National Cost of Fire in Schools - 2004 figures out

[Chris Houston]

National Cost of Fires in School

These are the direct costs, i.e. loss of buildings and contents, it doesn't factor in indirect costs such as bussing kids to alternative locations, hiring temporary accomodation, loss staff morale, community facilities etc etc

1995 - £49m
1996 - £55m
1997 - £51m
1998 - £45m
1999 - £42m
2000 - £65m
2001 - £93m
2002 - £96.6m
2003 - £73.4m
2004 - £83m

As you can see, the trend is still getting worse.  About 90% of these losses are deliberatly set.  None of them were in fully sprinklered schools.

[jayjay]

Can you provide details of where the figures came from and any links.

[Chris Houston]

They came from Zurich Municipal, my employers.  We calculate the figures from our own loss statistics.  We insure the vast majority of the schools in the UK, so it's fairly easy to calculate the figures based on our own info.

[messy]

Chris

I am intrigued about the 2002 to 2003 reduction. Why the significant (£23m) drop in that year?

Statistical blip or something else??

[Chris Houston]

It's very hard to tell, you never know the fires you prevented, only the ones you didn't.

It could be luck, it could be the efforts of all parties involved in fire prevention, the figures for any specific year can be skewed by one or two large losses and I would suggest it's only relevant to look at the underlying trend.