FireNet Community
FIRE SAFETY => Fire Risk Assessments => Topic started by: colin todd on December 10, 2020, 12:34:17 AM
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The PDFs are now available to purchase from BSI. They became available on 7 December, the very day that was in a programme set in October 2019, despite all the challenges of 2020. Hard copy available in the next few days. This represented extremely hard work by the BSI editor and a really good steering group, who ploughed through 1,200 public comments, and who comprised reps from the following:
? BSI Consumer and Public Interest Network
? CBRE PMFM UK
? Fire Industry Association
? Institution of Fire Engineers
? Lend Lease
? Metro Safety Ltd
? National Fire Chiefs Council
? National Residential Landlords Association
? National Security Inspectorate
? National Social Housing Fire Safety Group
? NHS England/NHS Improvements
? Savills
? Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
? University College London
My thanks got to all of the above, who gave willing of their time.
By the way, pay little heed to those who quote from it out of context. Read the codes of practice for yourself.
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Just to bump this to the top again following my hat doffing in another thread since this is far more important.
By the way, only 25% increase in cost of the document in 13 years. I wonder how that compares with the price assessors are getting over the same period?
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They shall be an interesting read, just waiting for our EHS subscription system to get them up (they have a slight lag with new BS) and see what's new and rush to get it incorporated before NSI come to renew our BAFE!
I just hope everyone uses them correctly and don't do a BS9999 on them and be too selective on which bits they choose to follow/adopt!
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Tate and Lyle; 40%
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It appears BSI have withdrawn PAS79-2 ''pending further consideration''.
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If you ever need an example of how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, this will not be it!
It does not matter how many times well meaning caveats, ifs, buts, normally, generally, may be, possibly, considered, subjective, holistic, pragmatic or risk-proportional phrases are used in a manner that would allow Rose Coloured glasses to colour the judgement of the inexperienced, somebody somewhere is going to object because it does not fit their needs specifically.
Common sense can only prevail if we let it.
Bill
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"...A spokesperson for the BSI said: ?BSI, in its role as the UK National Standards Body, is temporarily suspending PAS 79-2: 2020 Fire risk assessment, Housing, Code of practice and has removed it from sale..."
It's my opinion that something as important as this, in a post-Grenfell world, should (as a point of principle) never have been a PAS, sponsored by an individual company, with the lighter scrutiny applied during the drafting process of a PAS compared to a full BS. That's no reflection on either the authors or the Sponsor; it was a well-crafted document, and I'm personally quite sure that the motivation behind the sponsorship was beyond reproach, but judging from the scrutiny in certain sections of the media its branding hasn't helped, in this case.
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Fishy, I am disappointed to find you spreading misinformation on Firenet, and I presume that you are the same person who spread the same misinformation in more or less the same words on LinkedIN.
Your assertion that PAS 79 or parts thereof is sponsored by an individual company is totally untrue. Nor therefore can there be any "motive behind the sponsorship". If your implication is that it is my company that sponsored the PAS, this is clearly untrue. My company does not sponsor any PAS. In effect the sponsor for PAS 79 is BSI itself. The motive for the revision was a request from the housing sector for guidance and documentation dedicated to housing. I acted as technical author for BSI, but your comments on scrutiny are also incorrect.
For avoidance of doubt, the contents of the PAS were subject to close scrutiny of a steering group comprising :
? CBRE PMFM UK
? Consumer and Public Interest Network
? Fire Industry Association
? Institution of Fire Engineers
? Lendlease
? Metro Safety Ltd
? National Fire Chiefs Council
? National Residential Landlords Association
? National Security Inspectorate
? National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group
? NHS England/NHS Improvements
? Savills (UK) Limited
? Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
? University College London
In addition, a PAS is subject to additional scrutiny that does not apply to any BS, namely a vast review group, significantly larger than the steering group, who are specifically asked to comment.
I would be pleased therefore if you could acknowledge the incorrect nature of the misinformation that you are disseminating.
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There appears to be radio silence...................
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This is Earth calling Fishy, Earth calling Fishy, are you receiving, over?
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The silence is deafening (I know they've seen your reply).
The issue is a noble one, everyone has means to evacuate, but some sense of reality and proportionality needs to be maintained. Individual happy cases where all the neighbours club together and happen to be around at all required times and are willing to help evacuate someone that have been highly publicised are all very well, but do not reflect todays society. Not all flats are owner occupied, many are investments and have the potential for rapid turnover of tenants where the freeholder won't even be aware.
That isn't to say the matter should be brushed off, but some form of achievable effective middle ground is required.
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Tony, Nice to hear from the voice of common sense. I thought I and gone deaf, such is the silence.
It will sound like an obscure analogy, but I did taxi work for decades as a means of light relief and fun. There used to be a saying that big mouths and know alls who sound off about having been taken the longest way and even run into a house to claim they never even used the taxi, suddenly go silent when the police threaten to lock them up, take them to court and reveal them for what they are. A police officer in Scotland once mused that it never ceased to amaze him that people who had never used the taxi pay the fare for the taxi they never used when being threatened with "being locked up by the polis".
As I would admit, an obscure analogy, but, for my part, it never ceases to amaze me that people who rush to push that send button on social media to give themselves their only source of oxygen suddenly go silent when offered definitive evidence that they are talking absolute ballocks (excuse my French, moderator). As far as social media is concerned, I ignore the rantings of many of the idiots that post elsewhere (all Firenet members excluded from such a description), but I did not want my genuine friends on Firenet to be misled by the same misinformation that is spread on other social media.
