Private Sector Enforcement of Technical Fire Safety

[Speyside]

How about a National Database of those premises that have had a fire risk assessment conducted by a competent person being a member of a UKAS accredited register of fire risk assessors?
Could this be an indication  that such premises are at least making an attemt to manage fire safety in an effective way and thus do not require the supervision of the fire authority under a routine inspection program?

Kurnal as Davo correctly suggests a competent fire risk assessor producing a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment is only the first part. Should the assessor make a recommendation in his significant findings that the penetrations through compartment walls are lacking fire seals and the RP buys a can of foam, sprays it in the holes and thinks that ones ticked off the list; next fire doors off to B and Q and get the handy man to hang it.

The above approach won’t stand up to scrutiny and although a fire risk assessor looks at fire safety management systems he is very unlikely to put those systems to the test during his assessment, as time on site cost the client money a paper review is probably as much as can be done. .

The only way this can work is independent fire safety certification of buildings and management systems. Once a building has been certificated (like in the olden days but by the private sector and risk based) the building can be said to be fire safety compliant and thus the FRS can leave it alone as long as certification is maintained. It obviously doesn’t mean there won’t be fires in certificated buildings as those of you that used to hand out fire safety certificates will know. It does however demonstrate to insurers, the FRS and other relevant parties that the owner of the building was doing all that is reasonably possible to ensure fire safety of relevant people in that building. In court a defense of due diligence is very helpful during a prosecution.

I do think this could make a difference in the way enforcement is carried out, however the appetite for legislation won’t come from Westminster regardless of who is in power; in the regional assemblies there could be a possibility of a change in legislation. Look out for the Rose Park determination.

[kurnal]

Cor blimey this has turned into cake and eat it. We cant turn a pigs ear into a silk purse in one simple step.

The fire authorities are NOT enforcing or auditing effectively. And at the moment the role of the enforcers in auditing a tiny sample of premises in a prescriptive way is an even smaller part of the whole fire safety equation than fire risk assessment by a competent person. Things need to be improved. The fire authorities did well under the old legislation but even when they had the power to certificate buildings they never resourced the reinspections except in sleeping risks and could not wait for the legislation to be changed enabling them to grant exemptions to premises which then fell out of the equation all together in practical terms.

If an RP has appointed a competent risk assessor and carefully chosen one whose work is accredited by a third party under a UKAS scheme then in my view they are not likely to cut corners in implementing the findings and the fire authority may consider other RPs who have not demonstrated such diligence to be potentially more worthy of their attention. Since the fire authorities never have and never will resource inspections and audits effectively it makes sense to identify those premises where compliance is less diligent and target the limited resources there.

Identify premises where compliance is likely to be poor? How do you do that? Well my suggestion is one way of  creaming off some where it is likely to be good.

This is the spirit of the legislation and the European Directive unless I am mistaken. The employer creates the risk and should manage the risk. The competent RA is one indication that this is the case.

[AnthonyB]

You'd be surprised how many large otherwise reputable companies appoint competent risk assessors and then fail to implement the findings, in some cases only doing so when subsequently receiving a notice or being prosecuted.....

I know from experience not inspecting just because of an FRA from an 'approved' assessor has been carried out is not safe and once the word gets out everyone will pay a bit extra for an approved assessor if they know they are far less likely to get an inspection & be caught out.

[kurnal]

I dont disagree with your first point Anthony, this is bound to happen where fire safety is only one small element of the overall H&S picture. But if the RP has had a competent assessment carried out and not implemented the findings, if there is a fire they are going to be in an indefensible position.

As for your second point then at least if these companies appoint competent assessors they will get a competent risk assessment.
Lots of people are saying we need a central register of risk assessors. Such third party accreditaion is not cheap and I would suggest the most reliable indicator of a quality scheme is likely to be a scheme that is accredited by UKAS. There is currently only one such scheme - the FRACS scheme operated by Exova Warrington. Such a scheme is both difficult to achieve and expensive. There are other schemes but not UKAS accreditied.

