The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order SI 2005/1541 came into force on 1 October 2006. It applies to England and Wales and revokes and replaces all existing fire legislation, which includes the Fire Precautions Act 1971 and the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations SI 1997/1840. Those provisions now only apply to Scotland. The main aim of the Order is to reform the fire safety law in non-domestic premises and places various responsibilities on employers with regard to fire safety duties to their employees.
A series of general fire precautions must be complied with and a risk assessment carried out to determine which precautions apply. These risk assessments replace the previous requirement under the 1971 Act for relevant premises to have a fire certificate.
In Scotland, the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2006/456 are also now in force. They are made in accordance with the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and make similar provisions to the above England and Wales Order with regard to carrying out risk assessments to identify the harm caused by fire.
In other news, a smoking ban in enclosed public places will be introduced in Wales next year, before similar laws come into force in England. The ban will start on 2 April 2007, the same time as in Northern Ireland. A smoking ban already exists in Scotland, but one will not start in England until an as yet unspecified date next summer. The Welsh Assembly voted for a ban in 2003, but could not change the law until the Health Act 2006 was issued.
The draft legislation is currently out to consultation, which ends in November 2006.
