Fire Safety Management

This blog is based on Judicium’s Health and Safety ‘Sofa Session’ from the 12th of March, with our resident expert Mike Wright, CMIOSH. This session focused on your legal requirements and the importance of fire safety in schools, fire safety checks and maintenance requirements and building evacuation responsibilities.

Poll 1

Case Study

A fire in the top floor of a girls' school in West Sussex.

It was a comprehensive school for students aged 11-16 and judged as outstanding by Ofsted. The building was a prefabricated building, constructed in the 1960s. The fire was started in the toilets located to the second floor at about 3pm on a Thursday afternoon, which badly damaged the top floor of the school.

Three hundred occupants were present within the building at the time of the incident. 

A number of pupils’ GCSE work was destroyed by the fire, which caused severe disruptions in the school. 

More than 30 firefighters tackled the blaze for several hours. 

The case was treated as a crime as the fire badly damaged the third storey of the building.  

A 16-year-old girl was arrested and charged with arson and with intent to endanger life. 

It was confirmed the fire spread quickly due to the compartmentation breaches and wedged open fire doors.  

“The importance of reviewing your Fire Risk Assessment and taking action is a clear reminder.” 

Statistics

• Zurich data shows that school fires caused on average more than £128,000 worth of damage last year and over 1,000 fires occur in UK schools each year.
• In the three years to 2023, the insurer saw 115 blazes in schools, causing in total more than £27 million in damage.
• The largest percentage of school fires is arson. 
• The leading area of fire origin is the school toilets and there is an increased risk in the summer months. 
• Effective fire safety management can reduce the risk of serious fires by up to 80%, through proactive maintenance, staff training, and regular risk assessments.(Source: Fire Protection Association (FPA), 2022) 

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 – Legal requirements and the importance of Fire Safety in schools  

Why have a Fire Safety Policy?  

We’ll start with the legal framework that defines what we need to manage. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, better known as the RRO, the law requires you to have a formal Fire Safety Policy and is an important part of your fire safety management system. 

It will demonstrate the organisation's fire safety procedures and what actions people should take in the event of fire. This will ensure the safety of employees, students and any visitors to the premises, from the dangers of fire. The policy should be reviewed annually and signed off by the Responsible Person.

The contents of the policy are usually broken down into two areas Organisation and Arrangements.

Organisation

• Management Responsibilities
• Roles, Responsibilities and Duties of staff
• Contractors’ duties

Arrangements 

• Fire Risk Assessment
• Fire Management System
• Planning
• Emergency Evacuation Plan
• Hirers and Extended School Providers
• Communication and Cooperation with other Responsible Persons
• Organisational Chart

To manage fire safety, the policy identifies your legal remit, which staff require specific responsibilities within your school and what their duties are.

Identifying staff responsibilities falls into two areas: 

1. the responsible person who has control over the premises,
2. the competent persons, those who assist in the preventative and protection measures.

By identifying, allocating and defining staff roles and responsibilities for managing fire, you will also need to complete a Training Needs Analysis to identify who needs what level of training to be competent in their role. 

Training can come in the form of e-learning modules for general fire safety awareness and fire warden training and refresher training, face to face training courses for leadership and those that manage fire safety on a day-to-day basis, e.g. headteachers, H&S leads, premises staff.

Poll 2

Who is the Responsible Person? 

Poll 3

NB: There were recent changes in October 2023, Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 makes changes to The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These new amendments directly affect all Responsible Persons.

These changes state all responsible persons for fire safety are to record their contact information and share it with their employees and other responsible persons within the same building/ premises. 

For hirers using areas of the academy buildings out of hours, such as the hall/sports hall, the school must ensure fire safety information is shared with all hirers to ensure a good line of communication around fire safety. This includes exchanging information of responsible persons and fire risk assessments. 

To comply with the amendments of the Fire Safety Reform Order (Introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022), the school/academy must provide each other with the names of the responsible person/s, (or that of someone acting on their behalf), a UK-based address to receive notices or documentation, and information about their responsibilities under the Fire Safety Order. 

It is important to keep a record of this information. Additionally, this will assist if needed when a new responsible person takes over a part of the premises to ensure they provide the necessary information. 

Poll 4

The Competent Person/s

Building Evacuation & Responsibilities 

There must be a fire emergency evacuation plan, which is a written document that includes the action to be taken by all staff in the event of fire, including the arrangements for calling the fire brigade. The plan should be documented, always available to staff and prominently displayed. 

It should consider the findings of the FRA and give clear and concise instructions to be followed in case of fire. The following should be considered when developing or reviewing an emergency evacuation plan: 

• Fire evacuation strategy, usually for a school this is a simultaneous procedure.  
• Action on discovering a fire 
• Action on hearing the fire alarm 
• Calling the fire brigade 
• Power/process isolation 
• Identification of key escape routes 
• Fire wardens/marshals 
• Places of assembly and roll call 
• Firefighting equipment provided 
• Training required 
• Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans and procedures 
• Liaison with the emergency services  

A fire drill should be carried out at regular intervals throughout the year, ideally on a termly basis and recorded. Consider carrying out the drill at different times (registration, assembly, lunch, break times, etc.).

The evacuation plan must be included within induction training and a record kept. 

Staff Training

The level of training required depends on the roles and responsibilities of staff. Those who are responsible for fire safety management require more in-depth training than the general employee. 

• Management staff - fire safety management training, responsible person training.
• Fire wardens - fire safety basics, fire warden training, fire extinguisher training.
• Staff - fire safety basics and fire extinguisher training.
• Premises team - fire safety basics, responsible person training, fire extinguisher training, instructions on how to carry out their duties – premises checks, weekly fire alarm test, monthly emergency light tests, fire door inspections.

5 Top Tips

1. Ensure your school has a Fire Safety Policy that identifies staff roles and responsibilities, and those staff know what they are.  
2. There must be a written Emergency Evacuation Plan detailing the action to be taken by all staff in the event of a fire. It should be prominently displayed and always available to staff. Review annually to ensure it reflects current arrangements.
3. Ensure you have an up-to-date Fire Risk Assessment and it has been shared with staff.
4. You should have a management system in place to ensure all statutory testing is completed as required and that all respective paperwork is readily available.
5. Review staff training to ensure that all staff have received basic fire awareness training and that management, fire wardens and the premises team and any others have received the level of training required for their roles and responsibilities. 

Helpful Links:

Judicium Education’s Health and Safety Advisory Service is designed to support schools, firstly, in ensuring a safe working and learning environment, secondly, in complying with the legal requirements imposed on them as employers under the various Health & Safety laws and regulations. For more information, please visit here.

If you require any support in any of these steps, or would like to talk to someone surrounding some support for your school please do not hesitate to call us on 0207 336 8403 or email enquiries@judicium.com.

The Health and Safety Service is also providing accredited training courses, including eLearning with specific modules ranging from courses designed for premises managers and SLT to all staff offerings and fire warden training: https://www.judiciumeducation.co.uk/elearning

We also offer live, exclusive training options: https://www.judiciumeducation.co.uk/training

To review Judicium’s forthcoming sofa sessions please click here.

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