Enforcement review

[AnthonyB]

1956 - Eastwood Mills: 8
1960 - Hendersons Dept Store: 11
1969 - Top Storey Club: 19
1972 - Maryhill Road Fire: 2
1973 - Summerland:50
1977 - Murray House Fire: 7
1979 - Woolworths:10
1985 - Bradford FC: 56
1987 - Kings Cross: 31
1993 - Littlewoods, Chesterfield: 2

The list excludes hotels, care homes and hospitals, which would swell the above significantly. Single fatality fires not widely reported (& thus not known about)are excluded as are those with only fire fighter deaths

If you take from the above those only associated with shops and offices you get 30 (including Maryhill as it started in a shop)

[colin todd]

I said offices shops and supermarkets. So thats 4 incidents and 30 deaths in 55 years?  In the same period there were about 50, 000 deaths from falling down stairs. Kelsall, quick, we need a certification scheme for stair risk assessors. Get onto it quick. it is bound to be more successful than your other schemes.

And have you seen the number of deaths in that period in garden sheds?  I am just glad I employ a gardner, cos you wouldnt get me in one of those dangerous sheds.

[Meerkat]

Part of the problem for people running a small business is they know jolly well that the chances of them getting inspected are minimal unless something goes wrong.  I was assessing a small licensed premises last week where the new owners HAVE decided to take their responsibility seriously and get an assessment done.  Despite being an old premises, it seems to have never had an assessment or an enforcement visit before.

They asked me how likely it was they would have ever had a visit from the local F&RS if they hadn't bothered to take this seriously.  I'm afraid I had to tell them that they'd have got away with it in all probability unless they had an incident!  They don't have money to chuck around and so they asked me if I thought that was fair, since they are aware of others in their business in the area who are doing nothing.  Not much I could say to that really was there?

[Tom W]

I have thought of that Colin

[Dinnertime Dave]

Part of the problem for people running a small business is they know jolly well that the chances of them getting inspected are minimal unless something goes wrong.  I was assessing a small licensed premises last week where the new owners HAVE decided to take their responsibility seriously and get an assessment done.  Despite being an old premises, it seems to have never had an assessment or an enforcement visit before.

They asked me how likely it was they would have ever had a visit from the local F&RS if they hadn't bothered to take this seriously.  I'm afraid I had to tell them that they'd have got away with it in all probability unless they had an incident!  They don't have money to chuck around and so they asked me if I thought that was fair, since they are aware of others in their business in the area who are doing nothing.  Not much I could say to that really was there?

A few points -

It is a small licenced premises why should I be inspecting it regularly. it comes down to choices - Residential care or corner shops? chemical works or small country pub? You might in some brigades receive a visit from an operational crew with a series of questions to enable us to assess the level of compliance.

Brigades are concentrating on reducing fire deaths in the home with some success, although with an ageing population it is estimated that fire deaths will increase by 11% in the next 25 years.

If they don`t have money to chuck around why not carry out the FRA themselves? It isn`t that difficult in a small licenced premises.

You are right - if you have a fire, or we receive a complaint or you create lots of unwanted false alarms from all that unnecessary detection we will visit. I think this government calls it better regulation.

All sorts of enforcement officers visit premises - environmental health, housing and police to name a few we all talk to each other, so if the environmental health officer has fire safety concerns during their visit they tell us.

In some respects I agree with Colin, the data shows fire deaths in commercial premises are low BUT (and it is a big but) in 20 years time when fire deaths in commercial premises increase, will it be due to the Fire Safety Order and self regulation or through lack of enforcement

[Mike Buckley]

It is a small licenced premises why should I be inspecting it regularly. it comes down to choices - Residential care or corner shops? chemical works or small country pub? You might in some brigades receive a visit from an operational crew with a series of questions to enable us to assess the level of compliance.

I would agree that you should not be inspecting a small licenced premises regularly, but the point is that the small licenced premises should expect a visit some time, in fact all premises should expect to be inspected.

