On completion, learners will be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

• The importance and principles of fire safety
• The legal framework, including the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
• The responsibilities of the responsible person
• The fire triangle and the behaviour of fire
• Common causes of fire and preventive measures
• The purpose and process of the fire risk assessment
• Fire detection, warning and emergency lighting
• Means of escape and evacuation strategies
• Fire-fighting equipment and its use
• Record-keeping and the review of fire safety arrangements

• Nobody certifies buildings. The responsible person assesses their own premises and lives with the result.
• Recording requirements changed in October 2023. All responsible persons in England and Wales must record the assessment in full.
• Compartmentation fails invisibly. Cabling, services and refurbishment breach it without anybody noticing.
• Active systems are visible; passive protection is not. One announces its faults, the other never does.
• Contractors breach fire protection routinely. Small works create openings nobody records.
• Arson is a leading cause of workplace fire. Security and housekeeping are fire prevention measures.

• Level 2 qualification for those managing fire safety in premises
• Delivered entirely online through the Britsafe learning management system (LMS) no physical classroom attendance is required
• Course materials are provided digitally (soft copy) via the LMS
• Assessed via an online examination through the Britsafe Examination Management System (EMS), with a minimum pass mark of 70%
• Certification issued with an anti-counterfeit hologram security seal, available both as a physical copy and as a soft (digital) copy
• Focused on management of fire safety rather than evacuation or awareness
• Covers compartmentation and passive protection properly
• Reflects the current recording requirements
• Addresses contractor control as a fire protection issue
• Available fully online to learners in the UK and internationally

Knowledge developed:

• The legal framework, responsible person and recording requirements
• The fire risk assessment process and assessor competence
• Compartmentation, passive protection and how it is breached
• Detection, alarm, emergency lighting, suppression and smoke control
• Testing regimes, records, arrangements, arson and enforcement

Skills developed:

• Identifying who holds responsible person duties in a building
• Recognising breaches of compartmentation and service penetrations
• Controlling contractors so that fire protection is not compromised
• Checking that testing and maintenance regimes are current
• Recognising defective fire doors and reporting them
• Maintaining fire safety records to a defensible standard

This Award is designed for those with premises responsibilities, including:

• Responsible persons and those supporting them
• Facilities, premises and estates managers
• Building and property managers
• Office and site managers
• Health and safety coordinators and advisers
• Landlords and letting agents of commercial premises
• Managing agents and building owners
• Maintenance and engineering supervisors
• Contract managers appointing works contractors
• Care home, school and hospitality managers
• Business owners occupying non-domestic premises
• Those preparing for fire risk assessment training

No prior qualification is required.

There are no formal academic prerequisites for this Level 2 Award. It is open to learners aged 16 and above with a reasonable standard of spoken and written English, sufficient to engage with course materials and complete the assessment. No prior fire safety qualification is assumed.

Course content is structured around progressive learning blocks covering the legal framework; the responsible person and shared premises; cooperation and coordination duties; recording the assessment and arrangements; the recording changes and who they affect; the fire risk assessment process; assessor competence; the fire triangle and fire spread; smoke behaviour; compartmentation; passive fire protection elements; fire stopping, cavity barriers and service penetrations; breaches arising from works and refurbishment; fire doors, inspection and defects; detection and alarm system categories; emergency lighting; suppression and smoke control; testing and maintenance regimes; record keeping; fire safety arrangements, drills and training; appointment of wardens; arson, security and housekeeping; and enforcement and notices.

Assessment is conducted through an online examination via the Britsafe Examination Management System (EMS). Learners must achieve a minimum score of 70% to pass. On successful completion, learners receive a certificate, available both as a physical copy and as a soft (digital) copy. Results and certificates are typically issued promptly following successful completion.

This Level 2 Award supports roles including:

• Facilities, Premises or Estates Manager
• Building or Property Manager
• Office or Site Manager
• Health and Safety Coordinator or Adviser
• Maintenance or Engineering Supervisor
• Managing Agent or Landlord of commercial premises
• A stepping stone toward fire risk assessment and fire safety practitioner routes

• Property and facilities management
• Commercial landlords and managing agents
• Offices and professional services
• Retail, hospitality and leisure
• Health and social care
• Education and childcare
• Manufacturing and warehousing
• Public sector and local government
• Charities and the voluntary sector
• Events, venues and visitor attractions
• Any organisation occupying non-domestic premises

• Supports the responsible person in discharging fire safety duties
• Reflects the current requirement to record assessments and arrangements in full
• Improves recognition of compartmentation breaches before they matter
• Improves contractor control so that works do not compromise fire protection
• Supports testing and maintenance regimes and their record keeping
• Improves the quality of fire safety records for enforcement and insurance
• Addresses arson risk through security and housekeeping measures
• Provides documented evidence of training for audit and insurance purposes

• A recognised, portable credential relevant to premises and facilities roles
• Understanding of the fire protection that cannot be seen
• Flexible online delivery that fits around working patterns
• Clarity about current recording obligations
• Practical ability to check maintenance regimes and records
• A foundation for fire risk assessment training and practitioner routes

Learners can apply this qualification directly to:

