Clearing up the mess!

[Golden]

Eli this is exactly the problem with tick boxes - in the hands of the untrained (or lazy?) there is no explanation. I have recently completed a number of 'reviews' of previous PAS 79 based risk assessments on behalf of a local authority. There was no rationale behind the lack of self closers on the two escape stairs in a five storey building, no explanation of excessive travel distances, why extinguishers were provided in purpose built flats, etc ... just a tick in the box that said 'Yes'. About 20 risk assessments with nothing but the 'bleeding obvious' (albeit the examples earlier were pretty obvious to me!) pointed out as issues otherwise 90% of the answers were yes with no text attached. This had been going on for three years in this organisation; the H & S manager assisted by someone in the 'fire trade' carried out the assessments - in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king I'm afraid.

[jokar]

That's a little harsh, you mean you would like some explanantions, details and strategy in an FRA.  The next thing is you will want some positive comments about the fire safety, the management and the staff attitude to fire safety.

[HDE]

Hi
Sorry, I am running a bit late with regards to this discussion but I wanted to bring in a bit of a minority view.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that we need a regime of tough certification for fire risk assessors, as there are numerous assessors out there who have a nice general fire safety knowledge but simply no detailed knowledge about HMOs etc.

Where I differ is in the judgement of fire risk assessments carried out by company owners or their representatives themselves. You will hate me for saying this but the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order is one of very few pieces of regulations that treat company owners as grown ups. The Order basically states that the owner (or its representative) has to carry out a fire risk assessment and act accordingly; they then hand you a pretty decent set of guidance documents and if you get it wrong, it is on your head. As a business owner myself this is how I like to operate. I want to be given responsibility to make decisions. And if I fail I must be punished. For most business owners the decision is a simple one. It is not worth their time or money to get deeply involved themselves and they will get a (hopefully good) assessor. And yes, there are business owners who simply do not care and it is up to the local fire services to probe their premises and fire safety precautions, but I really want to defend the businesses who are carrying out their own fire risk assessment and who are trying to do the right thing (in the same way as they are trying to treat their employees lawfully, pay their taxes as required and treat the customers well). Their fire risk assessment will not always turn out perfect but they will usually make reasonably informed decisions.

Two things might help to improve the quality of FRAs:
1) The fire risk assessment forms floating around and being used by businesses and by some fire risk assessors are a disgrace. A set of honed-out fire risk assessment forms to be used by all assessors and businesses might help.
And yes,
2) there should be more prosecutions of businesses and assessors who are getting it wrong

Now it's off my chest

Harry

[Golden]

Harry I agree with some of your sentiments and that there are good guidance documents out there to help business owners however in my previous 'life' I oversaw two prosecutions that resulted in three HMO owners being jailed for making bad business decisions and one member of the public dying due to those bad decisions. I applaud you if you are taking on the responsibility and getting the fire precautions right in your premises but there are many who are not.

With better enforcement those with the basic fire safety knowledge but no specialist knowledge may be forced out of the business which will result in safer buildings, and those with the skill of applying the knowledge which is critical in my opinion will form a professional core of fire risk assessors that can give good advice to those who wish to employ them.