RESIDENT ENGAGEMENT & PEEPS
The duty most providers forget.
Fire safety isn't only about the building. The regime now expects residents to be properly informed and engaged, and the most vulnerable to be accounted for. We handle it, document it, and make sure it stands up as evidence.
When to use this
Sound like your situation?
A NEW DUTY, NOW LIVE
From 6 April 2026, the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) Regulations 2025 are in force.
They require Responsible Persons to take reasonable steps to identify residents who may need assistance to evacuate, and to put proportionate arrangements in place — often a Person-Centred Fire Risk Assessment, with a Residential PEEP where justified. The duties apply to buildings of 18m or 7 storeys, and also catch certain buildings over 11m where simultaneous evacuation applies. Most providers’ templates pre-date the duty. Ours don’t.
THE PROBLEM
Engagement gets done last, if at all
Resident engagement is the duty that slips. The surveys get commissioned, the doors get inspected, and the requirement to actually inform and involve residents, and to account for those who'd need help to evacuate, drifts to the bottom of the list.
But it’s not optional, and since 6 April 2026, the duties also catch certain buildings over 11m where simultaneous evacuation applies. Done late or done thinly, it’s both a compliance gap and, in the event of an incident, exactly the sort of thing that gets scrutinised hard.
Step 1
Identify
Duty
The Responsible Person must use reasonable endeavours to identify residents whose ability to evacuate without assistance is compromised by a physical or cognitive impairment or condition. This means actively asking, not waiting to be told.
What good looks like
Active engagement with all residents, including direct outreach to vulnerable groups. A clear, accessible process for residents to self-identify or update their circumstances at any time.
What we do
Set up the resident engagement programme, the outreach materials and the secure recording process. We act as the point of contact for residents who want to discuss in confidence.
This describes duties under the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025, in force from 6 April 2026. It is background, not advice on a specific building. Terms.
There is also a building-level duty
The building emergency evacuation plan
The six steps above are the duty you owe to individual residents. Alongside them, the same Regulations require a building emergency evacuation plan: one plan for the whole building, owed whether or not anyone in it needs personal help.
The Responsible Person must prepare it, share it with the local fire and rescue service, place a copy in the secure information box where the building has one, and review it at least every 12 months. It pulls together the instructions to residents, confirmation of whether there are any relevant residents in the building, and any building-wide arrangements such as an evacuation alert system.
Important distinction
A PCFRA is not a PEEP
These two often get used interchangeably. They are not the same thing, and the difference matters, especially when you are accountable for what was, and was not, done for a vulnerable resident.
The assessment
PCFRA
Person-Centred Fire Risk Assessment. The assessment of a specific resident's circumstances and what would help them get out safely. This is what the law requires you to offer in scope buildings, and to carry out where the resident asks for one.
What the law actually requires you to record
Emergency evacuation statement
Where an approach is agreed with the resident, it is written down as an emergency evacuation statement: a short record of what that resident should do in a fire. A full workplace-style PEEP, where staff assist evacuation ahead of the fire service, is deliberately not what these Regulations require in homes.
Put simply: the PCFRA is the duty. The emergency evacuation statement is what gets recorded. A full PEEP is the heaviest end of the spectrum, used only where genuinely justified, not the default for every resident. Treating the PCFRA and a PEEP as the same thing risks producing PEEPs where they are not proportionate, or missing PCFRAs altogether.
WHAT WE DO
Informed residents, documented properly
Resident information
Getting residents the fire safety information they're entitled to, in a form they'll actually read and understand.
Engagement strategy
A clear strategy for how and when residents are engaged, tailored to the building rather than copied from a template.
PEEPs & vulnerable residents
Identifying residents who'd need help to evacuate, and putting the right personal plans in place.
Door-by-door records
Engagement tracked flat by flat, so you know exactly who's been reached and who still needs following up.
Documented evidence
A clear record of what was sent, to whom and when, so the duty is demonstrably met, not just claimed.
Kept current
Residents change, circumstances change. We keep engagement and PEEPs up to date over time.
EVIDENCE, NOT JUST GOODWILL
It only counts if you can show it
Engaging residents well matters ethically. But it also has to be evidenced. Telling a Regulator you informed residents isn't the same as showing the record of what was sent, to whom, and when.
We handle the engagement and keep the evidence straight, door by door where the regime requires it, so the duty is genuinely met and demonstrably met. It folds neatly into the managed service, kept current as residents and circumstances change.
We can build the strategy and records as a one-off, or run it as part of an ongoing managed relationship.
RELATED SERVICES
What often comes with this
Often paired with
Building Safety Act & safety cases
Resident engagement is one of the four pillars of a defensible safety case. Done thinly, it's where a safety case unravels.
See Building Safety Act work →Often paired with
Fire risk assessments
A PCFRA is a person-centred fire risk assessment. It sits alongside the building-level FRA and informs the wider strategy.
See fire risk assessments →Worth knowing
The 2025 Regulations are new and the language is unfamiliar to most. Here's where to make sense of it.
Law vs Guidance
The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) Regulations 2025, BS 8629 evacuation alert systems, and how they fit with the wider regime.
See the explainer →Fire safety jargon
PCFRA, Residential PEEP, simultaneous evacuation, stay-put — explained in plain English.
Open the jargon buster →April 2026 is here. Is your building actually ready?
We'll set up the resident evacuation plans, the person-centred assessments, and the records to prove it.