Civilianise enforcement- you know it makes sense

[kurnal]

Many will have seen Colin Todd's  avatar statement "civilianise enforcement-you know it makes sense".
Does it? I thought it might be interesting to explore this.

The first assumption though is that fire services will remain the authority responsible for enforcing fire safety legislation in the UK.

If this is to be the case then I wager that most fire services already employ non operational staff  (ie civilians? every member of the Fire Service is actually a civilian within the meaning of the word.)
in the role of inspecting officer and in fire engineering roles.

Presently very many Inspecting Officers are former operational staff re-employed on artificially low salaries as they are in receipt of a fire service pension. But they are all getting pretty long in the tooth and the changes to the pension scheme mean that they are a diminishing resource.

I contend that the best, most qualified and experienced inspecting officers come from an operational background where they will have experienced  at first hand the very hazard that they are employed to protect relevant persons from.

They will have experienced  thousands of fire situations and will understand the characteristics of fire in all its stages.
They will have witnessed and managed human behaviour in fire situations.
They will have experience in investigating the cause of fire.
They will have experienced at first hand the toxicity aspects of fire and smoke.
They will have an understanding of firefighting in high rise buildings and the importance of siting risers, shafts and ventilation and providing access for firefighting.
They will have experienced at first hand the effect of fire on the elements of construction and understand the protection afforded by walls, doors, ceilings, floors, shutters etc.
They will have witnessed the benefits and operation of fixed installations and sprinklers in a fire situation.

The system was working well up to the mid 1990s and was well supported by a structured range of training courses at the National Training Centres. These courses provided for all management levels and were reinforced by competence measures - the Station Officers and IFE exams included fire safety papers.

It all started to go wrong with the implementation of the Workplace Fire Safety Regulations because Inspecting Officers were faced with two very different regimes for the same buildings at the same time.  The Regulations were based on risk assessment whilst at the same time the Fire Precautions Act  guidance and enforcement were extremely prescriptive especially for certificated buildings. So Inspecting Officers, who should have had the best of training for dealing with such a different and dual approach were let down by CACFOA and most Fire Services by a decision to provide minimalistic internal risk assessment training within each Service and most senior officers, -those responsible for signing off fire certificates- felt they were above such training and continued to insist on the prescriptive standards under the FP Act.  
I would love to expand on this and the subsequent role of New Labour, Sir George Bain, CFOA and CFOs in general in wrecking a good system but it might be wise to keep my counsel.

But as  Colin rightly points out having broken the old system  it is unlikely to be reinstated, and the changed priorities and focus on different  output measures and performance indicators  means that any talk of additional funding would be a pipe dream. So when the pool of current IOs finally retires the only options are:

Privatise enforcement by selling the right to enforce?
Recruit and train non operational staff to the role of Inspecting Officer?
Make another body  (eg local authority EHOs) responsible?

There are no zero cost options. There is also the question of how the essential underpinning knowledge will be delivered, experience gained  and competence measured under a new regime.  
Many brigades are already employing non operational staff to the role. Their training appears to comprise a 4 day NEBOSH fire module as part of the Gen Cert, and a weeks basic course at the College. But no experience of real fires, historic building codes, Building Regulations etc.

One thing is certain- many fire brigades will soon run out of competent experienced IOs as my peers retire and something needs to be done to ensure continuity. Any thoughts anybody?

[Dinnertime Dave]

Interesting post.

After my 26 years in the fire service, the last 12 as an IO then 7 months re-employed as a "civilian" before leaving, I have done both roles you describe. I have a few views on the advantages and disadvantages of both business models.

But I would like to hear Colin's views on why it make sense.

[Davo]

Hi Prof

I'm afraid you will be proved right when a certain company well know for large scale cock-ups takes over...........
After all, privatising BC is working well, don't you know



davo

[JT]

Was it really that good in the good old days?
I'm sure there was a similar level of competence, with some good and some bad much the same as any profession.

[wee brian]

I've not served in the brigade but I've been messing about in this industry a good while.

Ops experience can help and provide some insight. but it doesn't guarantee that somebody will have the aptitude for fire safety work.

Some people seem to think it does, they tend to be the problem.......... (or one of them anyway).

Like a few have said, there are some great people from both ops and civvie backgrounds and vice versa.

[William 29]

I contend that the best, most qualified and experienced inspecting officers come from an operational background where they will have experienced  at first hand the very hazard that they are employed to protect relevant persons from.

