Regulation 38

Regulation 38 is a requirement under the Building Regulations for England and Wales to provide fire safety information to the 'responsible person' at the completion of a project, or where the building or extension is first occupied.

The Regulation 38 app aims to ensure information critical to the life safety of people using or working near a building in the event of fire is communicated to the owner, occupier and/or end user; ultimately to make it available to the fire authorities to enable them to form firefighting strategies for the building/s in the case of a fire.

Following a number of high-profile fire incidents in recent years, including the University of Bolton student accommodation, Barking residential block and Grenfell Tower, the need for Regulation 38 as the ‘Golden Thread of Information’ has now become more prominent than ever before.

The ‘Golden Thread of Information’ is a term for Regulation 38 coined by Dame Judith Hackitt who is leading the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety in the Grenfell Tower inquiry. It seeks to record key information about a building’s fire safety properties and relay this from architects to fire engineers through to building safety managers to owners. This allows the responsible persons to meet their legal obligations under the Fire Safety Order 2005.

To present this information, Suffolk based fire consultants TFC has created its new Regulation 38 app, for smartphones and tablets, which generates a Regulation 38 report, without compromising on competency.

The Regulation 38 app features:

• The app takes the user through a series of questions that enables a detailed report to be generated upon completion.

• Traffic light system shows the user their progress through the report questionnaire.

• The user can move between questions should the information not be immediately available to them and allows the user to return to the partially completed question.

• The app has been designed to enable photographic evidence to be inserted when being used in the field.

• The report can be completed offline when in the field.

• Web-based Control Centre, allowing report creation and completion.

The app has been developed by fire safety professionals to meet current legislation and is recognised by the fire authorities as a useful tool to enable the responsible person/s to meet their legal obligations.