With the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 'assessment' method there is now a way for all business to tailor fire safety arrangements. With customisation however, comes increased cost. All these costs are as a result of a reasonable lawful approach to fire safety.

These soon begin to accumulate and represent a sizeable cost for a company, especially a small to medium sized business. A cost not only in monetary terms, but also investment in manpower and time to co-ordinate it all.

Many a department head will be pouring over the figures, planning for budget squeezes to come and rationalising all costs. This could potentially represent something of a moral crises for businesses.

Cuts in funding may mean less focus on managing and implementing fire safety. Less focus and less management could lead to a rise in incidents over time. In turn, an incident can be interpreted as a failure to comply and may result in prosecution.

So in these times of economic gloom, business will be balancing the presures of expenditure against lawful duty to commit money and resources to safety.

Re-assessment is constantly required: as the business changes so do the risks. Fire risk assessments not only help save your business and lives, it could help save money as well. Turning off things like computers, extension leads, screens, lights, power sockets and kettles can all save money over a year as well as substantially reducing the risk if fire.