They will have experienced  thousands of fire situations and will understand the characteristics of fire in all its stages.
They will have witnessed and managed human behaviour in fire situations.
They will have experience in investigating the cause of fire.
They will have experienced at first hand the toxicity aspects of fire and smoke.
They will have an understanding of firefighting in high rise buildings and the importance of siting risers, shafts and ventilation and providing access for firefighting.
They will have experienced at first hand the effect of fire on the elements of construction and understand the protection afforded by walls, doors, ceilings, floors, shutters etc.
They will have witnessed the benefits and operation of fixed installations and sprinklers in a fire situation.

I think the type of experience you describe above really has died out, you will be lucky to find anyone with that kind of background these days that are coming up to retire. We just don't get those types of fires or ops experience since the number of fire calls has dropped drastically over the last 10-15 years, even then you had to be stationed at an inner city type fire station. I was fortunate (or not!) to have served at some of those stations at perhaps the peak of fire calls around the mid to late 90's. However did that make me a better fire safety enforcement officer or risk assessor?

On your other points, do the enforcers need that type of experience when they are really preforming an auditors role. Fire authorities are looking into joint BCO and FSO post and fire officers being based at local authority building control buildings, that tells a story.

Retiring FSO's are simply not being replaced, I know of a large Borough where there are currently 3 FSOs due to retire this year, none of which are being replaced. FSO's from other areas will just "take up the slack".

There must be a bigger plan somewhere to phase the FSO as we know it out? Just my views.

[lyledunn]

Maybe we could leave the high risk stuff to the FRS. There is a large bulk of relatively low risk buildings that could be left to LABC. That would let resources be directed in a more appropriate manner. Mind you, that is a wee bit like the way resources are being deployed in NI but the building control guys or EHOs aren't exactly enthusiastic. Many still need IOs from the NIFRS to hold their hand.

[AnthonyB]

Twice when offered civilian positions in the past the thing that struck me was how poorly paid they were, even when the terms included starting at the top of the pay scale and this has to be realistically one of the main reasons several brigades jumped into the civilian route early on.

The limitations of the off the street staff were illustrated at a meeting at a fire engineered building to discuss concerns and negotiate practical resolutions - the very young lady whose area it was attended, but the meeting and discussion was entirely handled by an older civilian officer (who was a retired ex-FPO) and a current uniformed management rank FPO. The poor old Junior was left out of it in such a way that they were unlikely to learn much.

Conversely another FRS who brought a civilian trainee to a site meeting over some potentially severe breaches where some out of the box solutions were being proposed actively involved them and explained the various points.

Civilianisation can work if the FRS are willing to pay a decent wage and to include suitable mentoring/apprenticeship in the field in addition to the classroom.

Privatisation however, by handing the lot over lock, stock & barrel to a corporate entity is another matter                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

[kurnal]

Was it really that good in the good old days?
I'm sure there was a similar level of competence, with some good and some bad much the same as any profession.

Yes I agree Cardiff it was not perfect in the old days and there were always variations in knowledge and most important attitude, there were some unnecessary jack boots. It was so easy to hide behind the prescriptive rules of the factories act, osrp and latterly the FP act and those long in the tooth at the time of the workplace regs really struggled for reasons I outlined. We were forced by our senior managers to ruin so many lovely small 3 storey buildings with double door protection to comply with the hotels guide which at the time only required a manual alarm system. Trade off for detection? No chance. But pre 1991 we were also responsible for MOE in flats and this was a great training ground.
Those are some of the weaknesses of the old system. But more recently you are more likely to encounter  fire officers with little underpinning knowledge, greenhorn fire engineers who include unjustifiable twaddle in their "engineered" solution and AIs who are happy to approve anything without reading, understanding or challenging stupid claims. One fire engineers report for a 23 storey residential  building justified the use of half hour doors to the firefighting staircase (unsprinklered) because it was offset by a two hour standard to  the elements of structure of the staircase. Trade off? What planets code are they using? Another in a student block with many shortcomings stated that as students are young and fit they could be relied on to respond immediately to a fire alarm so response time would be immediate. Ok obviously.

It seems to me that the old timers might be inflexible but could be relied on not to walk away from an unsafe building. Whereas the new enforcement officers and fire engineers are less likely to spot or recognise obvious problems and the new audit system in place discourages them from looking anyway.

[kurnal]

Apologies I have drifted off into the good old days argument yet again when the topic is the "civilianisation" of enforcement. It would be good to know what Colin has in mind ?

