The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: a duty-by-duty guide

What these regulations are, and why they exist

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/547) were made under Article 24 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and came into force on 23 January 2023. They are the government’s legislative response to Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, which recommended specific, concrete duties around information for firefighters and residents rather than another general obligation.

That origin explains their character. Where the Fire Safety Order tells the responsible person what outcome to achieve, these regulations tell them what to do, how often, and what to keep a record of. For an assessor, that makes them unusually easy to audit against — and unusually easy for a client to fail.

The three tiers

The duties apply in a stepped, risk-based way. Work out which tier a building sits in first, because everything else follows from it:

• Any building containing two or more sets of domestic premises with common parts — resident fire safety instructions and fire door information.
• Those buildings where the building is above 11 metres in height — adds the fire door checking regime.
• High-rise residential buildings, meaning at least 18 metres tall or at least seven storeys — adds the full set of firefighter-information and equipment duties.

Regulation 4 — secure information box

High-rise residential buildings must have a secure information box installed and maintained, positioned where the fire and rescue authority can readily reach it, reasonably secure against vandalism, and large enough for the documents the regulations require to be placed in it. It must hold the name, UK address and telephone number of the responsible person, contact details for others with access to the building, and hard copies of the plans required by Regulation 6. The responsible person must give the local fire and rescue authority the means to access it, and must inspect the box at least annually.

Regulation 5 — record of external wall design and materials

For high-rise residential buildings, the responsible person must prepare a record of the design of the external walls, including the materials they are constructed from, and provide it to the local fire and rescue authority. This is the regulation that turns post-Grenfell cladding concern into a standing documentary duty, and it sits alongside the Fire Safety Act 2021, which confirmed that external walls and flat entrance doors fall within the scope of the Fire Safety Order.

Regulation 6 — floor plans and a building plan

High-rise buildings need a plan for each floor identifying the location of every lift — flagging firefighting lifts and evacuation lifts — and the key firefighting equipment in the building. Separately, a single-page building plan must identify the environs, the building’s use and dimensions, access for fire appliances, storeys and basements, the presence of maisonettes or scissor-section flats, dry and wet rising main inlets, sprinkler shut-off controls, access points, the secure information box, smoke control and evacuation alert controls, firefighting shafts and main stairways.

Hard copies go in the secure information box, and both must be updated as soon as reasonably practicable after any change to layout or to the location of key firefighting equipment.

Regulation 7 — monthly checks of lifts and firefighting equipment

In high-rise residential buildings, firefighters’ lifts, evacuation lifts and essential firefighting equipment must be checked monthly. Any fault that cannot be fixed within 24 hours must be reported to the fire and rescue authority, and the responsible person must record the outcome of the checks and make that record available to residents.

Regulation 8 — wayfinding signage

High-rise residential buildings must carry clear floor identification and identification of individual domestic premises, visible in low light or smoky conditions. The intent is narrow and practical: a firefighter in a smoke-logged lobby needs to know which floor they are on and which door is which.

Regulation 9 — fire safety instructions to residents

In any relevant residential building, the responsible person must display fire safety instructions in a conspicuous place and give them to residents. The instructions must cover the building’s evacuation strategy — whether that is stay put or simultaneous evacuation — how to report a fire, and any other action residents should take on discovering one. These must be provided to new residents as soon as reasonably practicable after they move in, and to all residents at least every 12 months.

Regulation 10 — fire door information and checks

Regulation 10 does two distinct things, and the distinction is frequently missed. First, in any building with two or more sets of domestic premises and common parts residents must evacuate through, the responsible person must give residents information about fire doors: that they must be kept shut when not in use, that neither residents nor their guests should tamper with them or their self-closing devices, and that faults or damage must be reported immediately. Again, on moving in and at least annually.

Second, where the building is above 11 metres in height, the responsible person must check fire doors in the communal areas at least every three months, and use best endeavours to check the fire doors at the entrances of individual domestic premises at least every 12 months. Both checks must include confirming that self-closing devices work. Where access to a flat is not granted, the steps taken to try to gain access must be recorded — the record of the attempt is itself part of the duty.

These are functional checks rather than full surveys. A periodic eight-point fire door inspection with gap measurements, certification evidence and remedial actions goes considerably further, and fire door inspection software is what makes a door-by-door record at that volume manageable. Our guide to how often fire doors should be inspected sets out how the two regimes fit together.

How this interacts with the fire risk assessment

These regulations do not replace the fire risk assessment — they sit on top of it. An assessor working a relevant residential building should be checking compliance with the applicable tier as part of the management-of-fire-safety section, and recording the evidence: is there a secure information box, are the plans current, are the monthly lift checks documented, when were residents last given the instructions, and where is the fire door checking record?

They also sit alongside section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which from 1 October 2023 requires the whole fire risk assessment to be recorded rather than just its significant findings. Together the two changes have moved UK fire safety decisively towards documentary proof.

Frequently asked questions