Ensuring close adherence to the UK’s many fire safety laws has to be one of the top priorities that UK landlords and business owners should have – not only for legal reasons, but on moral and financial grounds, too.
However, there are several approaches that one can take to achieving fire risk compliance in the UK. Much of the conversation around this topic centres on whether to go about the process in a traditional, manual way, or instead to embrace the use of automated fire risk compliance technology.
In this article, we will outline some of the most important things that you need to know as you make your decision, and how our own Vision Pro platform can contribute to your compliance efforts.
Why compare manual and automated fire risk compliance?
As mentioned, staying on the right side of the law when it comes to fire safety is crucial for landlords and business owners in the UK.
A major factor in fire risk compliance being important is, of course, the risk of fire itself, and the harm and damage it can cause. Government statistics indicate that fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England attended 129,541 fires during the year ending June 2024.
However, there are also the legal risks to consider; even a relatively minor violation of the UK’s fire safety laws can lead to a fine of up to £5,000. The penalty for a major breach of the rules, meanwhile, could be an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment for as long as two years.
Nor is the legal picture for fire safety in the UK exactly static; it can be challenging for landlords and business owners to keep on top of the currently applicable legislation. So, you will need to be alert to this as you look to manage your property or site in a compliant manner during 2024, 2025, and beyond.
The differences between manual and automated fire risk compliance methods can be summed up as follows:
- Manual processes are a proven, traditional way of complying with the law; they are, however, also a potential drain on limited resources.
- Automated solutions, including the use of such modern tools as Vision Pro Software, are designed to simplify and enhance the compliance process – and routinely succeed in doing so.
All in all, automation offers significant advantages as far as efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness are concerned. Let’s take a closer look at this subject.
What does fire risk compliance involve?
Fire risk compliance in the UK is the process of adhering to the country’s fire safety laws. This helps avoid adverse legal consequences such as fines, in addition to protecting people and property.
Some of the key components of such compliance include:
- Conducting regular fire risk assessments, focusing on the identification of possible fire hazards, the evaluation of risks to occupants, and the implementation of control measures.
- Maintaining up-to-date safety measures, such as the right fire detection and alarm systems, emergency lighting, and firefighting equipment.
- Keeping accurate records for audits and legal inspections, covering such aspects as the actions that have been taken to manage identified risks, and service certificates for fire prevention equipment.
- Training staff and coordinating with tenants, so that relevant individuals are suitably informed on such matters as fire safety procedures and evacuation drills.
The UK fire safety regulations are in a constant state of evolution, as shown by such recent developments as the Building Safety Act and the Fire Safety Act. In light of this, it is of the utmost importance for landlords and business owners to keep pace with these changes, at the same time as minimising the administrative burden that compliance places upon them.
How are manual fire risk compliance methods managed?
Let’s presume that you decide to pursue a manual approach to fire risk compliance, or are already doing so. If so, you can expect your compliance procedures to involve such elements as the following:
- The use of paper-based or spreadsheet systems to record assessments, logs, and reports
- The manual scheduling of inspections and testing
- The manual filing and organisation of documentation for audits
There are, however, various challenges associated with manual processes. These include:
- A relatively high risk of human error, which may manifest as missed deadlines or incomplete assessments
- The time-intensive nature of manual tasks, particularly for individuals or businesses with responsibility for multiple sites or properties
- The difficulties of keeping records accessible and up to date for inspections
An all-too-common picture of someone attempting to use manual procedures to keep on top of their fire risk compliance obligations, is the landlord with several houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) who struggles to track the maintenance of the fire doors and other fire safety measures in their properties, using various confusing spreadsheets.
What are automated fire risk compliance solutions?
If the above sounds familiar, you might have thought: “surely, there has to be a better way of maintaining my compliance with fire safety law?” Our humble answer to that question is… yes, there is!
Where you see mentions of automated compliance solutions for fire safety, this is likely to be referring to certain dedicated software packages that have emerged in recent years, such as Vision Pro’s own fire risk assessment platform. Such solutions help landlords and business owners manage their fire risk compliance duties in a more efficient way.
The leading fire risk compliance software packages in the UK tend to include such features as:
- Centralised digital recordkeeping
- Automated scheduling and reminders for inspections and maintenance
- Customisable compliance checklists, tailored to UK regulations
- Reporting tools for audits and stakeholder communication
- Real-time monitoring for connected systems
Vision Pro Fire Risk Assessment Software very much adheres to such high standards. It presents a variety of tools that are specifically designed to make life easier for UK landlords and businesses.