[Dinnertime Dave]

 I would suggest that civilianisation means taking enforcement out of the hands of the fire service and handing it to the HSE or a new body along the lines of the HSE.

[SamFIRT]

They will have experienced  thousands of fire situations and will understand the characteristics of fire in all its stages.
They will have witnessed and managed human behaviour in fire situations.
They will have experience in investigating the cause of fire.
They will have experienced at first hand the toxicity aspects of fire and smoke.
They will have an understanding of firefighting in high rise buildings and the importance of siting risers, shafts and ventilation and providing access for firefighting.
They will have experienced at first hand the effect of fire on the elements of construction and understand the protection afforded by walls, doors, ceilings, floors, shutters etc.
They will have witnessed the benefits and operation of fixed installations and sprinklers in a fire situation.

Are these all valid??

The reduction in fire calls has already been mentioned. And it could be argued that many of the numbers in the old days were increased by False Alarms. How much experience can be gained by attending a FA? Or by being on the crew of the second, third, or even fourth pump attending such a FA? Or even a fire for that matter? How does setting into a hydrant and standing by as an emergency BA crew give the aforementioned experience? I am not arguing against experience. Just the point that you had to be a member of an urban FRS to gain it.

But the case is sound and experience matters.

So if the call rate to fires is dropping? (notwithstanding increases in special services; RTA's, Flooding etc) how can the modern operational fire fighter (Manager) gain the all important experience. How can their experience dove-tail into the academic learning of their non uniformed colleagues? Do we need academically trained Fire Managers? Are people suited to be academics suited to be emergency staff? ( a rhetorical point). Discuss.

Would specialisation by uniformed staff assist? Or is there just not enough money washing around to allow this?

Let's take one of Kurnal's points "They will have experience in investigating the cause of fire". Really? How good are CM's WM's or even SM's at investigating fires for IRS? My research shows not very. Yes there are specialist FI's, but how much input do they have in the IRS statistics? There also needs to be a rationalisation of exactly who is responsible for investigating a fire, when and why. Is it a crime? Is it a H&S issue? Is it a Fire Precaution issue? Is it an insurance issue? Is it just a statistical exercise?

Lets take another. "They will have witnessed and managed human behaviour in fire situations". Yes..... but only after the fire has become out of control and the FRS has been called to attend. Much of the preventative work you people are involved in needs to look at human behaviour associated with cause of fire, early detection and first aid fire fighting. Very few operational staff have any concept of what goes on before the magic number is called and assistance called for.

Academically trained and experientially trained staff working together in partnership?  Discuss.

Sam

[Tom Sutton]

We had the same arguments in the 1970's with Colin, we said you needed operation experience to make a good Fire Safety Officer, Colin disagreed. He argued the FS department should be independent from the operational side and I think I now agree with him. There should be no jumping in and out of FS for promotion purposes, how often have you heard on an interview board, "you need Fire Safety experience".  It should be totally independent with its own management structure, own budget, a good training system and once you choose FS you remain a FSO until you retire.

However to try it at this time, with finance as it is, it would be a disaster, a poorly funded organisation would be worse than employing civilian staff and having its own management structure is the best we can hope for at this moment in time.

[Messy]

There's no doubt that over the years the UK fire service - changes to both operational and fire safety enforcement - make privatisation of both areas more likely and perhaps inevitable. Would a privatised fire safety enforcement give a better service or worse? Well that depends on your definition of 'better'.

For the taxpayer, some will argue it will be cheaper as the total costs will inevitably be reduced (or perhaps shown to have reduced)

However from the employees side, the savings will come from contracts which will mean less pay, less flexibility, poorer pension, longer hours, zero hour contracts and all the Victorian employment values that PFI companies are synonymous for.

From a fire safety entrepreneur's (fire safety consultancy) point of view it means a huge business opportunity with increase profits and a bigger faster car


But I predict that as has been so common in other areas where privatisation has occurred within the public sector, enforcement will not be any more efficient and may be disastrous. There have been massive cock ups in health, education and above all defence. Why will fire safety be exempt from the mess other Depts have suffered

Privatisation seems to lead to jobs for ministers post government, and knighthoods for PFI business leaders. I cannot bear the thought of Sir Colin Todd gloating on this forum of his investiture  

[Tom Sutton]

Colin said "Big Al on a point of interpretation of my avatar, civilianise does not mean privatise" which started this discussion.