Information to Residents
Theme 10
Information to Residents
Last updated: 01 August 2022
Recommendation
33.28
That the owner and manager of every residential building containing separate dwellings (whether or not it is a high-rise building) be required by law to provide fire safety instructions (including instructions for evacuation) in a form that the occupants of the building can reasonably be expected to understand, taking into account the nature of the building and their knowledge of the occupants.
Responsible for completion:
- Government
Progress
Status
The Government consulted on its proposals to implement this recommendation in its Fire Safety Consultation (carried out in 2020). The Government responded to the consultation in 2021 (link).
On 18 May 2022 the Government laid regulations under Article 24 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to implement this recommendation in part. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 came into force on 23 January 2023.
Under the Regulations, the responsible person for all multi-occupied residential buildings must, regardless of height, provide their residents on an annual basis with relevant fire safety instructions. These instructions must be comprehensible to all residents and give residents instructions on how to report a fire, instructions related to the building’s evacuation strategy and any other instruction that tells residents what they must do when a fire has occurred.
Furthermore, whilst this recommendation has been partially addressed in the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, provision has also been made in Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 for a new requirement to be added to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requiring that responsible persons in buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises must provide residents with relevant and comprehensible fire safety information. Commencement regulations for this provision were laid in March this year and it will come into force on 1 October 2023.