Who supplied evac chairs in a multiple ocupancy building

[Messy]

On a large multi occupied commercial premises.with the public entering the building, the landlord will be responsible for the FRA in the common parts. He will be responsible for the fire safety infrastructure and emergency plan for his area (common parts)

So should the Landlord supply evacuation chairs or make it a contractual obligation for the tenants?

I would be interested in your views

[kurnal]

It's the employers responsibility. But in a multi occ this creates problems of multiple solutions- different makes of chair, different levels of provision between employers. So I used to try and persuade the Person Having Control of the communal areas to provide the chairs and arrange the training. Had mixed success with this over the years.

[Tom Sutton]

the landlord will be responsible for the FRA in the common parts.

Check the RR(FS)O interpretation, definition of a workplace and it's the RP of the workplace that is responsible for the common areas until it reaches the public thoroughfare. The owner is quite often the person having control and doesn't have to conduct an FRA.

[Davo]

Messy

Where will the chairs be sited, and who is to be trained in their use?

As K says, best the landlord gets heads together to sort out.

davo

[AnthonyB]

Tenant's responsibility, they are employing the persons or providing the service and can provide the staff to use them and should be putting together the PEEP.

Most multi occupancies have no common staff or just one person whose main job is evacuation coordination.

Just bunging chairs everywhere is pointless (unless you are a rep for the supplier) as that erroneously assumes they are suitable for the people needing a PEEP - just look at the number of options in the Matrix in the DCLG Disabled Evacuation Supplement - and you start with the PEEP assessment first and end up with the required evacuation aid - which could be a lot more than a chair!

We sometimes find them 'en masse' in common areas and when this is the case they are often not evacuation chairs but ambulance service carrying chairs (cheaper) which unlike purpose made evac devices are very unstable, very slow, require 2 to 4 operators with suitable specialist training and physical ability and are useless. They usually end up in the skip.

What is required is co-ordination across the site to ensure no tenant's PEEP's are incompatible with other PEEPs or the general evacuation, which does happen often, in one case leading to a blocked stair with hundreds log jammed and another an overloaded fire fighting lift that jammed between floors. Fortunately both happened in drills or false alarms, not fires.

[Messy]

My view is (in this case) the landlord is the RP as he has control. As such his FRA has to consider relevant persons not just his staff. He already supplies the fire safety infrastructure in the common parts such as EL and AFD

The idea of different chairs across this 20 storey building and perhaps sited in the various tenants own demise(for security reasons) rather  than by the stairs all sounds a bit unworkable

Plus the building has 2 firefighting lifts and a detailed strategy stating they can be used to vertically evac MIPs. But the landlord is effectively washing his hands of his responsibilities and leaving it to the tenants.

I will try to apply Article 22 and plead for some common sense but I am not convinced he will move

[Dinnertime Dave]

Tenant's responsibility, they are employing the persons or providing the service and can provide the staff to use them and should be putting together the PEEP.

Most multi occupancies have no common staff or just one person whose main job is evacuation coordination.

Just bunging chairs everywhere is pointless (unless you are a rep for the supplier) as that erroneously assumes they are suitable for the people needing a PEEP - just look at the number of options in the Matrix in the DCLG Disabled Evacuation Supplement - and you start with the PEEP assessment first and end up with the required evacuation aid - which could be a lot more than a chair!

We sometimes find them 'en masse' in common areas and when this is the case they are often not evacuation chairs but ambulance service carrying chairs (cheaper) which unlike purpose made evac devices are very unstable, very slow, require 2 to 4 operators with suitable specialist training and physical ability and are useless. They usually end up in the skip.

What is required is co-ordination across the site to ensure no tenant's PEEP's are incompatible with other PEEPs or the general evacuation, which does happen often, in one case leading to a blocked stair with hundreds log jammed and another an overloaded fire fighting lift that jammed between floors. Fortunately both happened in drills or false alarms, not fires.

I agree.

The provision of specific evacuation equipment is based on results of the PEEP. The employer carries out the PEEP not the landlord. Therefore, the employer should provide it.

[kurnal]

Whilst I agree with the technical / legal responsibility as described by Anthony, Dave, myself and others in their responses I also recognise the practical scenarios that we often encounter carrying out risk assessment in a myriad of different buildings, with a whole range of different users and the appropriateness in some cases for individual PEEPs and in others for generic PEEPS. Multi occ office buildings are commonly encountered with no individual employer having persons requiring individual PEEPS but the occasional visitors to each employer or the risk of an individual employee falling ill and needing help in an emergency sometimes points to an evacuation chair being an appropriate risk control measure in the circumstances. We must all have seen it- 2 or 3'different types of chair in the staircase all provided by different employers, some having done nothing, and on asking questions you discover patchy training if any.

In such circumstances I have gone along with what Messy suggests and persuaded the Landlord, in their role to co-ordinate and communicate, to manage the evacuation of the communal areas, to provide equipment such as evacuation chairs and to liaise with  employers to nominate fire wardens to use the equipment on behalf of all employers. I have had such arrangements working very successfully in many buildings over many years, but conversely have met point blank refusal from other Landlords. Good landlords will do it with minimum persuasion.

[AnthonyB]

Co-ordinate yes, supply, no (IMO) Even in the scenario stated it's frankly not the landlords problem and quite a liability getting involved in things they needn't.

Who ensures there is appropriate training, that it is up to date, who services the equipment, does the PEEP, keeps track of staff changes- as soon as the landlord dips a toe in physically all tenant's assume they have then have nothing to do with it and it's simpler not to grey the boundaries.

It's good you've got it to work but it would be a disaster waiting to happen in some scenarios so we usually avoid this risk.

[Tom Sutton]

I agree with AB.

The landlord is not a RP but highly likely a Person Having Control (art 5.3) and will be be responsible for the fabric of the building, in this case EL and AFD. However if you can get him/her to persuade the RP's to implement art 22 then that should help in solving this problem.

[Messy]

I agree with AB.

The landlord is not a RP but highly likely a Person Having Control (art 5.3) and will be be responsible for the fabric of the building, in this case EL and AFD. However if you can get him/her to persuade the RP's to implement art 22 then that should help in solving this problem.

I disagree. The landord is the RP for the common parts of this large multi occupied building and his FRA will have to consider all relevant persons. (Article 2 or 3 applies - cant recall which one as its been a tough day!)

The public will be entering this building and the RP has FM and Facilities staff on site 24/7.

As the public will use the common parts, I am suggesting his FRA must consider their needs

[kurnal]

I agree Messy but this is straightforward- If the landlord is also an employer and especially if they have staff on site then there is no issue? This is exactly the shopping centre scenario.

If you are on the upper mezzanine in say Next and there is an alarm in the centre then you are going to pass out of the shop into the landlords communal areas and escape routes at the rear of the shops. (Sometimes these even have things like refuges, lifts or chairs - but very often they don't!!!). The point is that once in the communal areas it is the landlords responsibility to check the refuges and provide assistance.

[Tom Sutton]

Messy if the owner has a workplace on site and employs persons then as an employer he/she is a Responsible Person of that workplace which includes the common area and egress to the public thoroughfare,the same as all the other RP in the premises. Therefore as an RP he/she is subject to article 22 and be could be made to cooperate with all the other RP's to achieve your aims.