If we want such a scheme there must be some incentive for fire risk assessors to join. The scheme has been up and running for a year, 12 months ago there were 6 assessors registered, now there are only 7 on the list.  The FIA has required all its member companies to use ONLY accredited assessors from next renewal in April  (all must have applied to one of the 4 schemes currently running) and the FIA has also gone into partnership with BAFE to produce a thrid party accreditiaion scheme for companies (not individuals) offering fire risk assessment. Registration with such a scheme will also be mandatory for FIA members. There must be some benefit for us to register and if fire Authorities do not trust the Industry to regulate itself then let them say so and save us all a great deal of expense and inconvenience in registering with the schemes. 

I think we need to make up our minds whether we want the Employer to manage the risk as per every other branch of H&S at work, or whether we want to make a special case for fire safety to have a completely different system of enforcement as per the old certification scheme ( which was also far from perfect)

[Midland Retty]

The fire authorities are NOT enforcing or auditing effectively. And at the moment the role of the enforcers in auditing a tiny sample of premises in a prescriptive way is an even smaller part of the whole fire safety equation than fire risk assessment by a competent person. Things need to be improved.

Not sure I agree with that.That is too much of a sweeping statement.

Can you qualify why Fire & Rescue Authorities are not auditing / enforcing effectively and how they are enforcing prescriptively?

What happens in one corner of the country may not reflect what happens elsewhere Kurnal and its important to recognise the part IRMP plays in targetting fire safety enforcement.

Re-inspections have and always will be based on priority, type of premises, and the severity of the failings found originally.

There aren't sufficient resources to re-inspect everything, and there is no need to re-inspect everything all the time anyway.

Should we be saying that Fire Authorities , for example, must re-inspect all care homes on their patch once every twelve months?

And if you do start re-inspecting one type of premises such as care homes would they be up in arms and say they are being unfairly picked on?

So here's a simple suggestion - the RP is responsible for fire safety so why don't we let them get on with it, and lets make sure the enforcing authority doesn't get involved until there has been an injury or death - vis a vis the HSE approach.

Apparently responsibility for fire safety rests with the punter and those naughty enforcing authorities are still too way too prescriptive.

So what do we want here? Something along the lines of those Approved Inspectors for Building Regulations (with all the trappings, and, dare I say it, profit driven enforcement, that comes with it?)

Should we have our register of competent risk assessors who will guide the RP in the right direction and ensure the RP follows all of their recommendations to the letter? (As we know every RP will of course implement all recommendations made by the risk assessor won't they children?!)

And can we have a truly workable independent third party accreditation scheme for fire risk assessors anyway? (considering the comments one assessor made to me in private about the current accreditation schemes out there being riddled with traps and pitfalls, and, shock horror, skull duggery, back stabbing et al)

I do agree however Kurnal that there are folks out there who want their cake and eat it. Alas thats quite impossible!

[Studius]

Well, I really am pleased I opened the can!

I have been trying to find some statistical data which would prove that an effective enforcement regime (who ever would  be able) would actually drive down the non domestic fires. the only report near the mark is from CLG, but when you look closely the data is hyperthetical!
The function carried out by FRS's is a service. Statutory duty but with no profit motive, efficiency ,yes as the pot is only getting smaller but there is a rise in these incidents, so somewhere the FRS's are not getting it right. If any shareholder was in a similar organisation, I'm pretty sure they would want improvement or that function erased, but FRS's cannot do that. But if more FSO's are the answer, where is the money coming from?(rhetorical question).
IRMP note 4 leads many FRS's direction, but is that the correct direction.
Self compliance from RPs is a wonderful aspiration, but is it any thing more than that? The fine line between advice (duty) and consultation (money). There are emerging accredidation schemes, but is it correct to put so much onus on these which are in their infancy. granted most of the people will have competency , but as in every profession there will be the minority to spoil things.
If the FRS's follow the HSE approach of reactive inspections I can only see a further increase in fire losses, with fatalities before a great public out cry and low and behold...full circle back to FRS's with programmed inspections. I can not (I really am trying not to be blinkered) see where private organisations can make this a profitable endevour, without dramatically increasing up front costs to the RP's.
In the big society there is a need for national standards, not only in engineered solutions but also the training & progression routes for FSO's

