far fewer have staff who know what to do when the alarm actually goes off. That gap is exactly what the law is trying to close, and it is one of the first things an inspector or an insurer will ask about after a fire. What the law requires Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the employer must make sure every employee gets adequate fire safety instruction and training. It has to happen when they start, when their duties change or new risks are introduced, and it should be repeated at suitable intervals. It must also take place during working hours, so it cannot be left as something people do in their own time. Who needs it The short answer is everyone who works in the building, including part timers, agency staff and temporary workers. Some people need more than the basics: All staff need an induction covering the alarm, the escape routes and the assembly poi...

A scaffold that was safe on Monday is not automatically safe on Friday. Wind, a delivery lorry clipping a standard, or a boarded section being removed so the bricklayers can get at the wall can all change what you are standing on. The law expects scaffolds to be checked regularly and checked by the right person, and on a lot of small sites that is where things slip. What the law actually says The Work at Height Regulations 2005 require any scaffold from which a person could fall two metres or more to be inspected by a competent person. This is a legal duty on the person in control of the work, not a courtesy. The inspection is separate from the risk assessment, which I covered in my post on the working at height risk assessment most sites get wrong . When an inspection is needed Before first use, once the scaffold has been erected or altered. At least every seven days while it stays in use. After anything that could have affected its stability, such as strong winds, heav...

Power cuts and fires have an unpleasant habit of arriving together. If the lights go out in a building full of people, the escape routes need to stay visible, and that is the job of emergency lighting. It is one of the most commonly neglected parts of fire safety, mainly because it sits quietly on the ceiling until the day it is needed. What emergency lighting is actually for Its purpose is simple. If the normal lighting fails, it lights the way out so people can leave safely, and it makes sure fire alarm call points, fire fighting equipment and exit signs can still be seen. It is not there to keep the business running. It is there to get people out. Who needs it Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person has to make sure escape routes can be used safely at all times, including in the dark. In practice that means shops, offices, workshops, care homes, HMOs and the shared parts of blocks of flats will usually need emergency lighting, depending on th...

Ask ten landlords what fire alarm their HMO needs and you will get ten different answers. Some say a few smoke alarms from the DIY shop will do. Others have been told they need a full system with a control panel. The right answer depends on the building, and the terms used in the guidance are confusing if nobody has ever explained them. This is how I break it down for clients. Where the standard comes from For houses and flats, including HMOs, the reference standard is BS 5839-6. It splits fire alarm systems into grades, which describe the equipment, and categories, which describe where the detection goes. Your local authority will usually tell you which combination it expects as part of licensing, and your fire risk assessment should agree with it. The grades in plain English Grade A is a full system with detectors, sounders and a central control panel, much like a small commercial setup. Grade D is mains powered, interlinked smoke and heat alarms with a battery back-up. Grade F i...

A near miss is an event that could have hurt someone or damaged something, but did not. A pallet tips off a rack and lands where a worker was standing a minute earlier. A wet floor is spotted just before someone walks across it. Nobody is injured, so it is tempting to shrug and carry on. That is the mistake. Near misses are free warnings, and the businesses that record them tend to have fewer real accidents. Is there a legal duty to report them? There is no general legal requirement to keep a near miss log, but the law does expect you to manage risks and learn from what goes wrong. One exception matters: under RIDDOR, certain events called dangerous occurrences must be reported to the HSE even when no one is hurt, such as the collapse of a scaffold or a serious electrical short circuit causing a fire. Outside those, recording near misses is good practice that also helps you show you took reasonable steps if an incident does happen later. Why people do not report them In my experien...

Lifting, carrying, pushing and pulling look like the least dramatic hazards on any workplace list, which is exactly why they get skipped. They are also one of the most common causes of injury at work, and most of those injuries are completely avoidable. Here is what the law expects from a small business and how to do the assessment without making a meal of it. What the law says The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 set out a simple order of play. First, avoid hazardous manual handling if you reasonably can. Second, if you cannot avoid it, assess the risk. Third, reduce the risk as far as reasonably practicable. There is no fixed legal weight limit, which surprises a lot of people. What matters is whether the task, in your workplace, with your people, is likely to cause harm. Employees have duties too: they must follow safe systems of work and use any equipment provided. Start by asking if the lift is needed at all Before you assess anything, look at whether the task can b...

A site induction is the first thing a worker should get on a new job, and it is the thing most often done badly. A rushed five minutes at the gate with a clipboard does not count. Here is what the law expects, what a good one covers, and who actually needs one. What the law says Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the principal contractor must make sure a suitable site induction is provided to everyone who works on the site. On a project with only one contractor, that duty sits with the contractor. The key word is suitable, which means it has to fit the site and the people. A generic talk that could be given anywhere does not meet the bar. If you want the wider picture of who holds which duty, my guide to CDM 2015 duties for small contractors covers it. What a good site induction covers Keep it short enough that people take it in, but specific to the job in front of them. At a minimum I would expect to see: Site rules: access and exit routes, parki...

  Most workplaces need someone to actually run an evacuation when the alarm goes off, not just a document that says one should happen. That person is the fire marshal, sometimes called a fire warden, and the role gets confused a lot with the "competent person" who does your fire risk assessment. They are not the same job, and mixing them up is one of the more common gaps I see when I review a site's fire arrangements. What a fire marshal actually does Day to day, a fire marshal keeps an eye on the basics: fire doors not being wedged open, escape routes not getting blocked with stock or furniture, extinguishers not going missing from their points. When the alarm sounds, their job is to sweep their assigned area, check toilets and side rooms people forget about, direct others to the nearest usable exit, and report to the assembly point so you know everyone assigned to them is accounted for. They are not expected to fight a fire, and should never be put in a position where t...