An assessment is only as good as what happens to its findings. This guide sets out how to turn the action plan into tracked work with owners, dates and evidence, across every client the practice holds.
The significant findings of a fire risk assessment are the part that is meant to change something. The assessor identifies a hazard, evaluates the risk and sets out the action needed, usually with a priority and a timescale. The Responsible Person is then expected to act. When something goes wrong later, the investigation does not stop at whether the assessment was done; it asks what became of each finding, who owned it, and when it was closed.
In most practices that record lives in the report and nowhere else. The assessor issues the action plan, the client receives it, and the next time anyone looks is the following year's review, when the same findings are often still open. Neither side can say when an action was done, who did it, or what evidence shows it was done properly. The assessor's name is on a plan that was never tracked.
The scale makes it worse. A practice holding a few hundred clients has thousands of open actions at any time, of every priority, across buildings it visits once a year. Without a system that holds the actions as work, the only view anyone has is the last report, and the last report is a snapshot of a day.
At issue, each significant finding becomes an action on the assessment case: a description a building manager can act on, a priority from the practice's defined bands, a target date that follows from the priority, and an owner on the client side. The action is linked to the finding that produced it and to the photograph that evidences it, so the context never has to be reconstructed.
The action then has a life of its own. The client is reminded as the date approaches. When the client reports it done, the evidence they provide, a photograph, an invoice, a certificate, is attached to the action. Where the practice re-inspects, the re-inspection closes the action with the assessor's own evidence. Either way the action ends with a record of what was done, by whom, when, and on what evidence.
Across the portfolio this gives the practice a view it has never had: open actions by priority, by client, by age; high-priority actions past their date; clients with nothing outstanding and clients with everything outstanding. That view is what lets the practice manage risk across its book rather than rediscover it one review at a time.
Follow these steps to turn action plans into tracked work that the practice can see, chase and evidence.
Decide the bands the practice uses, what each means, and the target timescale that goes with it. Whatever the scheme, define it once, print the definitions in every report, and apply it consistently across assessors, so that a high priority in one building means the same thing in another.
When the report is issued, each significant finding generates an action on the case automatically, carrying the finding text, the photograph, the priority and the target date derived from it. Nothing is re-typed and nothing is missed.
Every action needs a named person at the Responsible Person's organisation. Record who that is on the action, and give them a way to see their actions, update them and attach evidence without emailing the practice.
As target dates approach and pass, the case reminds the owner, then escalates to the Responsible Person, each contact recorded. High-priority actions past their date should be visible to the practice immediately, not at the next review.
An action closes when there is evidence that the work was done: a photograph of the completed work, a contractor's certificate, an invoice, or the assessor's own re-inspection. The evidence is attached to the action and the closure is recorded with the date and the person who accepted it.
At the next review, the assessor starts from the action plan's real status rather than from the old report. Actions still open are carried forward with their history; actions closed are confirmed. The review then reflects the building as it is, not as it was.
Give the practice a standing view of open actions by priority, client and age, and give clients a view of their own. The monthly question is simple: which high-priority actions are past their date, and what is being done about them.
The person acting on the plan is rarely a fire professional. An action that says what, where and to what standard gets done; a clause reference gets filed.
The photograph that evidenced the finding is the photograph the contractor needs and the photograph the closure will be compared to. It belongs on the action, not in a folder.
An action carried forward for a third year is a risk the client has been living with, and the practice should say so in the review rather than simply re-issue it.
The practice advises; it does not usually do the work. Be clear in the record about whether an action was closed on the client's evidence or the assessor's inspection, because the two carry different weight later.
A practice that can say what proportion of high-priority actions are closed within their target timescale, across its book, has a number that matters to clients, insurers and itself.
When a building changes hands or a manager leaves, the open actions and their history should go with the assessment. The Order expects the record to be handed on; the practice is often the only party that holds it intact.
Set turnaround targets for write-up, QA and issue, and timings for review reminders.
A fire risk assessment is a legal record as much as a piece of advice. This guide sets out a workflow that takes a practice from instruction to an issued, defensible report, at the volume a working practice has to handle.
fire safetyThe law does not give a number, which is why practices get asked the question so often. This guide sets out what the Order requires, what triggers a review, and how a practice keeps hundreds of review cycles running without one slipping.
fire safetyBuildings change hands, managing agents change, and the fire safety record is supposed to go with the building. This guide sets out what has to pass over, and how a practice that holds the record makes itself the continuity.
Bring us a recent action plan and we will show you what it looks like as tracked work: owners, dates, reminders, evidence and a portfolio view of what is still open.
