Please complete a short Questionnaire

[Paul Trew]

All, please take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire. I am an MBA student at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford Essex. I am writing my final dissertation on the ethics and opportunities behind Fire Authorities trading in direct competition with the private sector in fire prevention. I appreciate this subject goes beyond my questions so I have included an area at the end for comment. Thank you in advance.

This questionnaire should take less than 5 minutes to complete, your anonymity is assured your identity will not be revealed in the document.

Q1, On a scale of 1 to 5:  1= lowest impact 5= highest. To what extent do you believe a Fire and Rescue Authority trading in your sector will impact on your profitability?

1   2   3   4   5

Q2, On a scale of 1 to 5:  1= totally for 5= totally against. Indicate whether you are for or against the legislation which permits Fire and Rescue Authorities to trade for profit.

1   2   3   4   5

Q3, On a scale of 1 to 5: 1= lower 5= considerably higher. How do you rate the potential threat from a Fire and Rescue Authority in comparison to any other new entrant into the market?

1   2   3   4   5

Q4, On a scale of 1 to 5: 1= not at all 5= very high. To what extent do you believe a conflict of interests exists between a Fire and Rescue Authority and its trading arm offering fire safety training, risk assessment training and fire risk assessments?

1   2   3   4   5

Q5, On a scale of 1 to 5: 1= not at all 5= very high. To what extent do you believe your council tax and business rates would be funding a competitor if a Fire and Rescue Service took the option to trade?   

1   2   3   4   5


Q6, On a scale of 1 to 5: 1= not at all 5= Extremely. How interested would you be in becoming a Fire and Rescue Authority accredited company?

1   2   3   4   5


Please add comments:

[kurnal]

Can you please clarify the scope of the work to be undertaken. Clearly we in the private sector see the local fire brigade as a very serious competitor able to maximise the opportunites presented by their monopoly position in terms of enforcement and  intervention.

Question 4 indicates that the scope of trading will be in fire safety training and risk assessment training. Do you want us to answer on the basis only of this limited question,  because if they also trade in providing risk assessment services this will have a very much greater potential impact. Your opening sentence appears to focus on this wider involvement in "fire prevention"

[Paul Trew]

Can you please clarify the scope of the work to be undertaken. Clearly we in the private sector see the local fire brigade as a very serious competitor able to maximise the opportunites presented by their monopoly position in terms of enforcement and  intervention.

Question 4 indicates that the scope of trading will be in fire safety training and risk assessment training. Do you want us to answer on the basis only of this limited question,  because if they also trade in providing risk assessment services this will have a very much greater potential impact. Your opening sentence appears to focus on this wider involvement in "fire prevention"

The scope of the work I am attempting to keep as narrow as possible, yes an FRA could trade in many areas but I want to focus on fire safety training and risk assessment training, this is due to the possible legal issues of offering to carry out risk assessments as the enforcing authority.

[Ken Taylor]

Then you need to include risk assessment as well as risk assessment training pjt.

[kurnal]

Hi PJT just to clarify things a little further
Q1- they already do safety training in the majority of brigades  and no change in the law is needed for this to continue as far as I am aware?

Its Risk Assessments that are the big issue to us in the private sector.

Will be happy to complete the questionaire as soon as I fully understand exactly where you are coming from - a little more info on your dissertation would be of interest.

[wee brian]

I'm very much against them doing FRAs  (all 5s) - Training is probably fair enough. But it should be ringfenced so that My tax money isnt subsidising it.

[jokar]

I see no problem with FRS undertaking the training of people in fire safety and FRA.  After all what is required by most enforcers is that staff are sufficiently trained and that an FRA is carried out and is suitable and sufficient.  FRS undertaking FRA's is a major conflict of interest whether in their own area or another and I am totally against that.

[Paul Trew]

Hi PJT just to clarify things a little further
Q1- they already do safety training in the majority of brigades  and no change in the law is needed for this to continue as far as I am aware?

Its Risk Assessments that are the big issue to us in the private sector.

Will be happy to complete the questionaire as soon as I fully understand exactly where you are coming from - a little more info on your dissertation would be of interest.

