Essential safety measures in Victoria: the annual report, who signs it and what it rests on

1. What essential safety measures are

Essential safety measures are the parts of a Victorian building that exist to protect the people in it during a fire or other emergency: sprinklers, hydrants, hose reels and extinguishers, the detection and alarm systems, fire doors and paths of travel, exit signs and emergency lighting, and the mechanical features that control smoke. The Building Regulations 2018 list them in Schedule 8. Which a building carries depends on its class, size and use.

Your building's list lives in one of two documents. For a building built or altered after 1 July 1994, the occupancy permit carries a maintenance schedule: each measure, the performance level it must meet, and how and how often it is inspected, tested and maintained. For an older building, a maintenance determination does the same job. Where neither can be found, a registered building surveyor can prepare a schedule under regulation 222. Everything else in this guide rests on that document.

2. Where AS 1851 sits, and what it does not cover

The schedule names a standard for each measure. For most active fire systems it is AS 1851, and many older permits name AS 1851-2005 or an earlier part-standard. Regulations 196 and 217 allow the owner to maintain those measures to AS 1851-2012 instead, and once the 2012 edition is chosen the owner must continue with it. A contractor who moves a building onto the current edition should say so in writing, and the owner should keep that record.

AS 1851-2012 sets the routine service cycles, the tolerance window around each one, the three defect classifications and the records a contractor must keep. It does not cover emergency lighting and exit signs, which are serviced under AS/NZS 2293.2 and share the same record-keeping shape: baseline data, critical and non-critical defects, non-conformances. The annual report covers both, so the owner needs both sets of records.

One Victorian specific: routine servicing of fire hydrants, sprinklers and fire hose reels is licensed plumbing work under the Building and Plumbing Commission, with a restricted class for hose reel servicing alone. A contractor without the licence has not serviced the measure in a way the owner can sign for.

The regulator's current guidance is practice note ESM 02, Maintenance of essential safety measures. The older Essential Safety Measures Maintenance Manual, first published by the Building Commission, still circulates; treat it as background and work from the practice note, the regulations and the schedule.

3. The annual essential safety measures report

Regulation 223 requires the owner to prepare an annual essential safety measures report, the AESMR, within the 28 days before each anniversary of the building's first occupancy permit or maintenance determination. Where there is no such date, the anniversary is 13 June. Councils often say "every 12 months"; the rhythm is right, but the rule is the 28-day window before the anniversary.

Regulation 224 prescribes the form, which the regulator publishes. The owner states that they have taken all reasonable steps to ensure each essential safety measure is operating at the required level of performance and has been inspected, tested and maintained as the schedule requires, and lists the entities that carried out the work.

The report is signed by the owner, or by an agent appointed in writing under section 240 of the Building Act 1993. A fire contractor may prepare it but cannot sign as the owner. In most buildings the contractor drafts it and the owner or managing agent signs it, and that signature is a declaration. The City of Monash warns that a false declaration can bring enforcement or infringement action. The records beneath the form matter more than the form.

Victoria does not lodge the report with any state authority. That is the sharpest difference from New South Wales, where the owner issues an annual fire safety statement, lodges it with council and Fire and Rescue NSW, and displays a copy in the building. For the contrast in full, see AFSS vs AS 1851 and the NSW owner's guide to the AFSS.

4. Kept at the building, produced within 24 hours

Regulation 225 sets the records regime. The owner keeps at the building: the occupancy permit or maintenance determination, the maintenance schedule, the records of every inspection, test and maintenance activity, and the annual reports from the last ten years. The municipal building surveyor or the chief officer of the fire brigade can ask for them, and they must be available at the building within 24 hours. Regulation 227 adds that a measure may not be removed from its approved location except for inspection, testing or maintenance.

Some councils ask owners to lodge the report through an online portal; the City of Monash, for example, directs owners to its own lodgement system. That is council practice, not the regulation, and lodging with council does not replace the on-site record. The same council lists a maximum of 20 penalty units for failing to keep and produce records under regulation 225.

Ten years is the floor for the reports. Keep the service records at least as long; a report is only as good as the records beneath it.

