New analysis published has laid bare the scale of fire safety non-compliance across the UK, with figures that should give every responsible person pause for thought.
Research by Direct365, drawing on the latest Home Office Fire Statistics for England, reveals that 50% of hospitals inspected in 2024/25 failed their fire safety audit on the first visit. Across all building types, 42% of premises audited did not meet required standards – the worst overall pass rate in 14 years. Meanwhile, with only 52,026 audits carried out against a known estate of more than 2.5 million premises, fire authorities are inspecting at a rate that would take 48 years to reach every building just once.
The data paints a stark picture. Houses converted to flats are failing at a rate of 59%. Hotels and HMOs both sit at 55%. Even sectors with comparatively better records – offices, schools, public buildings – are being audited at rates so low that many organisations will never receive a visit in the foreseeable future.
For some, the temptation might be to see the absence of an audit as a form of breathing space. It isn’t. The legal duty to hold a valid, up-to-date Fire Risk Assessment under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 rests entirely with the responsible person – not with fire authorities, and not with any inspection schedule. Waiting to be found out is not a compliance strategy.
What the data tells us about the role of the FRA
Among the most commonly cited reasons for audit failures were breaches relating to emergency routes and exits, poor maintenance, and – critically – inadequate or absent risk assessments. Risk assessment failures accounted for 8,471 recorded breaches in 2024/25 alone. The FRA is the foundation of everything else. Get it wrong, and the cascade of failures that follows is almost inevitable.
This is precisely why independence in Fire Risk Assessment matters so much. An assessment that is genuinely objective – conducted without commercial interest in the remedial works that might follow – gives organisations something they cannot get from a supplier who both assesses and rectifies: clarity they can trust.
PTSG Fire Solutions: built for this moment
At PTSG Fire Solutions, we launched our independent FRA service in August last year in direct response to what we were seeing in the market. Delivered through NEO, and led by Industry specialist Tracy Gregory, the service was designed from the ground up to offer something the sector has long needed: assessments that are truly impartial, produced by qualified experts.
Michael Anderton, Managing Director of PTSG Fire Solutions, said: “The data published this week is a wake-up call, but frankly it confirms what we’ve been seeing on the ground for some time. Too many organisations are operating without a valid, up-to-date Fire Risk Assessment and too many of those that do have one are relying on assessments that lack genuine independence. That’s exactly why we launched our FRA service. When your assessor has no commercial interest in what they find, you get the truth. And in fire safety, the truth is the only thing that keeps people safe.”
The cost of doing nothing
The 48-year inspection window is not a loophole. Failing to carry out a valid Fire Risk Assessment remains a criminal offence, regardless of whether a fire authority has visited. The consequences – prosecution, unlimited fines, and in serious cases imprisonment – are real, and the reputational and human cost of a preventable fire is immeasurable.
If your FRA is overdue or out of date, now is the time to act.
To find out more about PTSG Fire Solutions’ independent Fire Risk Assessment service visit www.neo-ps.com/fire-consultancy-and-risk-assesments