Thanks for the interest, I have attempted to exclude risk assessments from my research area, this is due to the fact that brigades cannot offer to carry out a risk assessment in an area they are the enforcing authority.

However it could be possible through a trading arm, so yes lets say if brigades were to offer risk assessments. This leads on to your other question Q1- You are correct in that brigades offer training at the moment, however, if under the new legislation they were to set up an independent trading arm this activity would increase beyond its current level. In addition training on how to carryout a risk assessment on your premises could be on offer.

[Paul Trew]

Then you need to include risk assessment as well as risk assessment training pjt.

Thanks consider it in, risk assessment training, and risk assessments offered by fire brigades to anyone who needs to carry one out on their premises.

[nearlythere]

Hi pjt.
Bet you you're sorry you started it. Approaching the people on this site I mean. You entered what is known as The Black Zone (cue loud eerie screech) and I hope you can find your way out again.
Just as a matter of interest do you actually see a move for the Fire Services to trade in the private sector or is this a hypothesis? I think the complete opposite. I see fire safety matters eroding moreso from the FSs in order to save money. It is much cheaper for the government to farm it out to the private sector and place ownership of the risk from fire with the owners/occupiers/employers.
Until the next tragedy that is.

[Paul Trew]

Hi pjt.
Bet you you're sorry you started it. Approaching the people on this site I mean. You entered what is known as The Black Zone (cue loud eerie screech) and I hope you can find your way out again.
Just as a matter of interest do you actually see a move for the Fire Services to trade in the private sector or is this a hypothesis? I think the complete opposite. I see fire safety matters eroding moreso from the FSs in order to save money. It is much cheaper for the government to farm it out to the private sector and place ownership of the risk from fire with the owners/occupiers/employers.
Until the next tragedy that is.

My own opinion is that FSs and local authorities will in time be encouraged to trade for profit. For many years now they have been encouraged to adopt private sector practices, and I believe this will be used in order to offset budgets, this is the case in some countries. This is why I am keen to gather information from you guys on the coal face, as it were.

[kurnal]

Thanks Pjt will email the response.

I must say I go with nearlythere and I think that fire safety enforcement is most likely to be farmed out to the Environmental Health officers and HSE, as fire services focus more on education "fire prevention" and they lose the knowledge base that currently makes them moderately competent based on years of fire certification. As that goes, and the role changes more to enforcement it will be more cost effective to focus legal expertise in a single enforcement body for all H&S matters.

Another possible direction could be to follow the lead of CDM Regs and building Regs with enforcement by private, approved inspectors.

[jokar]

perhaps have a read of last January's fire service cicular on trading which may assist your research.

[William 29]

As far as I am aware several Fire Services already have a trading arm where they provide fire marshal training etc.  This is now developing into using serving fire safety officers to offer fire risk assessment training to “clients” within their areas of enforcement.
Surely there is potential here for a huge conflict of interest?

FS provides a responsible person with a course on how to conduct a suitable and sufficient FRA (may be a full day’s training course if you are lucky) RP then goes back and conducts the FRA to the best of his ability.
RP then gets audited by FSO 3 months down the line and asks to see a copy of the FRA.
If the FRA was deemed to be inadequate due to the findings of the audit would the RP not be entitled to raise questions seeing as the training was provided by the fire service?

I realise this could be easily answered by the fire service and defended but I think it just opens up a whole tin of worms for both parties.  At the very least how could the fire service argue that the PR was not competent by having “sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable him properly to assist in undertaking the preventative and protective measures” when the Fire Authority conducting the audit provided the training 3 months ago?  What if the audit result pointed to a prosecution as the course of action.

Running along side this the same fire service will not allow its serving FSO’s or Ex FSO’s (now ops) to conduct FRA’s anywhere in the Country, due to potential conflicts of interests!  Can someone please explain as to why one is a conflict of interest and the other is not?

In keeping the pjt’s original posting needless to say I would be putting 5’s for all of your questions.

[Ken Taylor]

If I was in the business of selling FRAs, I'd be ringing all the 5s too.

I do feel that FRSs marketing FRAs is a conflict of interest and open to all sorts of problems and accusations - about as valid as the HSE doing H&S risk assessments.