The law does not require a consultant. It requires the assessment to be suitable and sufficient, made by somebody competent to make it, and that is a question about the building and the person rather than about credentials. For a small, simple, single storey workplace a careful person with the government guidance can do it. For most other buildings that answer stops being true quickly.
What the law asks for
The responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed, and must appoint one or more competent persons to assist where they lack the necessary competence themselves. Competence here means sufficient training, experience or knowledge for the building in question. There is no register, no licence and no qualification named in the Order.
Where a simple fire risk assessment template helps
Government publishes free guides for different premises types, each with a worked structure: identify the hazards, identify people at risk, evaluate and act, record, plan and train, and review. A template built on that structure gives you the questions. What it cannot give you is the judgement about whether the answers are adequate for your particular building, which is what the assessment is.
When to bring somebody in
Sleeping occupants. More than one storey or a complex layout. People who cannot evacuate unaided. A building in multiple occupation. Anything involving compartmentation you cannot see, external walls, or a fire engineered strategy. Any premises where a mistake would be catastrophic rather than merely wrong. In all of these the honest answer is that a template documents an opinion nobody qualified has formed.
Person centred assessments
A person centred fire risk assessment looks at an individual who is at particular risk, most often in housing and care settings: somebody who smokes and uses oxygen, who hoards, who cannot respond to an alarm, or who cannot leave unaided. It sits alongside the building assessment and produces measures for that person, and it is increasingly expected in social housing and supported living rather than being optional good practice.
The fire risk assessment must cover the following steps
This is the sequence every government guide and every usable template is built on, and it is worth reading as an order rather than a list. Identify the fire hazards: sources of ignition, sources of fuel, sources of oxygen. Identify the people at risk, naming the groups rather than counting them. Evaluate the risk and decide what to do about it, which is where the escape routes, the detection, the compartmentation and the management arrangements are judged against what you have just found. Record the significant findings and tell people what they need to know. Then review, and revise where the building, its use or its occupants have changed. A template that asks for the precautions before it asks for the hazards inverts that, and what comes back is an inventory of equipment rather than an assessment.
Questions people ask about free fire risk assessment template
Can I do my own fire risk assessment using a template?
Yes, if you are competent to do it for that building. For a small simple single storey premises that is realistic with the government guidance. Sleeping risk, multiple storeys or complex layouts make it much harder to defend.
Are free templates any good?
They give you the structure and the questions, which is genuinely useful. They cannot supply the judgement about whether your answers are adequate, which is the assessment itself.
What is a person centred fire risk assessment?
An assessment focused on an individual at particular risk, common in housing and care settings, producing measures for that person alongside the building's own assessment.
Is a risk assessment template free version enough?
For a small, simple, single occupier premises with somebody competent filling it in, often yes. It cannot supply judgement, so it fails where the building is complex, where people sleep, or where the construction cannot be established from what is visible.
Is a fire risk assessment for small businesses something a template can carry?
For a single storey shop, office or workshop with no sleeping occupants and a simple layout, usually yes, and the government guides for those premises types are the right starting point: they carry the structure and the prompts, and the Order asks for an assessment that is suitable and sufficient rather than one written by a consultant. What tips a small business out of that is any of sleeping occupants above, more than one storey with a shared escape route, people who cannot evacuate unaided, a licence with its own conditions, or a process with a real ignition risk.
Does a fire risk assessment for holiday lets need doing at all?
Yes. Premises let as a holiday let are non-domestic for the purposes of the Fire Safety Order while they are let, so the person in control has to make an assessment. The reason it matters more than the paperwork suggests is that the occupants are asleep in a building they have never been in, cannot be briefed, and may include children and people with impaired mobility. That combination is what the guidance for sleeping accommodation is written about, and it is a long way from the single storey office a generic template assumes.