The second piece of advice given by the government is one which 2 Rivers always promotes with our colleagues and in fact we recommend, unless you have an ex-fireman on your staff, use one of the professional companies like Cardinus who are health and safety specialists.

Do a Fire Risk Assessment

Check that the fire risk assessment has been carried out within the previous 12 months and that the recommendations within the action plan of the assessment have been completed.  Also relevant at this time is to confirm that there has been no material changes to the building or occupancy that could potentially undermine the validity of the fire risk assessment.

If no assessment has been done, make arrangements for one to be done immediately.  At this point it will also be necessary to ensure a responsible person is appointed and they are suitably qualified. (This will be covered in more detail in advice 4).

Suffice to say at this point that the responsible/competent person must be listed on a register of fire risk assessors operated by a professional body or certification body, or preferably by a company that is certificated by a third party certification body, which is itself accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service to operate the certification scheme.

We suggest you start at the Health and Safety Executive.

Advice 3 tomorrow.