How do manual and automated compliance processes compare?
We have set out, below, a quick summary of the differences between adopting manual and automated arrangements for ensuring fire risk compliance:
| Manual processes | Automated solutions | |
| Efficiency | Time-intensive and repetitive, requiring significant effort to track tasks and deadlines manually | Automated workflows streamline operations, saving time and effort |
| Accuracy | Prone to errors and missed deadlines, leading to compliance risks | Reduced scope for human error, with automated reminders and checks |
| Scalability | Becomes increasingly unmanageable as the number of sites or properties grows | Easily scalable, enabling the efficient management of multiple properties |
| Legislative updates | Requires the manual tracking of changes to fire safety laws and regulations | Software incorporates updated regulations automatically, thereby maintaining the user’s compliance |
| Audit preparation | Involves the labour-intensive collation of documents and records | Provides instant access to organised digital records and generates professional reports |
| Cost | Hidden costs arise from inefficiencies, such as wasted time and non-compliance penalties | Requires an upfront investment but offers significant long-term savings through efficiency and reduced risk |
To illustrate how such differences can impact on real-life fire risk compliance operations consider a property manager who depends on manual processes alone and as a result can easily miss a fire extinguisher servicing date due to an oversight. However, when that property manager switches to Vision Pro as an automated solution, they would receive alerts for upcoming maintenance tasks. This helps ensure nothing is missed.
How does fire risk compliance software save time and money?
As we have explained, the use of software to aid your fire risk compliance efforts can bring a number of meaningful “real-world” benefits.
It can save you time, for example, because:
- Automated scheduling eliminates the need to remember inspection dates manually
- Real-time dashboards provide instant insights into compliance status across properties
- Streamlined reporting reduces the necessary preparation time for audits.
Furthermore, dedicated fire risk compliance software can lower your costs, because it:
- Helps prevent the fines and legal fees that can arise from non-compliance
- Reduces the need for manual administration or third-party consultants
- Helps avoid or minimise the downtime or reputational damage that can occur due to the outbreak of fire.
How does automation help ensure compliance with the latest legislation?
As mentioned earlier, it can be a challenge for UK landlords and business owners to keep up to date with new or altered fire safety laws.
If, for example, you are presently dependent on manual processes, you might have easily missed the implications of such recent legislative developments as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and the Building Safety Act 2022.
So, you may not have implemented certain recently introduced requirements, such as regular checks of external wall systems and fire doors in high-risk buildings.
Let’s contrast this with the situation if you decide to embrace automated tools. Vision Pro, for instance, integrates legislative changes into its system, and ensures its incorporated compliance checklists and reports align with current UK laws.
Furthermore, this software issues alerts and updates when new regulations are introduced. Such features help significantly reduce the burden and scope for non-compliance associated with manual fire risk compliance procedures.
What should you look for in fire risk compliance software?
If you are currently on the lookout for a software platform that will help you to stay on the right side of the UK’s fire safety laws, it is worth keeping an eye out for features such as:
- A user-friendly interface that the typical landlord or business owner can easily understand
- Scalability for single or multiple properties
- Real-time alerts and automated scheduling
- Customisable templates for fire risk assessments
- Secure cloud-based storage for records and reports
Vision Pro lives up to such high expectations among the fire risk management platforms that are currently on the market. It is highly trusted by landlords and business owners around the UK, and incorporates specialised tools for not only fire risk, but also asbestos management and asset compliance. Furthermore, it is tailored for the complexities of UK regulations.
Is automation the future of fire risk compliance?
Recent industry trends indicate this is very much the case. As the UK’s fire safety regulations have become more multilayered and complicated, there has been a heightened tendency for the country’s business owners and landlords to adopt compliance software to help make their burden more manageable.
The users of such software value efficiency, and they are driving the profound digital transformation needed to make this a reality. The integration of automated technology with the real-time monitoring of fire safety systems helps further boost the appeal of this software.
Vision Pro has played a leading role in driving innovation in fire risk compliance software, and our team is continuing to strive and innovate to ensure this remains the case for years to come.
Conclusion: manual or automated – what’s the better choice for your business?
In summary, then: manual processes for complying with fire risk legislation in the UK are generally time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale. This is in marked contrast to automated solutions such as Vision Pro, which help save time, lower costs, and deliver compliance.
So, if you are reading this as a landlord or business owner with responsibility for managing fire safety at one or multiple sites, there can surely be only one choice from a practicality and efficiency point of view: automation.
To learn more about our renowned, feature-filled, and cutting-edge Vision Pro platform and to book a demo, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.
