As you may be aware, there is considerable work underway to strengthen the building and fire safety regulatory systems, not least through the changes being brought about by the Fire Safety Act 2021, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and the Building Safety Act 2022. These changes will have a significant impact on the fire risk assessor sector, and with that in mind we are keen to gain a better understanding of capacity and capability within the sector. We are also working with the sector to consider issues in relation to professionalisation within the fire risk assessor industry and your answers to these questions will very much help to support this work.
We therefore invite anyone who undertakes fire risk assessments (either for a professional fee or for buildings they or their employers manage) to complete the survey. The survey will ask questions about your pathway into conducting fire risk assessments, any training and continuous professional development you have done, and the types of buildings you fire risk assess. We will use the findings of the survey to inform policy development work by the UK and devolved governments.
We understand that members of a number of professional bodies involved in fire risk assessment who took part in a survey in spring 2022, may see some similar questions, but this survey focusses more on assessors’ career paths and professional development activities available to them. Please feel free to share this invitation with anyone else you know who undertakes fire risk assessments, as the more responses we get, the better the picture will be that we can build up of the fire risk assessment workforce.
You can complete the survey by clicking on this link
https://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/FRAcareerpath/
The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete, depending on how much you want to tell us, and will remain open until 23:59 Friday 1st September 2023. If you need to exit the survey and return at a later date, please select the ‘save and continue later’ button at the bottom of any page so that you can request an email with a personalised secure link that will enable you to return to complete the rest of the survey later.
The survey is being conducted by the Home Office in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR. Participation in this survey is completely voluntary, your answers will be kept confidential, and no individual or organisation will be identified in any reporting. You will not be asked to provide your name or that of your employer. We may also share anonymised aggregate results with devolved administrations and professional bodies who are supporting us in conducting this survey and the industry professionalisation work mentioned above.
If you have any questions about the survey or the Privacy Information Notice (Home Office Crime Research and Police and Fire research – Privacy Notice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) completing the survey that you would like to withdraw your survey response you can do so by contacting fireresearch@homeoffice.gov.uk.
We are very grateful for your support with this important element of our work.
We would also like to draw your attention to a survey of Responsible Persons being conducted by the Home Office. The survey aims to explore how recent fire safety legislation has affected those individuals. Please feel free to pass this link to anyone you know within, or beyond, your own organisation who is an owner, employer or occupier of a premises under the Fire Safety Order in England. It can be accessed at https://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/RP-firesafety/