Residential care or corner shops? chemical works or small country pub? most of the bigger places will have got their act together, so why keep on revisiting a place that is complying just because it is big, whilst ignoring a smaller place that probably isn't?

It is a dangerous situation when the responsible person can take the attitude 'Oh they will never come here it is too small'.

The brigades could adopt some of the marketing strategies, why not mail shot all the pubs saying the brigade will be carrying out random inspections and then publicise the ones you do inspect to get the message across?

[Kelsall]

I think you miss the point Colin. Sheds and stairs!

Colin these were most likely to be casualties in their own house, down their own stairs or in their own sheds. The numbers are low for fire deaths; which is a good thing, but when fire deaths occur in a premise other than a dwelling house there is normally a lack of reasonable provision. That lack of provision is common in the UK.  I believe the potential exposure to circumstances that could lead to a death in fire is a real problem. Thankfully fires do not occur often, but when they do and people die, they have friends and family who want to know why it happened and why didn’t someone take the reasonable precautions to prevent their loved ones from dying.  

What you seem to be saying is that because there aren’t many people dying in fires where someone else has control, their deaths don’t matter; it’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Will you be called to the Lakanal enquiry?  If you do, good luck with that stance; “Your family and friends are insignificant in the grand scheme of deaths in the UK, be thankful they lived in a flat and didn’t have a garden shed, and thank Southwark for keeping the lift working so they didn’t die on the stairs”  

Fire precautions are there for a reason and the general public/employees shouldn’t be put at risk because the duty holder is willing to accept risk (knowingly or not) on their behalf.

[Meerkat]

Dave - I'm not saying you should be inspecting them regularly either!  I do understand that there have to be priorities in inspection unless you have infinite resources and yes of course care homes, hotels and high risk premises should come first.  The point I was trying to make is that there are a lot of small business owners out there who DO take the attitude that they can carry on as they have always done and get away with it until something goes wrong.  I don't know the answer to that, but it's happening as I am sure you know better than I do.

As for why weren't my pub owner clients (who I should emphasises HAVE decided to be responsible and make some changes) doing this for themselves?  I did suggest when they contacted me that I could point them to relevant guidance and that they could possibly do the assessment themselves, but they did not have the confidence to take it on.  Now I have seen the place I think they were right, as despite being small it does have some interesting issues and has clearly not had any fire safety improvements made since about 1890 (think no detection, no alarm, no emergency lighting, inadequate exits for the numbers present on function nights, etc, etc)  I shall set it up so they can undertake the actions, improvements and ongoing assessment on their own, since I believe now I've got them started they will have the confidence and the understanding of their situation going forward.

[Wiz]

kelsall, is it cost-effective to identify, assess and eradicate every possible risk?

I think not.

[Kelsall]

I think not too!

I am just about to book a hotel in Cornwall as I am doing a seminar there next week.

Wherever I end up staying, I expect that in the event of a fire I will be awakened by an audible alarm to give me a chance of escaping the fire. (Penhallow and Dial Hotel)

In the event I need to leave by a final exit other than the front door I expect the final exit to open. (Tanton hotel)

In the event of a real fire I expect the staff not to silence the alarm and tell me to go back to bed its all ok (Tanton Hotel)


The other day one of the smoke alarm batteries died in my house. I didn’t have another one in the house and didn’t get to a shop to replace it for a couple of days. It is my risk and my acceptance of that risk. I am not risk averse; I don’t replace smoke alarm batteries when I should, I own a garden shed, I have stairs in my house. I like to live on the edge!


Basics Wiz, Basics! I have never advocated ‘no’ risk, just get the basics right. I don’t want my family or friends to be put at risk when it is avoidable and in most cases of fatal fires in non dwelling houses, it turns out that the basics were not done right.