[Davo]

Prof

Surely fire is not "every other branch of H & S"?
Most deaths in H & S are down to stupidity and/or risk taking. The HSE produce over 200 specific guides, there's no excuse to claim ignorance.

The average punter has the CLG guides

Its very mistaken IMO to lump them together, you can't do a fire inspection at the same time as a H &S inspection as some people want.

The FRS audit forms will identify areas to target (as if the IOs didn't know ) and if that means targetting certain sectors then so be it, old folks have no control over their environment and one day it might be me or you in there.

The reference to approved Inspectors has me worried too, we all know of lots of things missed by Building Inspectors, even critical stuff.

The poor take up of FRACS surprises me, presumably there is a substantial cost involved


davo

[The Colonel]

Davo

Fees for FRACs are
Registration and document review fee £350
Technical interview fee and issue of cert and ID card £300
All plus VAT = £780 at the new rate. all none refundable.That is the cost just to be registered.

Also after year 2 there is an annual fee of £250 + VAT = £300.

The certificate lasts 4 years after which there is a re-certification fee, the cost of which has not been announced.

So not cheap and as you say so far only 9 have been successful, I wonder how many have not been successful?.

[Speyside]

Accredited third party certification is well established as a way of policing and improving standards and it works reasonably well in the active and passive sectors. Indeed many trade bodies insist on their members having it as a requirement for membership. As the Kurnal has informed us the FIA with 86 fire risk assessment company members will be insisting on non accredited certification in the short term and accredited certification when it is available from two or more providers. The FRACS scheme is the only accredited scheme currently and I would imagine that any other accredited scheme will be similarly priced when available, due to the requirements UKAS have for the competence of those who assess and the detail required by the CBs in working to and being audited against an International standard.

However competent fire risk assessors are not competent auditors/enforcers and thus getting back to the original thread topic, ‘private sector enforcement of technical fire safety’.

I think what Studius is asking is straight forward, can the mandatory services offered by the FRS be offered by the private sector and if so will they be as reliable and will they be value for money. Naturally enforcement is one of the services which can be looked at.

Earlier in the thread I suggested a possible way that the FRS could be assisted by the private sector to be more focused in their enforcement duties and target the less diligent owners/employers.

There is another alternative which has had support from within the FRS; competence assessment of auditors. By developing an independent third party certification scheme for auditors it would be possible to standardise and bench mark the FRS auditors. The competence of FRS auditors has been discussed many times on this forum. It is of concern from within the Fire Service too and I believe Iain Cox has been tasked with looking in to it.

However if the scheme could be offered out to professional fire risk assessors too, it may be possible to have what would effectively be retained auditors. These could then be used with confidence to assist with the enforcement duties. This may be more efficient as they will be freelance and one would hope a more viable option than mearly reducing audits due to lack of funds. They would be controlled by the FRS and the FRS will still retain the ‘policing’ element.

There has to be some acceptance from the FRS that what they are doing isn’t working well and with the impending cuts it isn’t going to improve.

Take a look at the figures for the FRS audits year 09/10 available on the communities web site they demonstrate to me that the FRS and the RRO are not improving fire safety standards. Fire deaths are down granted but I don’t believe that is due to enforcement or the risk based legislation.

Here is one figure that should illustrate the scale of the problem; 43% of buildings audited by the FRS in England last year were unsatisfactory. Therefore if you take a typical high street and walk down it, nearly every other building has unsatisfactory fire safety provision. That’s over 32,000 properties inspected last year were unsatisfactory and the most concerning thing of all is that only 9,147 were deemed to have been brought up to standard following the enforcement action. Less than a third improved sufficiently following the FRS intervention to be fire safe.

