Over a Third of Premises Still Not Fire Safety Compliant

More than one third of the 39,700 audits undertaken by Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) on non-residential premises last year identified an unsatisfactory level of compliance with the 2005 Fire Safety Order according to the latest government audit statistics.

Nationally, both residential and non-residential premises were audited, making a combined total of 67,300 audits undertaken overall – with a total of 18,733 informal notifications made as a result, 2,059 enforcement notices, 391 prohibition notices and 71 prosecutions.

The worst performers across the board were ‘Licensed Premises’ where only 52% of the 8,200 audited showed a satisfactory level of compliance.

Of the non-residential premises audited, satisfactory levels of compliance ranged dramatically from 52% to 71%. Disappointingly, satisfactory compliance in non-residential buildings overall has seen an improvement of just 1% to 63% in 2013-14, up from 62% in 2012-13.

Conversely, residential buildings have shown a much greater year on year improvement from 60% satisfactory compliance in 2012-13 to 67% in 2013-14. The best residential performers were hospitals achieving 76% whilst hotels achieved just 58% satisfactory compliance.

The most common areas of non-compliance were:

• Article 9 – Risk assessment
• Article 14 – Emergency routes & exits
• Article 17 – Maintenance

For a copy of the full report, please click here.

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