RR(FS)O - how many will actually comply

[AnthonyB]

All good comments and probably reflect what will happen.

The RRO extends the principles of the FP(W)Regs, but to greater numbers of premises. With many brigades seeming to be slashing their FSO departments staff numbers & drafting in civilian inspectors (not bad in itself) on pay that is far less than their uniformed predecessors, in some areas to a pittance of a wage (bad for quality & performance), there is little point in extending the refit of fire regulations as these newly covered premises (which are likly to be abysmal)aren't going to be checked, unless there are injuries or deaths, which is a bit too late for casualties.

1-There will be the hard core companies that will carry on as present and embrace fire safety and have excellent controls

2-There will be the large middle ground that have a go, but don't quite understand it & through ignorance accompanied by an unwillingess to do much more than lip service, have flaws in precautions some trivial, some far more serious.

3-And there will be those who just don't give a damn and present a big risk.

Size & nature of premises does not determine who will be in which group - I've inspected small busineses with excellent awareness & compliance, yet inspected larger premises of big companies that are waiting for total loss & death to happen.

As businesses see the spectre of fire Regs in effect diminish & the nearest they get to FSO's being watching Keith Lard on re-runs of 'That Peter Kay Thing' & 'Phoenix Nights' the number4 in the latter two categories above increase.

In the sector I work I am carrying out vastly greater amounts of inspection and enfocrement than the FRS are - most occupiers I inspect have never had FSO visits and have a culture shock to get annual compliance visits. In most cases a firm word and education, coupled with re-inspections, brings improvements, but in some cases enforcement is required - but without those powers our hands are tied, so because the FRS don't visit nothing happens.

Sadly you need an enforcing regime for fire safety to work - it doesn't need to be fining people left, right & centre, but needs to be out there, pointing them in the right direction, reminding people it exists & can bite if provoked.

Can you imagine if all criminal law was removed and replaced with self regulation and the police disbanded and replaced by a smaller nunber of Community Support Officers? It's a silly idea to suggest as there would be anarchy, crime rocketing and lives ruined. But if it's so silly why is it alright with fire - it involves criminal law and ruins lives.....

[shaunmckeever]

The key as you are all saying is the way that the order is enforced. Fire Safety Officers need to visit lots of premises. The trick here will be to take a pragmatic approach to the level of detail.

Walk in the building look around a bit, ask if they have a risk assessment. If they seem to have their act together walk out - 30 minutes max.

Do this all day until you find a "death trap" spend the rest of the day there giving them a hard time.

Alternativeley you can spend a fortnight arguing with somebody about whether their risk assessment is "suitable and sufficient" and that their emergency lighting isnt quite right and that the arrow on the exit sign should be up and not down etc.

Avoid pedantry and things may actually get better.

Brian, I visited a 'low risk' building the other day. It was the sort of building you would have spent 30 mins in and walked out. I checked a fire exit and found it totally jammed. No obvious fault until the door was checked. Other than that the place was in superb order. It seems the door had been severely damaged by an attempted break in several months ago. It was assumed that the previous building manager had the problem sorted before he moved on. Tenants risk assessments, one of which had only been carried out last week, indicated that all exit routes were available. Good fire officers will most likely check the exit routes but because of the otherwise superb order of the place I can see some fire officers assuming that everything is ok and walking out without checking exit routes. This also highlighted that tenants are not carrying out suitable and sfficient risk assessments. They just stopped at the door to their demise.

Sometimes it pays to be pedantic

[AnthonyB]

Brian, I visited a 'low risk' building the other day. ....................................... It was assumed that the previous building manager had the problem sorted before he moved on. Tenants risk assessments, one of which had only been carried out last week, indicated that all exit routes were available. .............................. This also highlighted that tenants are not carrying out suitable and sfficient risk assessments. They just stopped at the door to their demise.

Sometimes it pays to be pedantic

All very true - multi occupancies will potentially be a nightmare. We almost exclusively work in this sector for landlords.  It is very rare for tenants to properly consider areas outside their door assuming the landlord will look after it and that all is OK. Yet these areas contain their MoE, their fire alarm system, etc.

The Co-operation & co-ordination required under the existing FP(W)Regs & no doubt the RRO does not happen in most multi-ocupancies.

I started our firm going into fire work in the days when the FPAct was supreme in certified premises. There we inspected the tenants as well as the landlord areas to highlight certificate breaches as a due diligence defence for the landlord (based on the Southend Property Management case). When FP(W) was extended in '99 & we went over to FRAs we continued to inspect tenancies (not FRA them) citing the FPAct and the coordination aspect of the FP(W), but mainly because most risks to a buliding emerged in these areas.

We seem to be in the minority and many multi-occupancies, even those crawling with consultants and FRAs, have no overall responsibilities and each tenant & landlord look after themselves (or not) with no regard to each other and eventually a disaster will occur.

If you want self regulation & have virtually no FSO visits then make landlords self regulate within their properties - FRA their areas & systems under their control, but also to show due diligence in inspecting tenants to advise them of their responsibilities and to coordinate FRAs.

By talking to tenants you can often find out useful information and evidence of faults in systems & procedures that you would miss if you just walked up & down 2 stairwells & stuck your head in the meter cupboard......

[wee brian]

Messy

Its because Fire Authorities are local authorities who have autonomy to set their own policies.

Do you thinkit would be better if we had a National Fire Service?

[Bluefire1]

We seem to be in the minority and many multi-occupancies, even those crawling with consultants and FRAs, have no overall responsibilities and each tenant & landlord look after themselves (or not) with no regard to each other and eventually a disaster will occur.

