When considering the implications of your fire risk assessment you as the client need to be aware of the potential of the consequences, and that changing your assessor just because of the comments within your assessment is not a really sensible way forwards either.
If in the past your assessment support has been less than comprehensive and as such the level information provided not at a level that allows you to make an informed decision then changing assessors on a frequent basis will not give you the continuity required to ensure that you have all the information you require.
If previous fire risk assessment (FRA) reports have not included key issues to the business, general housekeeping and operational issues such as testing for the fire alarm and escape lighting, log book notes, false alarm management etc, then these need to be addressed, also the potential issues of persons within the building with special needs and how best to support them must also be included.
Fire door and passive fire protection issues are probably now the most discussed element of fire risk assessment works and usually the most costly to install or rectify, therefore before any future works in these areas consider the potential of these works having to be repeated IF the works instructed either cannot be validated with test evidence or do not comply with BS 476.
Any and all works in these areas should be done only after consultation with your risk assessor to ensure it will not conflict with the advice and guidance contained within the FRA.
ALL of this work must have both test evidence to validate the performance elements, and be done in accordance with one of the approved certification bodies, works done outside of this process are likely to affect both the content of your assessment and subsequent action plans if works done outside of the parameters of approved practice have to be rectified (re-done) to satisfy the assessment and comply with current standards.
Veritas now offers a 3 year program of support to overcome such problems and thus ensure that the business has the best information upon which to make commercial decisions.
