FRA must it be in English?

[Ricardo]

Does a FRA in our shores have to be written in English where there are 5 or more persons employed, or could it be written in any language?

I was thinking about a FRA being presented to the fire safety enforcement officer for scrutiny in a foreign language that is not understandable to him/her or the relevant authority.

Would it be down to the fire authority to have it translated or the RP before presenting it to the fire authority.

It may be that RP's can speak pigeon English to get by, like I may be able to speak some Spanish, but committing my FRA in such a language would be beyond me, but I may just be able to get by saying what I want to in that language. Make sense?

[jasper]

why make it awkward for the inspecting officer? he/she is not going to be impressed and will probably be picky (my opinion, I would)

[davio1960]

In my area, my officers/inspectors will not be overly concerned or worried.
Once identified/received the officer will contact language line via the telephone and request the person in charge to read the risk asessment, the translator does there job and we are satisfied.
...next query please (with a small n!)

[Phoenix]

Hi

I just want to make a point on this.

Any fire risk assessment has, of course, to be "suitable and sufficient."  What does this mean?  Well there are a million opinions on this but a big clue is given in the ACOP to the M of H&SAW Regs 1999 as follows:

"Record keeping demonstrates that an assessment is suitable and sufficient and is helpful for two purposes:-
1. To satisfy management
2. To satisfy the enforcing authorities
In both cases it is easier to demonstrate that an assessment is suitable and sufficient if the record shows not just the conclusion but also the reasoning."

To me, this would tend to indicate that a recording of a suitable and sufficient risk assessment has to be clearly understood by the enforcing authority.  A FRA in Chinese (as I have come across) or Spanish or whatever, may be very clear to someone who can read that language but will not be clear to an english speaking fire authority without the additional costs of translation. 

Of course, it would take a test case to finalise the matter but I would be surprised if the costs had to be borne by the fire authority.

Stu

[Mr. P]

Point is, the findings of the FRA has to be communicated to all employees etc. so it may well be that that you need to produce it in braille or other format to facilitate this.  An assessment may include the fact that there is a communication problem which may affect training for starters- I'm sure others will add nicely to this...... --- ...