Enforcement review

[Kelsall]

The enforcement of the RRO is inconsistent at the moment and with only 8% of buildings subject to the legislation being inspected annually, (English fire service returns) there is no burden on industry to comply with current fire safety legislation. With such a low level of enforcement visits, many businesses are not making adequate provision and indeed 41% of buildings that are inspected are ‘unsatisfactory’.

The current regulation enforcement regime is inadequate and with cuts in the fire service budgets I can only see a further decrease in inspection visits with a move towards post fire or formal complaint inspections only. This will lead to a decrease in fire safety provision by many businesses sectors; especially those who consider themselves low risk. Within some high risk sectors this could lead to over provision and over expenditure. The health and safety culture of the last 10 years, where every potential hazardous activity was banned for ‘health and safety’ reasons could be adopted by many public sector organisations for fire safety; thus leading to over provision and excessive management regimes. Costing industry more in the long run!

The cost of fire safety compliance to business is in the measures necessary for compliance not in accommodating a fire and rescue service officer for at best an annual visit. I believe that fire safety enforcement needs more regulation and enforcement not less and therefore a review would be welcome. BIS are undergoing a series of reviews of all legislation and with falling fire deaths I can see that the RRO will be a target for a review; however there may be a predetermined outcome for financial and not safety reasons.

‘Let them burn and fine them later’ isn’t the way it should be going in my opinion.

[lancsfirepro]

Agreed.  One solution?  Fire risk assessments should only be carried out by an authorised body/company/individual - this should be able to be demonstrated and a national register of competence should be maintained (think, gas safe).

A fire risk assessment should be carried out within a certain time frame - say 12 months of the scheme starting.  The risk assessor's recommendations should be carried out or closed off and a return visit by the assessor arranged after the time scale specified in the assessment.  The assessor must then tick off compliance with a set category:

i.e:
Fire Alarm                 YES / NO
Fire Extinguishers       YES / NO
Escape Routes           YES / NO
etc                          YES / NO
etc                          YES / NO

He either ticks YES or NO and can enter further details.  Each business/premises is given a unique reference number and the assessor uses this number to upload details of the return visit onto a national database.  Subsequent visits may be required in order to fully close off the outstanding issues.  The dates of any outstanding issues could be flagged up after an excessive amount of time and enforcement officers could then use this information to investigate.

A closed off record would be required to be reviewed on a frequency set by the assessor - the review may be able to be carried out by the RP at site.  A new fire risk assessment should be carried out on a set frequency - maybe 3 years as standard but can be subject to variation.

Obviously there'd be a few wrinkles to iron out but whatta you think?  Got legs?

[jokar]

What about an annual MoT style certificate for businesses.  The business has to approach a provider for the certificate of compliance with the Order.  FRS can then audit premises to check for compliance.

[lancsfirepro]

Trouble is that's basically what they've got now - they need to approach businesses to find out what shape they're in. That's wasteful of their time.  They're the guys that should be enforcing the RRO rather than wasting their time carrying out random site audits then requesting a fire risk assessment be carried out. What they need is a heads-up with who isn't playing ball.

[Tom Sutton]

With a reduction of 50% in manpower, in fifteen years in my former FRS and even higher in fire safety, we, like the HSE, are going to move  to a reaction system from the present proactive inspection program. Manpower means costs and in the present situation costs are likely to be driven downwards for some considerable time, cutting costs in the FRS means primarily cutting manpower. While the fatality statistics are falling year on year its a good excuse to move to a reaction type inspections which is what I consider will happen.

I am afraid ‘Let them burn and fine them later’ will be the order of the day.

[nearlythere]

With a reduction of 50% in manpower, in fifteen years in my former FRS and even higher in fire safety, we, like the HSE, are going to move  to a reaction system from the present proactive inspection program. Manpower means costs and in the present situation costs are likely to be driven downwards for some considerable time, cutting costs in the FRS means primarily cutting manpower. While the fatality statistics are falling year on year its a good excuse to move to a reaction type inspections which is what I consider will happen.

I am afraid ‘Let them burn and fine them later’ will be the order of the day.

Yep. Doesn't matter if it works as long as it's cheap. Government policy.

[Kelsall]

Sadly I fear a bad multi death fire and the usual knee jerk response by the regulators. The potential is out there I am sure.

