Identifying the 'Responsible Person' - sites in joint ownership

[John Webb]

A query has popped up regarding identifying the 'Responsible Person' in connection with CofE properties.

Historically the incumbant (ie Vicar or Rector) has the 'freehold' of the living - they are responsible for the parish and the church buildings therein, except that the Churchwardens also have legal responsibilities for the fabric and contents of the buildings to the Bishop. Neither can carry out their responsibilities without reference to the Parochial Church Council (PCC) on which they sit because it is this body which holds the purse strings and must agree to changes being carried out.

So we have a joint control of the building with no one person having absolute control. I would think this also might apply to charitable trusts where the Trustees hold joint responsibility for the building(s) in their care.

My advice so far to churches is that the PCC should appoint a particular person as their RP to act on their behalf. But it has been pointed out that although this may be alright as far as the Guidance Notes are concerned, it is not allowed by Article 3 of the RR(FS)O which defines the RP quite precisely.

Any comments?

[Redone]

Hi John,

Employers (as the responsible persons)are primarily responsible for fire safety.

So this is my slant on it -

If a severe fire occurs as a result of poor fire precautions on site, despite a rigorous organisational policy and system of checks then the manager locally would be held almost entirely responsible.  

If however it was seen that the local manager did their best
to guard against fire without support from senior management and a system of reasonable organisational checks was not instituted then a more senior manager would be prosecuted more severely.

[John Webb]

Even if we count all our volunteers as 'employees' as HSE and our insurers suggest we ought to, we still come back to the fact that there is no single person who 'employs' them. Some work under the direction of the Vicar/Rector, some under the direction of the Churchwardens and some under the direction of other volunteers. While not being paid for their work, a number do have incidental expenses which are paid by the Parochial Church Council's Treasurer.

I therefore took the pragmatic view that as the 'employer' seems effectively to be the PCC it was they who needed to appoint the RP - this seemed to comply with the intent of the FSO if not the exact letter of Article 3.

DCLG have now responded to a direct question to them about this and are not certain themselves; they have suggested we take the matter up at a national level. I'll post anything further I hear.

[AM]

Agree with redone: in a premises which is one of several occupied by an organisation, there can be multiple 'responsible persons'. For exammple, a local manager may only be able to authorise a payment of, say, £1000, which may not be enough to cover any alterations to the fire alarm determined by the risk assessment, so it may be a person further up the ladder. But that person may be responsible for the running of several premises, so may not be reasonable for them to check that all fire exits are available and usable, so the local manager would be responsible..

What an organisation needs is well written contracts and job descriptions that clearly set out what that person's responsiblities are. I've been to so many places where the task of completing a risk assessment is handed down to the person at the bottom of the ladder who has no-one else to pass the buck to. They have no training, an no autorisation to make any changes to the management or structure of the building, so the risk assessment becomes a pointless paper exercise.

[jokar]

Look at the content of Article 5(3) and see if that hots up the debate?

[John Webb]

Thanks for that, jokar. That would seem to confirm that a group of people, either a committee, body of trustees or what have you are jointly responsible for the premises they own. Clearly, however, you need one RP to lead on fire safety matters so the committee is the body to appoint the RP. (You can guess who got chosen at his own church......)

[wee brian]

It makes good sense for an organisation to appoint somebody to take the leed on compliance with the order.

Whether they are the RP or not will only be clear when it gets to court. There may well be more than one person who gets caught even where there is only one organisation involved.

I expect that the courts will want to answer the question "who was in control?".