How do I choose a competent fire risk assessor?

What the Order does require, in Article 18, is that whoever carries out the assessment is competent. That puts the responsibility on you, the responsible person, to satisfy yourself that the person you appoint can actually do the job — and it means the right assessor is the competent one, whether or not they happen to hold a particular voluntary badge.

The Home Office’s own guidance makes the point directly: an assessor experienced in offices and shops may not be the right fit for a care home, a high-rise block of flats, or a heritage building, and vice versa. So the real question isn’t “which scheme are they on” — it’s “has this person genuinely assessed premises like mine, and can they show it.” That’s the test that actually protects you.

• Experience of your premises type — the single most important filter. A genuine track record of assessing buildings like yours matters more than any certificate.
• A relevant fire risk assessment qualification — for example a Level 3 Certificate in Fire Risk Assessment, which shows grounding in the methodology.
• Professional standing in fire safety — membership of a fire body such as the Institute of Fire Safety Managers is fire-specific and competence-assessed: to gain Associate grade (AIFSM), the assessor’s fire qualifications and sample assessments are reviewed by the Institute. Chartered status in a safety profession (such as CMIOSH) adds a senior, independently assessed benchmark on top.
• Genuine independence — an assessor who sells no products or remedial work has no incentive to inflate your action plan (more on this below).
• Professional indemnity insurance — proof they stand behind their work, and protection for you if something is missed.
• Third-party certification, if they have it — a voluntary mark such as BAFE SP205. Useful evidence, but optional, and not a dividing line (more on what’s actually required, just below).

The mistake is treating any one badge as the whole answer. Plenty of highly competent assessors — independent chartered professionals among them — don’t carry every voluntary scheme, and plenty of certificated firms are generalists with no real experience of your building. Weigh the substance, and make premises-appropriate experience the thing you insist on.

• The law — the Fire Safety Order — requires a suitable and sufficient assessment by a competent person. That’s the only mandatory bar.
• British Standards — PAS 79-1 for commercial premises, BS 9792:2025 for housing and HMOs, and BS 8674:2025, a recent framework defining what makes an individual fire risk assessor competent — are respected benchmarks that carry real weight with fire authorities, insurers and courts. But none of them is law, and an assessor isn’t breaking any rule by not being formally certified to one.
• Certification schemes — like BAFE SP205 — are voluntary marks that audit a firm’s systems. Helpful evidence, but optional, and focused on the company rather than the individual.

So when a standard or scheme is quoted at you, the useful question is “does this show competence for my building?” — not “is this the law?”, because almost none of it is. And when one assessor carries out your whole assessment, it’s that individual’s competence, experience and independence that count — which is what the newest standard, BS 8674, focuses on. For my part, I work in line with the current standards and that framework: not because the law compels it, but because it’s how the job should be done.

An independent assessor sells nothing but the assessment. That means the action plan contains only what your premises actually needs, in the order it needs it, with no incentive to inflate it. It’s worth asking any assessor directly: do you sell any of the products or works you might recommend? The answer tells you whether their report is impartial advice or a sales document. For what it’s worth, my answer is no — I sell nothing but the assessment itself.