Planning
From fire risk assessment to remedial works: closing the action plan
Turn fire risk assessment findings into a manageable programme, with clear priorities, defined survey requirements, accountable owners and evidence that actions have been closed.
A fire risk assessment is most useful when its findings lead to action. For a housing provider or property manager, the difficult stage is often the handover from assessment to delivery: deciding who owns each issue, what further investigation is needed and what will count as completion.
This guide focuses on managing that handover in England, particularly where findings concern fire doors, compartmentation and fire stopping. It does not replace a building-specific assessment or determine the urgency of an individual defect.
Preserve the assessor's priorities
Begin with the current assessment and its action plan. Keep the original wording, reference and recommended timescale in your working register. Add delivery information alongside them rather than rewriting findings into shorthand that loses their meaning.
If a recommendation is unclear, ask the assessor to explain the risk, the intended outcome and the basis for the priority. A procurement timetable should not silently replace a safety timescale. Where the proposed programme cannot meet the recommendation, escalate the issue promptly to the responsible person and the appropriate competent adviser for a decision on how the risk will be managed.
The government's five-step checklist places recording, planning, maintenance and review within the assessment process. Commissioning a report is the beginning of that process, not its completion.
Separate actions by the decision they need
One action plan can contain very different tasks. A management instruction may need an internal owner. A damaged door may need a specialist inspection. A concern about concealed construction may need a scoped investigation before a repair can be specified.
A useful working register includes:
- The original assessment reference and precise building location.
- The person accountable for progressing the action.
- The priority and target date, with any subsequent decision recorded.
- The next step: clarification, survey, specification, procurement or work.
- Dependencies such as access, asbestos information or another contractor.
- The evidence required before the item can be closed.
This prevents a request for further investigation being treated as a complete instruction to install a product. Our survey report guide explains how to distinguish confirmed findings from inaccessible areas and assumptions.
Define the investigation before asking for prices
An assessment may flag a possible weakness without establishing the full extent of remedial work. Before tendering, decide what information bidders need to price consistently.
For doors, that may mean an asset register and a schedule of observed defects. For compartmentation, it may mean drawings, accessible survey areas and an agreed approach to investigating concealed spaces. A fire compartment survey should have an explicit scope and limitations; the phrase “survey the building” is rarely enough.
Ask how inaccessible areas will be reported. If an area was not inspected, record it as unverified. Do not allow an absence of reported defects to be mistaken for positive evidence about spaces nobody reached.
Give contractors a common brief
Supply the same report, drawings and relevant site information to each bidder. Identify the expected deliverables, access arrangements and who can authorise changes. Ask bidders to list exclusions, assumptions and items needing further design input.
For example, a quotation to address identified service penetrations should make clear whether opening up, access equipment, associated trades and making good are included. It should also explain the approval process if the actual construction differs from the survey information.
Keep technical questions and commercial questions connected. A cheaper price based on different assumptions may leave the original action unresolved. The quote preparation checklist helps assemble a useful information pack.
Agree completion evidence before work starts
Choose a reference system that connects the assessment action, survey finding and completed work. Agree the photographs, location records, product or system information and checking records needed for the particular scope.
Where work will become concealed, plan inspection and evidence capture before it is covered. Give someone authority to resolve queries and reject incomplete records while the team can still access the location.
Maintain separate statuses for work completed, evidence awaiting review and action closed. These stages often happen on different dates. A contractor's completed work package may address only part of a wider assessment recommendation.
Close the loop with the building's management team
Review outstanding items with the person responsible for fire safety. Confirm who is authorised to accept completion and whether the findings require the fire risk assessment or management arrangements to be reviewed. Explain any continuing maintenance or access requirements to the team taking over the building.
Keep the full assessment and related arrangements: the Section 156 guidance explains the recording duties applying to responsible persons. Preserve the link between the original concern, the decision and the evidence; that is what makes the next review more useful.
Sources and further reading
Checked 14 October 2026. Priorities and interim arrangements require advice appropriate to the particular premises.
