Disabilities Discrimination Act [DDA] 2005

The Disability Discrimination Act is a piece of legislation that promotes civil rights for disabled people and protects disabled people from discrimination.

How does this affect your premises?

Generally buildings and organisations must ensure their buildings are compliant with this legislation. This can included but not limited to Disable Toilet Alarms, Disabled Refuge systems for emergency situations, beacons and induction loop systems for those with a hearing impairment to notify them of emergencies or general announcements, and correct and appropriate signage.

Further information on some of the systems relevant to this act can be found on our other ‘life safety and emergency systems’

Additional information??

The above is a brief outline, further information on the RRO and DDA is available from government resource sites, however if you would like further advice or indeed would like one of our trained and specialist team to complete Fire Risk Assessments or DDA surveys on your behalf, please feel free to contact us

The Regulatory Reform Order 2005 [RRO]

Fire safety legislation has, historically, been difficult to understand due to the variety of Acts and Regulations which has caused businesses difficulty in knowing their responsibilities. Fire safety in England and Wales has now been brought under one regime known as The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

The most significant change in this is the inclusion of a ‘nominated responsible person’ within the building or organisation. This person’s responsibilities include (but are not limited to) those stated below. Previously responsibility for these matters lay with the specialist contractor or company providing the services to the building but the RRO shifted the emphasis to the nominated responsible person.

Building and organisations must:

Appoint a nominated Responsible person

Who must:

• Create Emergency Plans, communicate and train staff on these.
• Undertake a Fire Risk Assessment (Grey Matter Fire & Security Ltd are able to complete this on your behalf)
• Ensure correct types and numbers of portable extinguishers are in place and are regularly maintained in working order.
• Consider those who may be more at risk due to disability and clearly identify a solution for those and record this.
• Ensure fire detection and other life safety systems are maintained to the correct standard, and complete weekly tests on these.
• Maintain and complete a fire system logbook recording all incidents and occurrences on the fire detection system.
• Eliminate risk of fire so far as is reasonably practicable.