[tmprojects]

An MOT style cert. with check by the FRS! isnt that basically a fire cert?

i dont agree that  all FRAs should be done by accredited competent persons. The whole philosophy of the RRO was place the onus on the RP and provide him sufficient guidance.  Lets face it. a newsagents kiosks FRA could be written on one side of piece of paper by a lay person. That doesn't need an accredited assessor.  At the other end of the spectrum. You won't find a nuclear power plant trawling the yellow pages for a risk assessor. And to be honest accreditation isnt the bee all in my view.

We all criticise the HSE reactionary approach. But their public profile is so high that everyone knows what's expected and is fully aware the legislation exists. So there is no excuse to not comply.

If fire safety had the same profile (and in my view, we're getting there) then why do we need to go out and audit and educate them to get a FRA done. They will know they need one. If we are to truly adopt the intent of the RRO. Then we should raise the profile such that we can leave it to the RP to comply. And therefore only be reactive.

My views only 

[Paul2886]

Couldn't agree more TM

[wee brian]

The MOT is a great example. Thanks to that system all cars on the road have been tested and shown to be OK. 

[jokar]

On the day of the test of course!  It is down to the owner/user to keep it that way through servicing and maintenance.  The enforcing authority can do random testing as the local policy dictates.

[Kelsall]

The RRO is DIY legislation and to give it an analogy it’s like the government scrapping the MOT and saying to car owners; “you know your car well, just make sure it is road worthy” You would get carnage on the road if that happened. The potential for fire carnage is real alright and if people like New Look, Shell and Tesco can get it wrong then the SME owner can too. 40% of those who need an FRA don’t have one and 40% of FRS inspections are ‘unsatisfactory’. It isn’t just about the risk assessment; ongoing management is as important if not more. However there are duty holders who do not see fire as an area they need or want to invest time or money getting right. Perhaps the shift to reactive prosecutions will make a difference who knows. However I believe the public sector are much more aware because of the information they have available. Therefore they have a much better audit record than the private sector. In fact I think they are 10 times less likely to be served a prohibition notice than the private sector according to my limited research.

I wouldn’t like to guess how many fire risk assessments have been done and then get stuffed in to a drawer by the duty holder never to be looked at until the FRS call; if they ever do. The English FRS IRMP returns show that only 8% of known building get inspected annually and as the FRS focus on high risk buildings they tend to do the same ones over again.

I see the inquest in to Lakanal House starts today 3 years after the incident happened. Cost isn’t an issue for those who lost loved ones I appreciate that and an enquiry is very justified in my opinion. My sympathy goes out to those friends and family who lost people in that fire. I hope they get the answers they deserve. It is however a shame that all the money being spent wasn’t allocated to education, information and inspection to prevent this tragic event happening in the first place. I am also not sure another event like this won’t happen again unless something comes out of this enquiry.

Indeed the Independent ran an article this weekend which seems to suggest the potential is out there.

[colin todd]

Kel, try not to lose sleep worrying about. Statistically you are more likely to die going downstairs to get a sleeping tablet than die in a fire. And remind us all how many people died, were seriously injured or even cut a finger in New Look, Shell or Tescos???

WeeB, As a public sector employee I cannot believe that you drive a car old enough to have an MoT. Or are you talking about the runaround you keep on your country estate?

[Kelsall]

You're the legal expert; does anyone actually need to die?

Reasonable provision! Penhallow, Rose Park and possibly another one to add to the list.

There are lots of places out there with the potential, and so what if not many people die in fires; when its your loved one I am sure being one of a few deaths a year makes no difference to the sense of loss or the sense of wanting to know if it was avoidable.

The public should expect a reasonable level of fire safety and certainly shouldn’t be paying to be put in danger, for example in a hotel. Is it acceptable that some hotels take fire safety seriously and some don’t care?  Do guests just have to take a risk and see how they get on?

Because the risk is low, it doesn’t make it right. Low numbers of deaths is true but what is the figure for potential exposure to harm? 

I will have to check the figures but I think 5 schools were given prohibition notices last year.  51 hotels, 4 care homes, 53 licensed premises and 6 purpose built flats. How much potential in that lot? How many exposed to that potential? How long have they been exposed to it?

Low risk agreed, but high consequences also.

You must have seen the relatives at inquests; where is your heart man, where is it?

[colin todd]

Will the bright honourable member for the Wirral please answer the question about the number of cut fingers in the premises he bandies about so liberally, namely Shell , New Look and Tescos, and as an expert in statistics, can he tell the House how many people have died in the last 50 years in office buildings, shops and supermarkets, including those before and after the F P Act applied to the premises. Please exclude hotels and care homes from your answer.