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Fire safety for local authorities and public estates

Independent fire safety advice for councils managing mixed public estates — with no installation or remediation interest, and advice that can withstand public scrutiny.

A stairwell viewed from the top, with carpeted steps descending, a wooden handrail, and an illuminated green fire exit sign near the ceiling

A single council may be responsible person for a housing stock that includes high-rise blocks, sheltered accommodation and low-rise flats, alongside civic offices, leisure centres, libraries and other public buildings — each with different occupancies, different regulatory instruments and different duty-holder expectations. Apex provides independent assessment and advisory services across the full public estate, with advice calibrated to what the regulation actually requires rather than what generates follow-on work.

The regime

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is the primary instrument for all local authority buildings in use as workplaces or places to which the public have access — civic offices, libraries, leisure centres, museums, depots. It places a duty on the employer or person in control of the premises to ensure a suitable and sufficient FRA for the non-domestic parts, to record significant findings, and to act on them. For council-owned buildings housing commercial tenants, the landlord's and tenant's respective duties under the Order need to be agreed and documented.

Council housing stock sits additionally under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, which impose the same communal fire door inspection cycles and resident information duties as for private social landlords. Higher-risk buildings within the stock — residential buildings of at least 18 metres or seven storeys with two or more residential units — also trigger the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) accountable-person regime, requiring registration with the Building Safety Regulator, a building safety case and safety case report, and maintenance of the golden thread of building information. Many local authorities are already working through BSA registration for their taller blocks.

The public-money dimension matters. Where a local authority engages a consultant with a commercial interest in the remediation that follows an assessment, the independence of that advice is open to question — and, increasingly, to challenge from scrutiny committees, auditors and residents. Apex holds no installation or remediation arm: the findings in every assessment and survey reflect risk and regulation, not a follow-on contract. For a public-sector client that needs to justify every commission as proportionate and defensible, that independence is structural rather than a marketing claim.

The pressures

  • BSA registration and accountable-person obligations for buildings of 18 metres or seven storeys and above, managed alongside the wider housing stock programme.
  • Demonstrating proportionality on external-wall spending — particularly where FRAEW under PAS 9980:2022 is needed and leaseholders or council-tax payers will scrutinise the cost.
  • Maintaining consistent, up-to-date FRAs across a mixed civic and housing estate against a backdrop of constrained resources and increasing regulation.
  • Evidencing the independence of fire safety advice to councillors, auditors and the public where procurement scrutiny is high.
  • Co-ordinating fire safety across mixed-tenure developments where the council is one of several parties with duty-holder responsibilities.

In practice

A London borough managing a portfolio of council-owned residential blocks — several of which met the Building Safety Act 2022 definition of a higher-risk building — needed to establish a compliant, consistent, and fully evidenced fire safety position across both its housing stock and its civic estate. Apex conducted FRAs across the housing portfolio to a common PAS 79 methodology, carried out FRAEW surveys under PAS 9980 for blocks with external-wall uncertainty, and produced the building safety case documentation required for BSA registration. Because Apex has no installation or remediation interest, the council was able to present the findings and the recommended programme to its scrutiny committee as the independent view the situation required.

Services that apply

All services
01Fire Risk AssessmentsThe legal baseline, done like it matters.08Building Safety Act & Regulatory ComplianceThe regime is new. The duties are not optional.03PAS 9980 Surveys (FRAEW)External wall appraisals that deal in evidence, not alarm.02Fire Compartmentation SurveysThe walls have to hold. First, know whether they will.04Fire Safety AuditsNot what the file says. What the building does.

Further reading

All insights
Building Safety Act 2022: what principal accountable persons need to knowThe Building Safety Act 2022 introduced a tiered accountability framework for higher-risk buildings; this article sets out what it requires of principal accountable persons in plain, actionable terms.The golden thread: keeping fire safety information that is actually usableThe golden thread obligation under the Building Safety Act 2022 means keeping the right information, in a usable form, so that it genuinely supports safe building management — not simply keeping records.PAS 9980 in practice: proportionate external wall appraisalPAS 9980:2022 sets out a risk-based framework for appraising the fire risk of external wall systems; applied properly, it enables proportionate decisions about buildings rather than reflexive remediation programmes.