Anyone can call themselves a fire risk assessor
Here is an uncomfortable fact. There is no single licence you must hold to carry out a fire risk assessment in England. The Fire Safety Order requires that the person doing it is competent, but it does not hand out a badge, and it does not stop anyone printing "fire risk assessor" on a business card. That places the burden on you, the person instructing, to work out whether the individual in front of you actually knows what they are doing.
This is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to ask a few good questions before you appoint anyone.
What competence actually means
Competence, in this context, is a mix of knowledge, experience and the good sense to know the limits of both. A competent assessor understands the type of building in front of them, knows the relevant guidance and standards, and can tell you plainly when a question is beyond their scope and needs a specialist. The mark of a good one is not that they know everything. It is that they know what they do not know, and say so.
The questions worth asking
Before you instruct, ask what professional membership the assessor holds, and with which body. Ask whether they are on a register operated by a recognised professional organisation, and whether their competence has been independently assessed rather than self-declared. Ask what experience they have with your specific building type, because a strong assessor of small commercial premises is not automatically the right person for a high-rise residential block. Ask what their assessment will and will not cover, and what happens if they find something outside their competence. And ask to see the form their report takes, because a good assessment is structured, prioritised and clear about its own limitations.
None of these questions require you to be a fire safety expert. They only require you to expect the assessor to be one, and to show it.
Why the cheapest quote is rarely the answer
When anyone can call themselves an assessor, price becomes a very unreliable guide. A cheaper assessment often means a shorter visit, a thinner report, and findings that will not stand up when someone who knows the subject looks at them. You are not really buying a document. You are buying a judgement about the safety of a building full of people, and about your own legal position. That is a poor place to shop on price alone.
Where independence helps
An independent adviser with no works arm is useful here in a way that is easy to miss. Because we do not carry out the works an assessment might recommend, we have no incentive to steer you towards an assessor who over-specifies. Our only interest is that the assessment is competent, proportionate and genuinely tells you the state of your building. We are, in effect, on your side of the table when the report comes back.
If you are about to appoint a fire risk assessor and want to be sure you are asking the right questions, email s.coogan@omnifire.co.uk. A short conversation now saves a great deal of grief later.