The PEEP Nobody Wrote: Why Inclusive Evacuation Planning Still Fails at the Fire Door
A plan that works only for some people
Most UK workplaces can produce an evacuation plan. It will show exits, assembly points and the name of the fire marshal. What it often will not show is how a disabled member of staff, a visitor with a temporary injury or a contractor with limited mobility will actually leave the building. The plan exists, but it is not personal. It assumes a uniform population that can walk down stairs, hear alarms and move quickly. That assumption is doing a great deal of unexamined work.
Personal emergency evacuation plans, usually called PEEPs, are the mechanism for closing that gap. They record the individual arrangements needed to evacuate a specific person safely. They are not a substitute for a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, and they are not a badge of inclusivity. They are an operational document. Yet in many organisations they are either absent, out of date or written by someone who has never spoken to the person concerned.
The uncomfortable conclusion is that many workplaces are not failing because they lack a policy. They are failing because the policy stops at the fire door.
Where the legal duty actually sits
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of fire risks and to put in place appropriate measures, including arrangements for emergency evacuation. That duty is not limited to able-bodied employees. It extends to everyone who may be affected by the premises, including visitors and contractors. The Equality Act 2010 adds a separate obligation not to discriminate and to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. In practice, the two frameworks overlap: an evacuation plan that does not account for a disabled person may be both a fire safety failure and an equality failure.
The responsible person is usually the employer for the parts of the premises it controls, or the building owner or landlord for common parts. In multi-tenant buildings, the split can be messy. A tenant may employ a disabled member of staff, but the landlord may control the evacuation strategy for the building. A contractor may be on site for a day, but the host business still has duties towards people working under its control. The duty follows control, not just the employment contract.
Why PEEPs are overlooked until it is too late
There are several reasons. The first is disclosure. Some employees do not want to be identified as needing assistance, particularly if they fear being treated differently. A PEEP process that depends entirely on voluntary disclosure will miss people unless the organisation actively and confidentially invites information. The second is ownership. PEEPs are sometimes treated as an HR matter, sometimes as a facilities matter and sometimes as a fire safety matter. When no one owns the process, no one reviews it.
The third is visibility. Employees are at least known to the organisation. Visitors and contractors are not. A wheelchair user attending a meeting, a pregnant visitor with reduced mobility or a contractor on crutches can arrive without any evacuation arrangement being made. A reception process that asks no questions and records no answers is not inclusive; it is simply unaware.
The fourth is the paper trap. A PEEP can become a form completed at induction and never revisited. It may name a buddy who has since left, or specify a refuge area that is no longer managed. It may assume a lift will be available without confirming how it is protected and operated. A PEEP that is not tested is not a plan. It is a document with good intentions.
Making evacuation planning genuinely inclusive
Inclusive planning starts with a simple principle: ask the person, not just the form. A PEEP should be developed with the individual, reviewed regularly and kept confidential to those who need to act on it. It should identify the assistance required, the route to be used, the role of any buddy or fire marshal, and what happens if the primary route is unavailable. It should be linked to the fire risk assessment, not kept in a separate HR folder.
For visitors, the process can be proportionate. A pre-visit question, a reception prompt and a named contact are often enough. For contractors, the host business should ask about evacuation arrangements before work starts, especially where the work area is remote or the contractor will be alone. For multi-tenant buildings, the landlord and tenants need a shared understanding of refuges, lifts, alarms and assembly points. Each party should know who is responsible for what.
The test of a PEEP is not whether it satisfies an auditor. It is whether the person it describes could leave the building safely if the alarm sounded today. That requires training, drills and review. It also requires a culture in which asking for assistance is not treated as a burden. A workplace that plans only for the majority is not compliant in any meaningful sense. It is simply lucky until it is not.