[wee brian]

It depends what you mean by unsatisfactory.

It also depends on the inspection policy. I would hope that FRSs are focusing on premises that are likely to have problems......

[SamFIRT]

"Fire deaths are down granted but I don’t believe that is due to enforcement or the risk based legislation". [/i]

What do you believe this is down to then Speyside?

[Midland Retty]

Speyside

You are saying enforcement isn't working, yet fire deaths in commercial premises are reducing.

Also bear in mind that the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order gave the fire authority responsibility for enforcing standards in premises it previously didn't have any jurisdiction over.

It is all well and good saying that FRS are failing, but what exactly is your basis for stating that? You gave the analargy that the UK  F&R Service visited every other shop in high streets throughout the land and found failings in all of them.

But they were probably not failings which put people at serious and imminent risk. They were probably minor failings. Also some may have been failings that could not, for whatever reason, have been dealt with under previous legislation (particularly the FP Act 1971 for example) and have now had to be mopped up and dealt with.

You then compared the amount ofprimary inspections versus the amount of follow up inspections. The frequency or requirment to undertake follow up inspections depends very much on the failings found and timescales agreed to put failings right. Again you do not seem to have taken that into account.

So you have to  factor all that in and appreciate how the stats published by CLG are recorded and collated, and decide whether or not it paints a true picture.

Im certainly not saying that FRS can't or shouldn't improve. All im saying is that both Speyside and Kurnal have made what I consider to be sweeping statements without providing any real evidence that enforcement isn't working or without offering any real terms solutions to measure or improve current enforcement practices.

[AnthonyB]

I've said this before but Fire and H&S are not comparable.

With H&S you normally get a single death or single injury per incident from a non compliance.

With Fire it is normally multiple deaths and/or injuries per incident from a non compliance.

Enforcement and regulation must work as historically there were many big fires with multiple deaths (resulting in new legislation or a change in guidance/enforcement practice), but in the last 30 years there have still been a fair number of big fires, but most involve few or no deaths (excluding fire-fighters as the legislation was never directly for their safety).

Not scientific, but illustrative itself.

[CivvyFSO]

I would actually think that more than 43% of buildings have fire safety problems at any one time. That does not mean that more than 43% of buildings are unsafe. A fire safety problem or non-complaince can range from not recording your prescribed information, to having locked exits. Do the risk assessors of this forum find that during approx 50% of their risk assessments they find no problems that need to be addressed?

What the records will fail to show is that the older inspection regimes (Wp regs, FP act) were often not recorded in the same way that the 'audits' are now. If I went to a factory under the FP act or Wp regs, and fixed all their fire safety problems all that would be recorded is the standard in which I left the premises. (i.e. Fixed) Now, to follow the enforcement management model properly, we should be recording the premises exactly as found which will then give us our course of action. (Advice, enforcement, prosecution) We then take that course of action, and should then audit again (or 'rescore' the premises) once all the work is completed to give the premises a new risk score for the IRMP.

What the figures possibly show is more than likely down to us making a better record of when we have found problems and given advice or got an agreement to rectify deficiencies.

[CivvyFSO]

Enforcement and regulation must work as historically there were many big fires with multiple deaths (resulting in new legislation or a change in guidance/enforcement practice), but in the last 30 years there have still been a fair number of big fires, but most involve few or no deaths (excluding fire-fighters as the legislation was never directly for their safety).

Anthony, I think one of the problems is that some senior people look at it from the point of view of "what difference are you making?" They do not see enforcement as something that maintains a level of fire safety. It is relatively easy to demonstrate their point of view:

Road deaths on Somestreet Avenue
Year  Deaths
2005     3
2006     4
2007     0  <- N.B. Speed camera installed late 2006
2008     0
2009     0
2010     0

"What a waste of bloody money that speed camera is, it has made no difference for the past 3 years."