Short answer. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires premises to have procedures for evacuating in an emergency, covered by Article 15, with escape routes and exits covered separately by Article 14. How detailed the plan needs to be depends on the size and complexity of the premises, but it must name who is in charge, set out how people get out safely, and be tested with drills.
The evacuation plan is written from the findings of a fire risk assessment, which is where York Green starts.
You are required to have an emergency evacuation plan. That much is clear. But beyond "everyone leaves the building when the alarm goes off," what does the Fire Safety Order actually demand?
More than you might think, and less than some consultants would have you believe. Here is what the law requires, what makes a plan work in practice, and what separates a compliant procedure from one that would actually help if the moment came.
The legal framework: what the Order says
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 covers evacuation procedures under Article 15, procedures for serious and imminent danger. Article 14 deals separately with emergency routes and exits. Together they require you to have procedures for evacuation, and everyone in the building needs to know what they are.
Whether those procedures need to be written down depends on your premises. Article 11 requires the arrangements, the nominated competent people, the evacuation procedure and so on, to be recorded in writing if you employ five or more people, hold a licence for the premises, or are subject to an alterations notice. Outside those cases it is good practice to write them down anyway, but not always a strict legal requirement. That is a separate question from the fire risk assessment itself: since 1 October 2023, every responsible person must record the significant findings of their fire risk assessment, with no five-employee threshold.
The level of detail the plan needs also depends on the complexity and risk profile of your premises. A small office with one exit needs a simpler plan than a care home with vulnerable residents, complex layouts and multiple floors. Both can be compliant if the plan matches the risk. What you cannot do is have nothing written down at all and rely on people working it out on the day.
What the plan must cover
1. Identification of responsible people
Who is in charge during an evacuation? There should be a clearly identified evacuation coordinator or senior person who takes command, is trained, is available during working hours, and has a deputy. Someone has to be making decisions under pressure, and it cannot be left to whoever happens to be nearby.
2. Procedures for calling the emergency services
How and when do you call 999, and who does it? This sounds obvious until people are leaving the building and nobody has actually made the call. Your plan needs to specify the point at which someone discovers a fire and calls 999, what information they need to give, and how the call gets confirmed as made.
3. Alarm systems and how they are sounded
How will people know to evacuate? Is the system automated or manual, and can people distinguish the fire alarm from any other alarm on site? If the system fails, what is the backup? Some premises still rely on someone going round with a hand bell, and that is fine, provided it is documented and rehearsed.
4. Escape routes and assembly points
Your plan needs to specify:
- Primary escape routes from each area of the building
- Alternative routes if the primary route is blocked
- The location of assembly points, and more than one where the building warrants it
- Enough distance from the building that people will not be tempted to re-enter
- Whether assembly points are marked on site
5. Training and information
Everyone needs to know the plan. New employees need induction training that covers evacuation procedures, and the plan should detail how that training is delivered and how drills are recorded. Regular fire drills are not set at a fixed frequency by the Order itself, but government fire safety guidance recommends at least an annual drill, and more often where staff turnover is high, the building has changed, or a previous drill exposed problems.
6. Special provisions for vulnerable people
People with mobility issues, visual or hearing impairments, language barriers or other needs cannot be expected to self-evacuate at the same pace as everyone else. Your plan needs a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan for anyone who needs one, setting out whether they need assistance and who provides it. This is where many plans fall short.
7. Liaison with emergency services
Does the fire service know your building? For higher-risk premises, care homes, hospitals, large office buildings, pre-planning with the fire service is not just useful; it makes a real difference to how quickly an incident is brought under control. Your plan should document any such liaison.
How detailed does it need to be?
Do you need a lengthy document with floor plans, risk matrices and detailed timelines? Probably not, unless your premises is genuinely complex. What you do need is something that can be understood by anyone in the building, specifies roles and responsibilities, identifies escape routes and assembly points, explains how people will be alerted, sets out arrangements for people with disabilities, documents training and drills, and can be updated easily as things change.
A laminated card works for many small businesses. A fuller document with floor plans and detailed procedures is appropriate for care homes or large buildings. The aim is a plan that matches the risk, not one that is padded out for its own sake.
Drills are how you find out if the plan works
An evacuation plan exists on paper. A fire drill tests whether it works in practice, and this is the part that catches organisations out. Plenty have not run a proper drill in years, on the basis that "nothing's changed since the last one." That reasoning does not hold: if you have new people in the building, they need to have experienced the evacuation procedure before a real fire starts.
Record every drill: the date, who was present, who acted as evacuation coordinator, how long it took, and anything unexpected that happened. Keep those records. A fire and rescue authority inspection with no drill records for the past couple of years is a real compliance gap, not a paperwork technicality.
Common gaps in real-world plans
Across evacuation plans reviewed for clients, the same patterns turn up repeatedly:
- Unclear responsibility. "Someone will call 999" does not work. Name someone, train them, and have a backup.
- Assembly points nobody can find. The plan names an assembly point but it is not marked on site, so when the alarm goes off people cluster wherever feels safest.
- No consideration for disabilities. A colleague with a visual impairment or a mobility aid will not evacuate at the same speed as everyone else, and the plan needs to say how they are helped.
- Drills that are not really drills. Management announces the date in advance, nobody treats it seriously, and it does not test anything. A useful drill is only partly announced, tests the alarm, and requires people to actually leave, assemble and be accounted for.
- Plans that never get updated. The building has been reconfigured, the assembly point is now a car park entrance, and the plan is still the one written in 2019.
The bottom line
Emergency evacuation plans are not mysterious. A good plan specifies who does what, identifies how people get out safely, and proves it works through regular, recorded drills. When you next review yours, ask whether a new employee could understand it, whether someone with a disability could evacuate safely, whether people know where to go if the primary exit is blocked, and whether you can produce evidence of drills from the past year. If the answer to any of that is not really, there is work to do, and York Green's fire risk assessment service is a reasonable place to start.
For the underlying legal duties, see the government's fire safety risk assessment guidance, published alongside the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.