Everyone’s business – why the fire safety risk assessment is more than just law

There’s a sense in which the best, or at least the most compelling, reason to perform a fire safety risk assessment is this: it’s the law. Any business found not to have performed a yearly risk assessment on the fire safety of their premises and practices is required to do so immediately and present that assessment to the relevant authorities for inspection. Authorities may then further require the business in question to take certain actions as a result of their risk assessment. Failure to comply with these recommendations is illegal and can result in hefty fines, or, in worst case scenarios, immediate closure of premises.
That’s a pretty good reason on its own to carry out a fire safety risk assessment. It’s certainly a cost conscious one. Everyone’s business requires a constant eye on its money, its incomings and outgoings and its potential for overspending or poor fiscal judgement. Fiscal judgement doesn’t come much poorer than cutting corners by not doing a risk assessment and suddenly finding oneself fined or closed – or, worst of all, burned to the ground, with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business vanishing in smoke.
Being burned, of course, is quite literally the most serious risk of all. And its consequences, fiscal or otherwise, don’t just apply to the nebulous entity that is a business. A fire safety risk assessment is designed primarily to safeguard the lives of employees and individuals working in and around a company premises. Aside from the legislative and financial repercussions of being held legally responsible for injuries and deaths resulting from a premises blaze (and any company that has not carried out a risk assessment, or acted on the advice from that risk assessment, will be fully liable): the burden of guilt, of straight up wrong, that a company must shoulder in this situation is (or should be) intolerable.
The fire safety risk assessment takes very little time to complete. Even for a big premise, following proper guidelines, it only takes an hour or two. Hardly a huge investment when one considers that those two hours could save hundreds of lives. Perform a simple cost benefit analysis: two hours, versus all those days and months and years people may be allowed to live for if a risk assessment is done properly and according to law.
The assessment covers every area of possible risk, which is in itself a hugely valuable training in the prevention and combat of fire. Nothing helps employees and management get to know their premises, and the risks it might contain, better than a fire safety risk assessment – and that, of course, means that nothing makes a business more likely to eradicate any potential danger than performing one. Outside illness, fire is the number one destroyer of lives and property in the UK. Any business can become another charred statistic. Or every business can co-operate, legally and morally, and ensure that they are properly protected against losing a lot more than just money. Get up to date today.

Additional articles about Fire risk assessment

About the author

UK Fire Training provides on-site staff fire warden training and fire safety risk assessment training courses by the qualified ex-fire service trainers in UK.

Please Rate This Article

Select Rating Excellent Very Good Interesting Fair Could Use Improvement

Number of ratings: 0
Rating: 0