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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: PhilB on February 11, 2007, 11:02:59 AM
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We all know that the responsible must carry out a fire risk assessment and also must appoint competent persons to assist him to comply with the Fire Safety Order.
There are many fire risk assessment methods, templates etc available, some better than others but all of them are useless and possibly dangerous if not completed by a competent person.
I am increasingly finding risk assessments carried out using acceptable formats, including PAS79 that are clearly not suitable & sufficient because the assessor was not competent. Not that I'm trying to upset my dear friend Colllin Tod....his PAS clearly states that only competent persons should use it.
Many organisations are using the Health and Safety manager to carry out this specialist role....they may be competent if they have the necessary skills, knowledge, experience or other qualities but I have found many who are not.
A fire risk assessment is a totally different animal from a general risk assessment. The assessor needs to understand fire development, building performance and human behaviour. Many organisations send nominated employees on one or two day courses and then deem them competent to assess very complex buildings.
Of course the level of competence should be proportional to the risk and complexity of the building. A simple building may be assessed by the responsible person with no assistance.
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Theres no way round this other than an agreed qualification. Although this may be too costly for UK PLC.
I think I am competent, I expect you do too. But some others may disagree.
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Minor point - the Responsible Person only has to see that a Fire Risk Assessment is carried out by a competent person, the RP doesn't actually have to do it themselves.
It is, of course, the decision of the RP as to whether or not they themselves are competent to carry out the FRA - and how many RPs are competent to make that decision? Or will many find themselves being appointed and compelled by their company to do the FRA even if they know they are not competent enough - that's what worries me the most.
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Actually John the Order says the responsible person must carry out a suitable a sufficient...no one else......... "must" confers a statutory duty on the RP only.
But yes they could appoint a competent person to assist them and should of course in many cases.
I do share your concerns that the problem is that many persons do not recognise when they are not competent to carry out the task.
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Unless this matter is sorted I can only see standards deteriorating to dangerous levels.
A start would be for fire authorities to get off the fence and give better guidance on:
1, How responsibility does not automatically mean competence
2. When a person should and should not could carry out their own RA
3. At what point to look for professional advice, starting with high life risk premises, hotels, care premises etc
4. What and where to look for professional advice, starting with the IFE Register of Assessors. Those I deal with
currently point persons to yellow pages. How many so called fire safety advisors have we seen opening in the
last 12 months offering unqualified advice?
Dont get me wrong I accept that there are competent assessors out there not on the IFE Register. We do however have to start somewhere. I made the decision to place myself and company assessors on the Register. Like it or not at least the IFE have taken a step forward on behalf of the layman.
As a final note anyone had any experiences with 'competent' companies offering RA formats on the web? Again no controls mean a minefield.
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The RR(FS)O and the main guides all say the RP does the assessment. The Short Guide says of the RP ".... you must make sure you carry out a fire-risk assessment although you can pass this task to some other competent person.....". So the official advice seems a little at logger-heads with itself.
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As with general H&S risk assessments, you can delegate the task to others but this does not absolve you from the legal duty.
The issue of individual competence has also been debated within the H&S profession for many years and all sorts of people with various degrees of competence have been given the job of assessing risks. I know that there is a serious technical content to fire risk but this can also be the case for many other workplace risks - particularly where complex plant and machinery and hazardous chemicals are involved. Ultimately someone running a business has to be responsible for doing so safely and controlling the associated risks must be part of this responsibilty. Competence is essential in all such aspects of an undertaking so inspection and enforcement are important control measures in seeking to achieve the involvement of competent persons of whatever sort are needed.
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I have a client who has a large building portfolio and they have sent managers on 1 day fire risk assessment courses thinking that this makes them qualified, I have tried to tell them otherwise but now they have spent their money on training they will not listen
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from a frs point of view, this is a topic we have discussed and has raised concerns. we are of the view that for small companies with no significant hazards an employee within that company would likely be 'competent' to carry out a RA. and would advise as such.
the problem with large companies with complex buildings or processes nominating 'in their opinion' a competent person is that they don't fully understand the compex nature of fire and in these circumstances we would challenge the 'competence' of the person.