Chums keep me informed as to what is said so that, when anyone crosses the line, we will not hesitate to instruct solicitors. The last person to do so, a building control officer from Hertfordshire, is now paying the cost of the agreed defamation damages, all of which are going to McMillan Cancer Support, having agreed as part of the settlement to publish a retraction and unconditional apology. Of course there is also the IFE Ethics committee as a route for complaint about spreading misinformation.
With regard to disabled people, their fire safety has been a personal hobby horse of mine for donkeys years (though I dont need social media to shout about it). My own personal initiatives have included engaging with the pager industry to enable me to write the section on fire warning for deaf and hard of hearing people in BS 5839-1, and a change in the originally intended scope of the first version BS 5839-9 so allowing me to draft the very first recs for EVCS for disabled people in refuges. I didn't need rants on social media to instigate either piece of work.
Similarly, I have been working for about a year on technological solutions to resolve the problem of disabled people in blocks of flats with the encouragement of a number of good pals. I am currently trying to find funds for a trial installation and have been warmed by the trust of colleagues in the profession who are going to assist such funding for the equipment. No point in telling the haters and radicals, as they commonly hate for hate's sake, as they would drift back into obscurity without a cause.
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There appears to be radio silence...................
Maybe its a sponsored silence for Red Nose day? ::)
I am just pleased that I don't do fire safety work on flats any more .... its far too stressful for someone as sensitive as me
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More like long nose day. Davey, every day I scour the recruitment email box for your application but it never sees to come. Have you overlooked your everlasting desire to work for me and my need to scrape the barrel and employ you.
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Fishy, I am disappointed to find you spreading misinformation on Firenet, and I presume that you are the same person who spread the same misinformation in more or less the same words on LinkedIN.
Your assertion that PAS 79 or parts thereof is sponsored by an individual company is totally untrue. Nor therefore can there be any "motive behind the sponsorship". If your implication is that it is my company that sponsored the PAS, this is clearly untrue. My company does not sponsor any PAS. In effect the sponsor for PAS 79 is BSI itself. The motive for the revision was a request from the housing sector for guidance and documentation dedicated to housing. I acted as technical author for BSI, but your comments on scrutiny are also incorrect.
For avoidance of doubt, the contents of the PAS were subject to close scrutiny of a steering group comprising :
? CBRE PMFM UK
? Consumer and Public Interest Network
? Fire Industry Association
? Institution of Fire Engineers
? Lendlease
? Metro Safety Ltd
? National Fire Chiefs Council
? National Residential Landlords Association
? National Security Inspectorate
? National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group
? NHS England/NHS Improvements
? Savills (UK) Limited
? Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
? University College London
In addition, a PAS is subject to additional scrutiny that does not apply to any BS, namely a vast review group, significantly larger than the steering group, who are specifically asked to comment.
I would be pleased therefore if you could acknowledge the incorrect nature of the misinformation that you are disseminating.
Regrettably, I don't have the time to check back on Firenet postings on either a regular or frequent basis - especially as the post count has dropped off in recent years, so please don't interpret the lack of reply as reticence; I've literally only just seen this stream of posts.
BSI's own marketing blurb for PASs state that if you choose to sponsor a PAS, you get the "...co-branding..." with BSI (it doesn't mention any other way of achieving it) so I naturally assumed that your Company obtained the co-branding via the (only) route stated by BSI. The relevant web page (that was the primary reason for my assumption) is here: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/our-services/developing-new-standards/Develop-a-PAS/what-is-a-pas/ I readily accept the explanation that this is not the case, and there was some other reason why BSI granted the co-branding. Therefore, in response to: "...if you could acknowledge the incorrect nature of the misinformation that you are disseminating...", then I'm more than willing to confirm that my assumption in respect of Sponsorship of the PAS appears to be wrong, and if that has caused you any concern then I can only apologise for that.
As for the rest of your post, I think you have missed my point somewhat (or perhaps I failed to make it coherently)... I must confess that I thought that I'd made it quite clear that I was not suggesting for a moment that there WAS any lack of impartiality in the drafting of the document (in fact, I thought I was quite complimentary at their content)? The point that I was making was that these documents are incredibly important - compared with with the ancient, relatively un-useable and non-maintained Government documents they're perhaps the UK's only up-to-date and relevant guidance on how to conduct fire risk assessments, for most premises. Because of that very importance it was (and still is) my opinion that the PAS status might be a hindrance to their utility, rather than a help, and that they should (long ago) have been converted to full British Standards, subject to BS 0 and the associated drafting processes (which are different to the mechanisms used to produce a PAS). I can understand why the first edition was a PAS - I cannot understand why it was prudent for the 2012 and 2020 amendments to be so.
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Hmmm Tony said that he knows that you had seen my response.
Fishy, I note your apology for disseminating incorrect information regarding the sponsorship of this PAS. The PAS process can speed up the delivery of a much needed code of practice and did so in this case, thanks to the commendable sponsorship of BSI. With regard to rules for drafting, you do not acknowledge that a PAS is subject to stringent rules for drafting that are simply contained in PAS 0, as opposed to BS 0.
I note that you also ignored the point that, while a BS is simply made available to the public, who may not even be aware of the existence of the draft, a PAS undergoes an extra layer of scrutiny by the existence of a huge review group of many dozens of bodies, who are specifically requested to review the draft at public comment stage and comment as appropriate. I have known draft for public comment versions of British Standards or draft amendments to them to attract only a handful of comments. The 2 parts of PAS 79 attracted over 1,200 specific comments, requiring 4 days of steering group meetings to give careful consideration to each and every one and many amendments to the draft.
To suggest that this PAS received less scrutiny than it would have had as a BS is quite simply absurd.
I assume that you will , on Twitter, correct at least the errors for which you now apologise in the same incorrect information you disseminated on Twitter.