Fire Risk Assessment Validator

Contract Type: Permanent

Salary: £50,080.35 per annum (£55,293.71 is achieved after 12 months successful performance in the role)

Working Hours: 35 Hours per week

Working Pattern: Monday-Friday/Hybrid

Location: Liverpool/National

The Difference You’ll Make

You will implement robust quality control and validation for our in-house fire risk assessment department for low/medium risk buildings and outsourced high-risk buildings and build confidence in the quality of the services being provided. Ensure all fire risk assessment for life safety, are suitable and sufficient, consistently completed to a high standard and compliant with the requirements of the legislation and guidance and are certified by a competent person.

Act as the lead named person with responsibility and delegated authority to validate documented fire risk assessments on behalf of The Riverside Group and in accordance with our BAFE SP-205 Fire Risk Assessment Scheme.

This position reports to the Validation Manager.

About You

We are looking for someone with:

• Ability to meet the nationally recognized Competency Criteria for Fire Risk Assessors from the Fire Sector Federation or similar and meet the requirements of an FRA validator.
• Extensive experience of undertaking fire risk assessments, with experience in residential fire risk assessments and experience validating FRAs.
• Knowledge and experience in the application of quality assessment frameworks and techniques including BS8674:2025 Competence of Assessors.
• Experience of working as a fire risk assessor for residential housing and care and support schemes and evidence of applying BS9792:2025 and PAS 79-1 principles.
• Ability to carry out site visits and physical inspections of work, including accessing loft spaces by means of ladders.

Role Profile

• Deputize as the lead named person with responsibility and delegated authority to validate documented fire risk assessments on behalf of The Riverside Group.
• Support the implementation and review of an effective Fire Risk Assessment Validation process of all fire risk assessments completed in-house and by contractors including Managed Agents.
• Undertake fire risk assessment validations for internal and external FRA’s and provide feedback from the validation process to the relevant persons, agreeing changes to the assessment report where required.
• Support the timely program of desktop validations and on-site audit of risk assessment work carried out by each risk assessor when first employed and then repeated annually. The on-site audit shall comprise either an observed assessment of a premises undergoing assessment, or a review of a site previously assessed, witnessed assessments and post FRA site reviews.
• Support the implementation of procedures for inherently low risk premises (i.e. identical premises and the assessments are carried out by the same assessor) for an alternative approach to validating every report. All premises which are medium or high risk must be subject to validation.
• Maintain a record of your validation process for each fire risk assessment report. The records shall contain, as a minimum, the unique identifier of the assessment; the name of the premises; the name of the assessor; the name of the validator; the date of the assessment; the date of the validation; brief details of any significant errors and omissions where clarification was necessary.
• Cooperate with any external surveillance audits by 3rd party accredited organizations.
• Assist with the procedure to retain all evidence gathered during the fire risk assessment including; observations, notes, photographs, copies of documents and information gained from third parties and ensure that it is maintained in a secure and accessible condition.
• Undertake desktop audits for a sample of fire risk assessment carried out and on the detailed notes and gathered evidence during the assessment i.e. observations, notes, photographs, copies of documents and information gained from third parties.
• Support the department with external 3rd party assurance audits and internal business assurance assessment audits, developing management responses to service failures and introduce improvement plans and associated communications to ensure awareness and adherence of standards and compliance requirements.
• Investigate formal standards/procedure violations as they arise, conducting root cause analysis and production of action plans to address and develop feedback and training as required.
• Produce clear, informative, and meaningful reports as required including statutory, internal and national standards compliance reports and performance reports for the management team.
• Support independent professional body reviews and 3rd party accreditation for the organisation and individuals such as BAFE SP205.
• Support line managers where necessary in assessing Fire Risk Assessors competence.
• Support where necessary with feedback to internal/external stakeholders on FRA reports and their content.