When building safety responsibilities cross organisational boundaries

In a mixed-use higher-risk building, a safety issue rarely stays within one part of the property. Residential areas may connect with shops, offices, car parks, shared plant rooms and common services. A fault in one area can affect people and fire safety arrangements elsewhere.

The practical questions are: Who needs to know? Who takes action? And who checks that the issue has been resolved?

Establish who is responsible

Start by identifying the organisations with legal duties for the building.

An Accountable Person (AP) is an organisation or individual that owns, or has a legal obligation to repair, any of the building’s common parts. If there is more than one AP, the Principal Accountable Person (PAP) is the AP that owns, or has a legal obligation to repair, the structure and exterior. The PAP also prepares the building’s safety case report.

A Responsible Person (RP) has duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The same organisation can be both an AP and an RP, but the roles arise under different legislation.

A managing agent may carry out work on behalf of an AP or PAP. Being appointed as an agent does not, by itself, transfer the AP’s legal accountability. In a complex building, the ownership documents, leases and repairing obligations need to be checked rather than assumed.

Follow a fault across the whole building

Consider a fault in a shared fire safety system. An engineer’s report identifies the technical problem, but it does not answer every building safety question. The building team should establish:

1. What is affected? Which parts of the building and which fire safety arrangements rely on the system?

2. Who needs to know? Which APs, RPs, occupiers and building managers need the information?

3. What happens while the fault remains? Are interim measures needed, and who will put them in place and review them?

4. Who owns the repair? Who instructs the work, monitors progress and confirms that the system is operating correctly afterwards?

5. What needs recording? Are the risk assessment, action records, emergency arrangements or safety case information affected?

The team should also assess whether the occurrence meets the criteria for a mandatory occurrence notice and report to the Building Safety Regulator. A fault is not automatically reportable simply because it involves a safety system, but the reporting decision should be made promptly and recorded.

Make the safety case useful in practice

A safety case report should explain how fire spread and structural risks are managed across the building, including relevant non-residential areas and shared facilities. It should identify the people responsible, the information they share, and how open actions and interim measures are managed.
One useful exercise is to trace a credible scenario from beginning to end: the first report of a fault, its assessment, the decision on interim measures, the repair, verification and the final review. If an organisation cannot explain its role or access the information it needs, that gap should be identified and resolved.

Clear responsibilities on paper matter. A working process for sharing information and following actions through matters just as much.

Safe Track Risk Management helps property teams establish how building responsibilities and safety systems interact, review the supporting information, and follow actions through to resolution. If you need support with a mixed-use higher-risk building, get in touch with Safe Track.

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