I think this would be reasonably easy to establish in respect that if they failed to address the key issues within the RA for the workplace and failed to put in place adequate/appropriate control measures, that, in my opinion would demonstrate (and would in itself be evidence) to me that they where not competent, i would then instruct them to address the deficiencies within the RA. i would also recommend that they need to seek professional advice.
the last point to make is there are a lot of so called assessors out there. who are unquallified and incompetent. ( i'm sure the real assessors out there will not take offence)
i would deal with this in equal measure and would instruct the RP to seek alternative advice.
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Perhaps the Enforcing Authorities should start taking action against companies / RP's who present a fire risk assessment which is, in the opinion of the Authority, 'incompetent' and therefore not valid. The action would be failing to carry out the statutory duty. Until legal process starts underlining what is a competently completed fire risk assessment, the Authorities are somewhat complicit in alowing the incompetent to prosper.
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No doubt we'll have to wait until one or more major fires (with mass fatalities) caused by a irresponsible person compliling a crap FRA, before the Govt of the day rush through 'registration' or 'licensing' - which will probably look very similar to the IFE register.
If I was a betting man, I'd put money on the type of building(s) in which this major fire will occur will be a lower end medium/small Hotel with single staircase conditions. There's hundreds around which are only just above the acceptance level due mainly to the FPA and regular (annual) inspections by FRAs
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Point of interest- the order doesnt say that the RA needs to be done by a competent person.
If you disagree - tell me where it says so
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Quite so Wee Brian, that was the point I was making to John. The Order says the Responsible person must do it. Article 18 requires him to appoint competent persons "to assist him in undertaking the preventive and protective measures."
So one could argue that the risk assessment process does assist him in that process so the need to appoint competent persons to do the assessment is implied.
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I suppose an incompetent employer might just manage to produce an adequate, suitable and sufficient risk assessment by chance or copying someone else - but it doesn't seem very likely!
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I see that they have now published guidance for fire risk assessments in transport facilities:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1162114
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I've been told that there are a couple of organisations out there that supposedly competent fire risk assessors can join one being the IFE, another is IFSM and I believe there is some Eurpoean one that the FPA is allied with. I assume they all have hoops which you have to go through to become a member but my question is are they any good and how would a lay person have any confidence that an assessor they might contract who is a memeber of one of these is actually competent?
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Competency is defined as the sum of knowledge and experience.....not a certificate. My advice is to take up references,seek examples of previous work and testimony from previous consultation with either approved inspectorate or enforceing authority. If you ask for this information it will automatically seperate the wheat from the chaff.
In my experience you can normally get an idea of competency by the proposed charge. If you want a cheap job you will get one.
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To my knowledge, there are only 2 bodies who currently IFE registered trainers for FR. They are the NI Fire Liaison Panel with our friend Colin and the FPA. The London Fire Brigade have had a course assessed and are awaiting the outcome. As noted above, the only true way is the definition of competence and references. Mind you, those FRA's who are not utilising the DCLG's 5 steps may get into trouble in the future.
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Quite so Wee Brian, that was the point I was making to John. The Order says the Responsible person must do it. Article 18 requires him to appoint competent persons "to assist him in undertaking the preventive and protective measures."
Can't resist it - must get in my twopenneth
Much depends on the interpretation of the word "undertaking" in the above extract from Art 18 - and not surprisingly there is no defintion of "undertaking" in the RRO
If it means 'to implement' then it suggests that the preventive and protective measures have already been identified by the Responsible Person in his risk assessment - the RP has done it on his own - and the competent person shouldn't do it for him.
(The defintiion of 'preventive and protective measures' is clearly defined as those "identifed by the RP")
If "undertaking" means 'in identifying' then it would infer that the competent person can assist the RP in carrying out his RA.