5. What the contractor's records must give the owner

The owner signs; the contractor holds the evidence. For the signature to be honest, the records must answer four questions for every measure: what is there, was each cycle done on time, what was found, and was it fixed. That means:

• An essential safety measures register. Every measure on the maintenance schedule, identified at asset level: the specific extinguisher, door, panel or pump, with its type, size, location, and the standard and cycle that apply. "Extinguishers, level 3" is not a register.
• Cycle records. AS 1851 clause 1.16 requires a logbook per system with pass or fail results referencing the standard's section and interval, completed at the time of service, with a printed, signed hard copy left on site after each routine service. Digital is permitted; the hard copy is still required. Anything outside its tolerance window is recorded as a non-conformance.
• Baseline data. The design flow and pressure figures for sprinklers, hydrants and pumpsets that the yearly tests are measured against. Missing baseline data is itself a non-conformance under clause 1.8.
• Defects and close-outs. Every defect classified as critical, non-critical or non-conformance. A critical defect is reported to the owner before the technician leaves site and confirmed in writing within 24 hours; non-critical defects and non-conformances within one week (clause 1.17.1). Then the rectification, the retest and the date closed.
• The yearly condition report. Appendix E of AS 1851, issued by the service provider to the owner each year: the condition of every system, confirmation they can perform to the approved design, and every outstanding defect and non-conformance. This is the document the annual report should be signed against.
• Emergency lighting records under AS/NZS 2293.2: the six-monthly discharge test recorded per fitting, with faults found and work done.
• Licences and competency. Evidence that the people who did the work held the licence or competency it required.

If a contractor cannot produce these for the twelve months before the anniversary, the owner has no basis for the declaration.

6. An essential safety measures checklist for building managers

Run this in the month before the anniversary, not the week before.

• Locate the occupancy permit or maintenance determination and the maintenance schedule. Confirm the anniversary date, or 13 June if there is none.
• Confirm which edition of AS 1851 each measure is maintained to, and that any move to AS 1851-2012 was recorded.
• Reconcile the contractor's register against the schedule: nothing on the schedule missing from the register, nothing on the register the schedule does not require.
• Check that every cycle was completed inside its tolerance window in the last twelve months, including long-interval items that fell due this year.
• Check that emergency lighting and exit sign tests under AS/NZS 2293.2 sit alongside the AS 1851 records.
• Pull the defect list. Every critical defect closed, or an interim measure documented. Every non-critical defect and non-conformance closed or listed on the report as outstanding.
• Obtain the yearly condition report from each contractor and read the outstanding items.
• Confirm baseline data is on file for sprinklers, hydrants and pumpsets.
• Confirm the contractor's licences for plumbing-classed work.
• Complete the regulation 224 form, list every entity that did work, and have the owner or the written agent sign it inside the 28-day window.
• File it at the building with the previous reports, the schedule and the service records, producible within 24 hours.
• If council asks for lodgement through its portal, do that as well, never instead.

7. Where buildings fail an essential safety measures audit

An audit asks the same questions the checklist does, and the failures repeat:

• The schedule cannot be found, so nobody can say what the building must maintain.
• The report was signed on the contractor's word, with no yearly condition report and no defect list behind it.
• Open defects were not listed. The report declares every measure operating while the contractor's records show a critical defect still open.
• A cycle was missed a contractor change ago and the report was signed each year since.
• Edition drift. The contractor services to AS 1851-2012, the schedule names 2005, and nobody recorded the switch.
• Emergency lighting fell between contractors, assumed to be in the fire contractor's scope and tested by nobody.
• Records live off site with no copy at the building, so the 24-hour request cannot be met.
• The signatory had no written authority from the owner.

None of these are failures of the fire systems. They are failures of the record, and all of them are visible months before the anniversary.

8. How Maintenance Partners helps

Maintenance Partners keeps the register and the live service record for each building. Every asset carries its type, size and service cycle; due dates are computed from the register, and the compliance engine measures each activity against its AS 1851 tolerance window and surfaces work that is late or has never been done. Technicians complete the exact AS 1851 form for the asset on the field app, with photos, readings and signatures captured on site and an offline replica for basements and plant rooms. Defects are graded critical, non-critical or non-conformance as they are raised, converted to quotes the owner approves from an emailed link, and tracked through work orders to close-out. Licence tracking is enforced at scheduling, so plumbing-classed hydrant and hose reel work goes only to people who hold it.

Before any annual sign-off, the building's open defects are listed from the live record, which exports to PDF for the on-site file. Building owners see the same record through the client portal, free and never a seat, so the person signing the regulation 224 form can look at the evidence before they sign. For a Victorian contractor that is the difference between preparing the owner's report and vouching for it. Sixty minutes with the team shows how it fits your buildings.

A note on jurisdiction

This article describes the Victorian regime under the Building Act 1993 and Building Regulations 2018 in general terms. Other states differ: New South Wales lodges an annual fire safety statement assessed by an accredited practitioner (fire safety), and Queensland gives an occupier's statement to the Queensland Fire Department. For a particular building, work from its own occupancy permit or maintenance determination, with advice from a registered building surveyor where the schedule is unclear.