[colin todd]

Given that he argues emotively about the death of loved ones and so on, will the rt honourable member for the wirral please answer when he is going to start a certifrication scheme for stairs and garden sheds, which I hope he promotes as aggressively as he does his certification scheme for fire risk assessors. According to his arguements a death is a death, so why is he so willing to right off the occupants of garden sheds.

[AnthonyB]

Incidentally, Murray House, Maryhill & Littlewoods were all smaller premises that wouldn't have had as much scrutiny as indeed Woolworths and Hendersons did (with no success either as the fires and deaths still occurred).

Fire gets more attention from people probably because unlike safety hazards that usually take out a single individual at a time fires kill several in one go. Rightly or wrongly the attention of the public & then the legislators is attracted by multi fatality or near multi fatality incidents. So if on the 10th anniversary of the FSO there is the 1500th death due to the 1500th individual stair incidents, but on the same day there is a fire that kills 4 or 5 people and injures a few dozen more bringing the 10 year fire total to let's say 27 from about 12 incidents, we all know which one will get the press and calls for new legislation & tougher enforcement.

Also with domestic deaths from stairs, garden forks, etc the general public seem to accept that it's an accident and that as it's the victims home (usually) they are knowingly accepting the risk of wearing the wrong footwear or not getting that loose tread refixed. With fire you are in somewhere you have little control over and so expect every reasonable measure to be taken to make it safe.

[Dinnertime Dave]

I would agree that you should not be inspecting a small licenced premises regularly, but the point is that the small licenced premises should expect a visit some time, in fact all premises should expect to be inspected.

Residential care or corner shops? chemical works or small country pub? most of the bigger places will have got their act together, so why keep on revisiting a place that is complying just because it is big, whilst ignoring a smaller place that probably isn't?

It is a dangerous situation when the responsible person can take the attitude 'Oh they will never come here it is too small'.

Mike, some businesses do take the attitude that they won`t come here. In my area I do use operational crews to carry out compliance checks on small businesses.this will amount to around 500 visits per year. People on this forum may be suprised that most businesses have a few minor items but the general fire precautions are ok. 

Dave - I'm not saying you should be inspecting them regularly either!  I do understand that there have to be priorities in inspection unless you have infinite resources and yes of course care homes, hotels and high risk premises should come first.  The point I was trying to make is that there are a lot of small business owners out there who DO take the attitude that they can carry on as they have always done and get away with it until something goes wrong.  I don't know the answer to that, but it's happening as I am sure you know better than I do.

On occasions they do get the the RP with the attitude of "I have been in business for 20 years, I haven`t had a fire, why do I need a fire alarm, extinguishers etc."  and I have had that phrase quoted at me. This business got its enforcement notice.

Just one point to add my brigade did some research and identified 50,000 business in the county, at the time we had 20 inspecting officers. It now has 9. 

[Mike Buckley]

Dave,

It sounds like the old days when the operational crews carried out inspections under OSRA whilst the FP Officers did the Fire Certificate jobs.

However why stick at the operational crews doing the small businesses? surely the way forward would be for the operational crews to check all businesses with the brief that if they find serious problems to pull out and pass it to the inspecting officers.

[Wiz]

.................Basics Wiz, Basics! I have never advocated ‘no’ risk, just get the basics right. I don’t want my family or friends to be put at risk when it is avoidable and in most cases of fatal fires in non dwelling houses, it turns out that the basics were not done right.

Kelsall, I believe we already have a robust culture and legislation in respect of fire precautions in this country. I believe it is already at the level where the cost of achieving it is already affecting the financial stability of the country. Since business pays for absolutely everything we must ensure that it can flourish.

I read Mr Todd's comments to mean that the current level of deaths due to fires is small in comparision with deaths caused by so many 'innocent sounding' activities and daily occurrences. Can we afford to try and reduce fire deaths further, and why are these more important than deaths by other causes? And I say this as a person who makes his living by providing fire precaution equipment and services.