If "undertaking" means "duty" then there's a personal pronoun missing - it should be "his undertaking" (the most likely intention - I think!)
and if it means "promise" or "assurance" it doesn't make sense ..... like most of it I'm afraid
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Is the risk assessment itself a preventive or protective measure?
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Of course not - unless you have it printed on fire proof paper and can hide behind it in an emergency!
Undertaking, in this context means doing something or getting it done. However hard you try you can't turn "undertaking preventative and protective measures" into doing an FRA.
Unless you write your own dictionary......
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I do agree Wee B. I was just being rhetorically flippant following on from the proposed alternative meanings of 'undertaking'.
Unless specifically defined, words in legislation tend to be interpreted as would be generally understood (eg 'man on the Clapham omnibus') and the term 'undertaking' has been well understood in general health and safety legislation. There is, of course, no reason why the employer shouldn't use the services of a competent person to assist him with his risk assessment but it will still be his. Should the assistant subsequently be proved not to be competent and the risk assessment inadequate he may well have grounds for civil action against the 'assistant' - but this would be more difficult if it was one of his employees.
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What about the fire safety guides issued by CLG? Surely they are designed for the RP to carry out their own FRA, the inference being that "if I follow the guide - I must be right!"
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There is, of course, no reason why the employer shouldn't use the services of a competent person to assist him with his risk assessment but it will still be his. Should the assistant subsequently be proved not to be competent and the risk assessment inadequate he may well have grounds for civil action against the 'assistant' - but this would be more difficult if it was one of his employees.
Not really Ken - it's covered in Article 32(10)
"Offences and Appeals
Where the commission by any person of an offence under this Order, is due to the act or default of some other person, that other person is guilty of the offence, and the person may be charge with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this paragraph whether or not proceedings are taken against the first mentioned person."
.... cowboys beware !!
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Yes, but the 'first person' is still said to have commited the offence in the words of the order. In fact this has to be the case before the assistant can be judged to have commited an offence by act or ommision. I take it that this is the point where you consider whether the dutyholder did what was reasonable in securing a competent assistant.
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Yes Ken, the responsible person may have committed an offence but he will have a defence by virtue of article 33 if he has taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due dilligence to avoid the offence.
In plain English the responsible person must take all reasonable steps to ensure that any person he appoints is competent.
If he does that and something goes wrong he has still committed an offence but an enforcing authority would not take proceedings against him...it would be the cowboy in the dock.
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I am so pleased that the Govt have rationalised all the various pieces of fire safety legislation into one simplified Order. It makes things much easier to follow!!!!!
All you need now is a Doctorate in semantics, and you're home and dry!
Seriously, what chance does the average man-on-the-Clapham-omnibus RP have of getting his head around the FS(RR)O if even the collective fire safety brains here come up with diferent interpretations?
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In plain English the responsible person must take all reasonable steps to ensure that any person he appoints is competent.
Don't you think FRS's should be a bit more proactive in highlighting the situation that RP's may find themselves in they opt for the 'here today - gone tomorrow' competent person ?
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Possibly Fred but it is the RP who has ultimate responsibility for getting the job done not the FRS. If the RP chooses to appoint a cowboy and then cannot show that he exercised due dilligence when making that choice he's failing in that duty.
The FRS should give advice when requested and in my opinion that should include emphasing the need to appoint competent persons.
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Ok so the FRS has given advice and emphasised the need to appoint a competent person. The RP then asks who is a competent person? Have we gone round in a big circle?
As far as the RRO goes, I remember happy hours at the FSC where 30+ of us dealt with the same premise and came up with 40+ different answers, how on earth did anyone think that an ordinary employer was going to cope?
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We've had much the same problem with the various risk assessments required by other health and safety legislation at least since 1993 and seen various standards of risk assessment, 'competent person' and interpretation. You should see some of the 'off-the shelf' RAs offered for construction projects at times!