THE REGULATORY REFORM (FIRE SAFETY) ORDER 2005 > Q & A

Reg Reform Order clarification please

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steve walker:
I was looking through the RRO today and noticed the following:

“Interpretation     2.  
In this Order—"relevant persons" means—

(a) any person (including the responsible person) who is or may be lawfully on the premises; and

(b) any person in the immediate vicinity of the premises who is at risk from a fire on the premises,
but does not include a fire-fighter who is carrying out his duties in relation to a function of a fire and rescue authority …”

And

“Maintenance of measures provided for protection of fire-fighters
 38. —(1) Where necessary in order to safeguard the safety of fire-fighters in the event of a fire, the responsible person must ensure that the premises and any facilities, equipment and devices provided in respect of the premises for the use by or protection of fire-fighters under this Order or under any other enactment, including any enactment repealed or revoked by this Order, are subject to a suitable system of maintenance and are maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.”

And

“Offences
 32. —(1) It is an offence for any responsible person or any other person mentioned in article 5(3) to—
fail to comply with any requirement or prohibition imposed by articles 8 to 22 and 38 (fire safety duties) where that failure places one or more relevant persons at risk of death or serious injury in case of fire;”

I do not understand how the fire authority can prosecute someone for placing a relevant person at risk under article 38 when firefighters are excluded from being a “relevant person.”

Can anyone explain?

colin todd:
Steven, Thats a cracker,but I think that there is a possible answer, which I offer for bricks to be thrown at it. I think that there are 2 points. Firstly, its a bit like the GMC arguement about electronic locks, which went to Court. You may recall that one arguement was that GMC, by ensuring that the public could escape were only doing so in order that, by their failure to escape the public did not put staff at risk; so the requirement under the Workplace Regs to protect employees was legitamately being enforced. It is also a bit like B5 of the Building Regs, which requires measures to assist firefighters, but primarily so that they could effect rescue, thereby enforcing the requirement to secure the H&S of those in and around buildings. If, say, a firefighting lift and rising main required under the Building regs were not maintained, this would be to the detriment of the safety of firefighters. Thus a breach of Article 38. Now, if the firefighters are at risk, and so are unable to effect rescues of relevant persons, the latter could, arguably, be exposed to risk of death or serious injury in the event of fire. In practice, as workplaces generally stand alone with no need for rescue by the fire brigade, it would be very difficult if not impossible to go straight to prosecution for this breach. Nervertheless consider a block of flats. If the firefighters cannot use the lifts and rising mains, people could be put at risk. None of this means that there is no teeth to enforce Article 38 of course, since a failure to maintain could result in an enforceement notice.

pd:
Colin has got it about right...the appeal in the electronic locks case was badly handled. They should have won but hey...justice was done!

By the way you are looking at an old definition of relevant persons. It has been changed to relate only to firefighters engaged in fire fighting, rescue or any of those other things they are not paid for in the Fire and Rescue Act

colin todd:
I think he merely gave an abbreviated version PD.

PhilB:
I think you have a good point Steve. Colin, what if no relevant persons are in the premises or in the vicinity?..there would be no offence if only FFs tackling a fire were placed at risk by failure of article 38.

That said, I cannot think of many situations where this would cause problems.

I think the answer would be if someone was found to be in breach of article 38 to serve an enforcement notice or the FA may even serve an alterations notice before the breach occurs.

Failure to comply with a notice is an offence regardless of the persons placed at risk by that failure.

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