This is one of the problems I have come across in multi-occs, the 'employer responsible person' tells me that they have done what is required in their premise and the responsible person beyond their exit door is the landlord/agent based in outer Mongolia. It is hard to convince people that their reponsibility for safe egress lies not only in their premise but beyond to final exit.

With RR(FS)O I can only see this problem becoming more of a problem.... with no FSO to inspect the common areas and landlord managed facilities such as final exits doors, signing and emergency lighting etc. Each 'responsible person' will become isolated and as I mentioned not look beyond their back door.

There is an option of sorts but I am not sure how it lies within the framework.. that is can the FSO insist that the FRA done by the owner for the common areas [8(1)(b)] be included in the FRA done by the employer.

[Big A]

Can the FSO  deem the RA of an occupier who's not looking past his/her front door to be not suitable and sufficient, though?

[Reg]

Yes they can.  There is also a legal requirement to co-ordinate and co-operate.  Therefore if the end of an occupiers demise is into a common area that is needed for their means of escape and there is an issue, they cannot ignore it.  At the very least it needs to be recorded in their FRA and bought to the attention of the responsible person for them to action.  The primary responsibility still lies with the employer. to say "well I got them out of my bit" is simply not good enough.  Due dilligence is the order of the day.

[steve walker]

Messy

Its because Fire Authorities are local authorities who have autonomy to set their own policies.

Do you thinkit would be better if we had a National Fire Service?

Yes

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

The enforcement of the Order will, to some extent be "softly softly", in line with the Enforcement Concordat.

I find it suprising how many premises, covered by Fire certificates, do not comply with current legislation, both FPA and WPR.

As inspecting officers go to premises, they should be looking round aswell as examining the risk assessment. This coupled with the attitude of management should give some idea of how bigger risk the premises present.
I have inspected premises where the Responsible Person talks a good talk, but in reality following the inspection, hasn't got a clue. I've also met responsible persons that have used existing guidance to produce a very good risk assessment. It depends on how serious the person is and their approach. I also find that premises where compliance is expected and shouldn't cause a problem are the ones that pay "lip service" to fire prevention and inevitably pose the higher risks.

I have seen some new audit forms which use a scoring system to give a total compliance level, which in turn gives the appropriate level of enforcement. This could range from a "verbal warning" to full prohibition and prosecution. I've also spoken to officers who use this type of form already and they say it's very good and consistent.

Guidance will be given to both the audit procedures and enforcement of the Order.......... and that forms the basis of 2 days training in June for me.

[jokar]

All very good comments other than the fact that the Fire and Rescue service is just one enforcing authority and that none of the 5 involved are responsible.  The Government have quite clearly stated that accountability and responsibility lies with one of three groups and it will for those to decide on the Fire Safety Duties for a particular premises.  There is no onus of responsibility on FSO's and no duty of care.  How can a fire authority inspection as a snapshot of a particular premises be important when a controlling mind is there every day.  As regards the inspection protocols, ODPM decided at scrutiny committee in 2005 that the fact that Article 26 states that an enforcing authority may appoint inspectors is a tenuous enough link to say that one exists.  Other than that, the National Framework document to go with the 2004 Act have one paragraph about IRMP that makes authorities have an inspection process audited by the Audit Commission. FPA will go, forget it and embrace change, its what the stakeholders want.

[Bluefire1]

FPA will go, forget it and embrace change, its what the stakeholders want.

What who wants ?... it seems to me that all the stakeholders want is shed the burden of responsibility (well most). As an FSO I was accused of being jack booted and throwing my weight around when I carried out visits to monitor compliance, now on the other side they pay me to tell them how little they can get away with. If I try to maintain a standard that I would have expected as an FSO, I am told that I am not being employed to spend their money, just to make things look good on paper. From either side the FRS FSO or the safety consultant it's a lose lose situation. I am seriously wondering if this job is worthwhile because I am sick of being the piggy in the middle between the FRS's and the companies I work for and wondering what the consequences will be if I walk away from somewhere knowing that there are problems, other than report it to the FSO there is nothing I can do and that will give me a good name in the business.... employ him.... he'll have the FRS down on you within the day. At least with the certificate there is something that both sides can use for ensuring that a premises complies, with RA... I hate to think what wil happen.

[Big A]

Messy

Its because Fire Authorities are local authorities who have autonomy to set their own policies.

Do you thinkit would be better if we had a National Fire Service?

Yes

I'm sure it won't be too long before we do. Does anybody not think that regional controls will open the way to regional (and then national) FRSs. It's already happening in the police service.

[wee brian]

We can only hope so.

The only point of having regional police forces and fire brigades is so that central government can spread the blame when things are not going so well.

[Davo]

wee brian
Speaking as the Fire person for a large force about to become merged with three others, some of my new premises will be 80 miles away so popping round to see what our Estates people have been up to won't be so easy. Also how good are their FRAs?
Each force has its own way of doing things and no doubt FRAs will be one of them.
Seems like change for the sake of it. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[val]

I'm sure it won't be too long before we do. Does anybody not think that regional controls will open the way to regional (and then national) FRSs. It's already happening in the police service

As a fully paid-up conspiricy theorist, this so-called labour government scare the hell out of me. Unable to persuade people that their arguments are right they are hell bent on controlling every detail of our lives.
We will not regionalise unless the regions vote for it??? Tell that to the North East who voted massively against it. We'll set up regional controls which can only work with standard operating procedures...right, why do we need individual management teams, lets have super regions and a few tame super CFO's.

Tony Blair is more of a dictator than some third world despots.

Once the national police computer has all our DNA and biometric details you will not be able to say boo to a goose before having £100 automatically deducted from your meagre salary.

Sorry, off topic.