Val
The answer to your question lies in how the ODPM see the thing working. A few years ago I was fortunate (or is that unfortunate !) enough to be invited onto one of the working parties looking at enforcement principles. The way that they expected it to be done ran like this.........
Currently the FSO only has to look at a what is basically a fixed formula.... x exits - x travel distance - x directions - low/high risk ...... fill in the blanks and look up the answer in the codes/guides.
Under the RRFSO RA approach, the reponsible persom will assess the risk and come up with his figures and say safe or not. In the case you cite for example.....if he says that all persons are fit, there have been no occurances over the past 10 years and they have fire fighting measures in place albeit a bucket of sand and he considers the process low risk then he is happy with his assessment and considers all is well. If the FRS disagree and say that the travel distance is excessive, then they will have to detail why they think that is the case. They will have to evaluate the risk and the sytems in place and run a RA matrix to come up with what they consider to be the "real risk" and thus say that the travel distance in the persons RA is excessive.
In other words, the owness is on the FRS to prove that the RA done is invalid and that further control measures are required before it can be deemed acceptable. I may have been a little over the top by saying that the full burden of proof was with the FRS but I think you can see where I was coming from. The days of a scale rule and a table of travel distances will have been consigned to the bin.
As for Section 34, the resposible person has not failed to comply... he has done the RA as required by Section 9 and provided what he sees as a reasonable and practicable solution to satisfy Section 8 as well. If the case went to court, the FRS would again have a burden of proof in proving that the case was suitable to be tried as a breach of Sections 8 or 9, they would have to say to the court that he had not done all R&P and state the reasons why, (the days of it was 5 metres over distance or the fire door was wedged open have gone as straight proofs).... it would be imposible to stand up in court and offer no reason why the case was there and why the FRS disagreed with the persons statement of doing all R&P.... the person would then have to satisfy the court in his defence that what he had in place was R&P in other words the burden of proof now shifts to him.