• Establishing who holds responsible person duties, particularly in shared buildings
• Confirming the fire risk assessment is recorded in full and remains current
• Checking that fire safety arrangements are documented as well as the assessment
• Recognising unsealed service penetrations above ceilings and in risers
• Requiring contractors to reinstate fire stopping and to evidence it
• Including fire protection in permit and contractor control arrangements
• Inspecting fire doors for gaps, damaged seals and defective closers
• Checking that alarm, emergency lighting and suppression testing is current
• Maintaining a fire safety logbook that would withstand scrutiny
• Reviewing the assessment after alteration, change of use or occupancy change
• Reducing arson risk through waste storage, security and external housekeeping
• Ensuring wardens are appointed, trained and available across shifts

This Award is best positioned as fire safety management knowledge. Learners often progress into:

• Fire risk assessment training and qualifications
• Britsafe Level 2 Award in Fire Safety and Fire Warden Training
• Britsafe Level 1 Award in the Principles of Fire Safety Awareness for the wider workforce
• Britsafe Level 2 Award in Managing Safely
• Passive fire protection and third-party certification awareness
• Facilities and building services management training
• Level 3 fire safety qualifications

• Fire risk assessor pathways
• Facilities and estates management development
• Building safety and compliance roles
• Health and safety practitioner routes
• Professional membership routes with relevant fire and facilities bodies

Britsafe Qualifications UK Limited delivers this qualification fully online, making it accessible to learners across the UK and internationally without the need to attend a physical training centre. Fire chemistry, smoke behaviour and the principles of compartmentation and detection apply everywhere. Legal duties, recording requirements, system standards, testing intervals and enforcement arrangements are national and differ between the UK nations, so learners should confirm the framework applicable to their own premises.

1. What does this qualification cover?
It covers the management of fire safety in premises: the legal framework and responsible person, the fire risk assessment and its recording, fire and smoke behaviour, compartmentation and passive protection, detection, alarm, emergency lighting and suppression, testing and maintenance, records, arrangements and drills, arson and security, and enforcement.

2. How does it differ from the other Britsafe fire qualifications?
By role. The Level 1 Principles of Fire Safety Awareness Award serves the whole workforce what to do, how fire spreads, basic prevention. The Level 2 Fire Warden Award serves the appointed warden evacuation, sweeping, roll call and assisted evacuation. This Award serves the person responsible for the building, covering the assessment, the systems, the maintenance regimes and the records. Organisations frequently need all three at different levels.

3. Who is the responsible person?
In a workplace, generally the employer where they have control of the premises, and otherwise the person who has control of the premises in connection with a trade or business, or the owner. In multi-occupied buildings there may be several responsible persons with duties over different parts, and there is a duty to cooperate and coordinate with them. Establishing this clearly is the first step, because duties nobody has accepted are rarely discharged, and shared buildings are where responsibility most often falls between parties.

4. Does anybody certify that a building is compliant?
No, and this surprises people. Fire certificates were abolished, and there is no advance approval confirming that a building’s fire safety arrangements are adequate. The responsible person assesses their own premises and carries the consequences. Building control approval at construction confirms the building met requirements at the time; it says nothing about how the building has been altered, occupied or maintained since.

5. What are the current recording requirements?
Following changes that took effect in October 2023 in England and Wales, all responsible persons must record their completed fire risk assessment in full, and must also record their fire safety arrangements. The previous position under which employers below a size threshold recorded only significant findings no longer applies. Responsible persons must also record the identity of anybody engaged to carry out or review the assessment, and must record and provide certain information to other responsible persons in the building. Many organisations are still operating on the previous understanding, and the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland differs, so the requirement applicable to particular premises should be confirmed.

6. What is compartmentation?
The division of a building into areas separated by construction capable of resisting fire and smoke for a specified period typically thirty or sixty minutes, sometimes longer. It is what allows a fire in one part of a building to be contained while people leave from another, and it is the assumption underpinning almost every fire strategy. Walls, floors, ceilings, fire doors, dampers and the seals around every service passing through them all form part of it.

7. Why is passive fire protection described as failing invisibly?
Because there is nothing to notice. An alarm that fails is heard or rather, not heard during the weekly test. Emergency lighting is tested monthly. A sprinkler system has a service contract and a valve somebody checks. Compartmentation has no test, no alarm and no symptom. A hole cored through a compartment wall for a new cable in 2014 looks like nothing at all above a ceiling tile, and it will continue to look like nothing until a fire uses it. This is why surveys of existing buildings routinely find substantial numbers of breaches in premises that are otherwise well managed.

8. How does compartmentation get breached?
Almost always by ordinary work. Data and electrical cabling, plumbing, heating and cooling installations, alarm and security systems, refurbishment, partition changes and equipment installations all involve making holes in walls and floors. The contractor doing the work is frequently a specialist in something other than fire protection, has no instruction about fire stopping, and reinstates the finish rather than the fire seal. Nobody records it, and the register of what has been breached does not exist.

