Services / Fire Safety / 07
Regulation 38 Fire Safety Information
The information the next person needs, actually handed over.
What it is
Regulation 38 of the Building Regulations requires fire safety information to be handed to the responsible person at completion. In practice the pack is often missing, partial or unusable. We review what exists, identify what is absent, and compile a coherent package — strategy, as-built drawings, system records, maintenance requirements — that stands up as the start of the golden thread. Regulation 38 fire safety information is not a formality. The requirement, under the Building Regulations 2010, exists so that the person who must run the building — the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — actually receives the information the design relied on: the fire strategy, the as-built record of the building, and the maintenance regime its systems require. Without it, the first fire risk assessment starts from guesswork, and every later survey pays for the gap. A compliant package is judged by usability, not volume. We index the information so the responsible person can find what they need, distinguish verified as-built records from design-stage assumptions, and record what remains outstanding with a named source to pursue for each item. For higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022, the same package forms the opening entries of the golden thread — the running record of safety information the building must carry — so getting it right at handover saves reconstructing it later.
When you need it
- A new building is completing and the handover pack needs assembling or checking
- You have inherited a building with no usable fire safety information
- Building control has asked for evidence of Regulation 38 compliance
- A safety case keeps stalling on missing foundational documents
What you receive
- A gap review of existing fire safety information
- A compiled, indexed Regulation 38 package
- A register of outstanding items with sources to pursue
How we do it
- Gap review: the information held — by the developer, principal contractor, building control file or the incumbent responsible person — is gathered and indexed against what Regulation 38 requires the building to hand over.
- Verification: documents are checked for usability, not just presence — whether drawings reflect the building as built, whether system records match the equipment actually installed, and whether design-stage assumptions have been quietly carried through as fact.
- Compilation: the material is assembled into a single indexed package — fire strategy, as-built drawings, system records, maintenance and testing requirements — organised so the responsible person can find it, act on it and keep it current.
- Outstanding items register: anything missing is listed with the likely source to pursue — contractor, commissioning engineer, building control records — so the package closes out over time instead of quietly staying incomplete.
What drives the cost
Cost depends on the condition of the information as found — a package that exists but needs review is quicker than one assembled from scattered contractor records, and quicker still than one partly reconstructed for an older building. Building size and the number of fire safety systems matter, as do the number of parties holding documents and how responsive they are. We scope each commission individually and provide a fixed fee before starting.
Common questions
What is Regulation 38?
Regulation 38 is the Building Regulations 2010 requirement that whoever carries out building work provides the fire safety information to the responsible person — the person who will hold the fire safety duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — when the building is completed. It applies to building work on buildings covered by that Order, workplaces and the common parts of residential buildings, rather than to every project subject to the Building Regulations. The purpose is practical rather than bureaucratic: the person who must run the building should receive the information the design relied on, so management of the building starts from facts rather than assumptions.
What should a Regulation 38 package contain?
The information a responsible person needs to operate and maintain the building's fire safety measures: the fire strategy, as-built drawings showing escape routes, compartment lines and fire-resisting construction, details of the active systems installed — detection, alarm, emergency lighting, suppression, smoke control — and the maintenance and testing each requires. The test is usability. A pile of operation and maintenance manuals is not a Regulation 38 package; a coherent, indexed set of documents that lets the responsible person commission a fire risk assessment and run the building is.
Who is responsible for providing the fire safety information?
The duty sits with the person carrying out the work — in practice the developer or principal contractor — who must hand the information to the responsible person, and building control will typically look for evidence of Regulation 38 compliance as the work completes. In practice the package is often assembled late, thin or not at all, which is why we are commissioned from both sides: by developers who need a package that will stand scrutiny at completion, and by responsible persons who have inherited a building and need to establish what they hold and what is missing.
How does Regulation 38 relate to the golden thread?
Regulation 38 information is the starting point of the golden thread at occupation. The golden thread — the Building Safety Act 2022's running record of safety information for higher-risk buildings — has to begin somewhere, and for a new building the Regulation 38 handover is that beginning: the strategy, as-built drawings and system records against which every later alteration is recorded. For buildings outside the higher-risk regime the formal golden thread duties do not apply, but the principle holds: a usable information baseline at handover is what keeps the building understandable for the rest of its life.
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