9. How is that controlled?
By treating fire protection as a condition of the work rather than an afterthought. Contractors should be told which walls and floors are fire-rated, required to use appropriate certified fire stopping products installed correctly, required to provide evidence of what they have sealed, and inspected before ceilings and access panels are closed up. Including fire stopping in permit arrangements and in the contractor briefing is the practical control, and the evidence has to be gathered before the void is closed, because afterwards it cannot be seen.

10. What should be checked on a fire door?
Whether it closes fully into the frame from any open position, the condition of the closer, the gaps around the leaf, the intumescent strips and smoke seals, the hinges and their fixings, the glazing and its beading, any damage to the leaf, and whether anything is holding it open. A fire door is tested and certificated as a complete assembly, so replacing a closer or hinge with an unsuitable part, or fitting a letterbox or vision panel afterwards, can invalidate its performance.

11. What are alarm system categories?
Systems are specified according to what they are protecting. Broadly, some are designed to protect life and others to protect property, with further subdivisions according to the extent of coverage from detection throughout the building down to detection only in escape routes, and manual systems with call points but no automatic detection. The category should follow from the fire risk assessment and the building’s strategy, and it matters because a system installed to protect property may not give occupants adequate warning.

12. What testing and maintenance is required?
Regimes vary by system and by the applicable standard, and typically include a weekly alarm test using a different call point each time, periodic detector testing, monthly and annual emergency lighting tests, annual extinguisher servicing, regular fire door inspections, and servicing of suppression and smoke control systems. The intervals come from the relevant standards and the risk assessment, and the value of the regime lies as much in the record as in the test because the record is what demonstrates it happened.

13. What records should be kept?
The fire risk assessment and the fire safety arrangements, records of testing and maintenance for all systems, fire door inspection records, drill records with observations, training records, records of works affecting fire protection and the fire stopping evidence associated with them, and correspondence with other responsible persons in shared buildings. A fire safety logbook that is complete and contemporaneous is what an inspector, an insurer or a court will examine.

14. Is arson a significant risk?
Yes, and it is under-managed because it feels external. A substantial proportion of workplace fires are started deliberately, frequently outside the building using materials the organisation left available. Waste containers against external walls, accumulated pallets and packaging, unsecured yards, poor external lighting and easy access after hours all raise the risk. Moving bins away from the building and locking the yard are fire safety measures, even though they appear on nobody’s fire safety checklist.

15. When must the assessment be reviewed?
When it is no longer valid, or when there has been a significant change alterations to the building, changes of use or occupancy, new processes or materials, changes to staffing including people needing assistance to evacuate, new equipment, or following a fire or near miss. Periodic review is also expected. A building that has been refurbished since the last assessment has almost certainly changed in ways that matter.

16. What happens if the fire and rescue authority is not satisfied?
They have a range of powers, including notices requiring alterations, notices requiring specified improvements within a period, and where risk is serious and immediate prohibition or restriction of the use of premises, which can be applied immediately. Prosecution is available for serious failures, and penalties for the most serious offences include unlimited fines and imprisonment. Enforcement is generally proportionate, and it is not preceded by any process that confirms compliance in advance.

17. Does this qualify me to carry out a fire risk assessment?
No. Fire risk assessment is a distinct discipline requiring specific competence, and the complexity of the premises determines what competence is needed. This Award provides the underpinning knowledge what the assessment must cover, what it must record and how the arrangements are managed and is suitable preparation for fire risk assessment training. Simple, low-risk premises may be assessed by a suitably informed person; complex, high-risk or sleeping-accommodation premises require a competent assessor.

18. Does it cover residential and higher-risk buildings?
Only at awareness level. Requirements applying to blocks of flats, sleeping accommodation and higher-risk buildings have developed considerably in recent years and carry duties beyond the scope of this Award. Those responsible for such premises need advice specific to that regime.

19. Does it replace premises-specific arrangements?
No. Every building has its own strategy, systems, layout and hazards, and these must be understood locally. This Award provides the framework within which those arrangements are set and reviewed.

20. Who is this qualification aimed at?
Responsible persons and those supporting them, facilities, premises and estates managers, building and property managers, health and safety coordinators, managing agents, maintenance supervisors, contract managers and business owners occupying non-domestic premises.

21. Are there any entry requirements?
No formal prerequisites are required. Learners should have a reasonable standard of English and be aged 16 or above.

22. How is the qualification assessed?
Through an online examination via the Britsafe Examination Management System, with a minimum pass mark of 70%.

23. What materials are provided with the course?
Learners receive digital (soft copy) course materials via the Britsafe learning management system. The course is delivered entirely online; there is no physical classroom attendance or physical course material.

24. What happens after I pass the exam?
Successful learners receive a certificate from Britsafe Qualifications UK Limited, featuring an anti-counterfeit hologram seal for authenticity. The certificate is available both as a physical copy and as a soft (digital) copy.

25. Is this qualification recognised internationally?
Yes. Britsafe Qualifications UK Limited delivers this qualification fully online to learners across the UK and internationally, though legal duties, recording requirements and system standards are national and differ between the UK nations.

26. Can this qualification lead to further study?
Yes. It provides a foundation for fire risk assessment qualifications, passive fire protection training, facilities management study and Level 3 fire safety qualifications.