Examination of Witnesses (Questions 101-119)
4 NOVEMBER 2003
DR MIKE
DENNETT AND
MS ANN
EVERTON
Q101 Chairman: I welcome you all
to the second evidence session of the Committee's inquiry into
the Fire Service. Can I ask the two of you to identify yourselves
for the record, please.
Dr Dennett: Mike Dennett, independent
fire consultant.
Ms Everton: Ann Everton, professor
of fire law, University of Central Lancashire.
Q102 Chairman: Do either of you want
to say anything by way of introduction or are you happy for us
to go straight to questions?
Dr Dennett: I am happy to go straight
to questions.
Ms Everton: Yes.
Q103 Chris Mole: Some of the evidence
that the Committee has had has shown that there is a lot more
resources going in to some fire authorities than others. If you
look at what some might regard as the key indicator of fatality
rates, these do not always reflect the investment being made.
What, in your view, are the good authorities and which are the
ones that need to improve?
Ms Everton: Thank you for the
question but I think truly you need an economist or a statistician
to answer that. The only point I would make is that it seems to
me in the White Paper there is a certain measure of assumption
that larger may mean better and I wonder if that assumption is
always tenable.
Dr Dennett: My view is that the
life-safety issues are separate to a reactive Fire Service. Legislation,
education and fire-safety management are the tools that would
reduce life loss irrespective of the size of the fire brigade
or the number of fire engines that respond to a particular incident.
Q104 Chairman: Come on, be a little
more frank with the Committee. There are some good authorities
and there are some bad ones. Now, you may not want to name the
bad ones but which are the ones that give best value for money
with the money that they have been given at the moment?
Dr Dennett: I have not been through
all of the fire authorities in that way but, if you do comparisons
with the metropolitan authorities as an example, you will see
vast differences throughout the metropolitan authorities.
Q105 Chairman: We have already looked
and we have seen the vast differences. What I am asking you is
if you can explain them in terms of efficiency or just the historic
allocation or something like that.
Dr Dennett: I think it probably
started because of the historical background. If you compare,
for example, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, if you go back
to pre-1974 when it was Liverpool and Manchester, Liverpool was
roughly twice the size in terms of fire brigade resources than
Manchester for two cities that were essentially the same in every
other way. Why that happened was probably as a result of local
politicians at the time, and that is carried on. Again, if you
compare Greater Manchester with West Yorkshire, you will find
authorities that are similar in size but quite different in terms
of establishment, particularly in officer establishment.
Q106 Chris Mole: Coming then to the
White Paper, is this really going to change the way the Fire Service
carries out its activities or are things like fire safety and
community training going to move from being piecemeal to more
comprehensive?
Dr Dennett: I do not think that
it will have any real effect on the actual response of fire engines
to calls, but I do think it has been based on an area where there
are no statistics to back up any of the claims that are being
made. The statistics for fire are dreadful. The statistics for
fire brigade activities are equally dreadful. There is not even
a combined set of statistics that shows the actual workload of
a fire brigade in terms of fire and non-fire emergencies. The
two statistics that are produced, one by the Statistics Office
and one by HMI, do not even cover the same timescale in that one
does January to December and the other April to March. So, it
is extremely difficult to gather information together. The statistics
that are produced are really very broad indicators of trends and
are not detailed enough, in my view, to make any realistic judgments
on.
Q107 Mr Cummings: In your evidence,
you both express severe reservations about certain aspects of
the White Paper. Would you like to tell the Committee what your
key concerns are.
Dr Dennett: I think that my key
concern is the one that I have really just expressed in that the
decisions that have been made and the suggestions that have been
made are not based on hard evidence, they are based on opinions
that are very, very questionable, in my view. You really need
to start with statistics, you really need to look at what is happening
and then you really need to set the objectives on what you want
to do to counteract what is happening.
Q108 Mr Cummings: What statistics
give you rise for concern regarding changes to fire cover?
Dr Dennett: Because the statistics
that are collected do not reflect what actually happens and do
not reflect what is actually needed. It is very difficult to explain
this without going through the whole of the statistical process.
For example, you are looking at the numbers of fire engines that
go to incidents without any background as to why you want to vary
that number. There is a great deal of research being done in other
countries—there is some research being done in this country—that
shows where the incidence of fire occurs and that information
seems to have been ignored. Equally, in fire-safety measures,
there are fire-safety measures in being, there are the building
regulations and the approved documents to those regulations that
are not based on statistical evidence and they are not based on
research, they are based on historical happenings or people's
opinions without anything to back them up. We are spending money
on things that we do not need to spend money on and we are not
spending money on things that we should be spending money on.
Q109 Chairman: Can we have a couple
of examples of where we are spending money that we do not need
to spend.
Dr Dennett: For example, if you
do not have statistics, you do not know what is happening, so
we are producing, in terms of fire brigade, manuals and technical
bulletins that do not reflect what actually happens on the ground.
That means that you are spending money on training that is unnecessary
and not spending money where training is necessary.
Q110 Chairman: Come on, give me just
an example.
Dr Dennett: Breathing apparatus.
The standards for breathing apparatus do not reflect what happens
on the fire ground, yet we are continuing to go down the same
trap that we have really gone down since the Covent Garden fire
in London where this is all started. If you look at building regulations,
the biggest single item at the moment is sprinklers in retail
property. The approved document recommends sprinklers now, which
it never did before, for buildings over 2,000 square metres. Again,
there is no evidence to back up the recommendations that sprinklers
are necessary in those sorts of buildings. They use a broad-brush
approach. In spite of what we are talking about now in terms of
integrated risk management, that does not apply in fire brigade
terms or in building regulation terms when you are dealing with
fire safety issues. So, because a document says that sprinklers
might be a good idea, then in every building that is over 2,000
square metres, it is considered essential to install sprinklers.
That is costing the country, in terms of commerce of the country,
millions of pounds without any benefit.
Ms Everton: I have two sets of
concerns, broad and narrow. If I may, I will begin with the broad.
My broad concern relates to the size of the proposed reform and
the speed with which it is desired to pursue it. I wonder if it
would not be better to try to progress more slowly with something
which is so significant. That is my broad concern. My narrower
concern comes from the way in which I actually come to this subject.
My prime subject is fire safety law and, as you know, we are in
the midst of an extensive reform programme for fire law and the
fire authorities are absolutely at the heart of that reform as
enforcers and, although they will have some experience of what
is going to be asked because it is European inspired and has been
in their remit for a few years, I wonder if they have sufficient
experience of it to be able to cope with it fully when you take
into account the width of the activity which will surround it—they
will not just be fire law enforcers, there will be all the other
matters as well—and, added to that, it concerns me that,
these days, there is great emphasis on community fire safety.
I would not detract from that at all. I think to educate a child
particularly is a good way forward, but I wonder if there will
be so much emphasis on that that it may detract from the task
of fire law enforcement which, to me, is pivotal.
Q111 Mr Cummings: Have you relayed
your concerns to the Ministry and have you received any response?
Ms Everton: I have been a member
of the Fire Safety Advisory Board and I have put my concerns in
that direction and I have also responded to the consultation exercise
of the regulatory reform proposals and I have received most courteous
responses and there has been every effort to take them on board
but my concerns remain.
Q112 Mr Cummings: Given the wider
rescue role that Fire Services will undertake in the future, will
it be difficult for the Fire Service to meet the expectations
of the public and the Health and Safety Executive?
Dr Dennett: I do not think that
the fire brigade are undertaking a wider role. They have always
done the jobs that are talked about in the White Paper.
Q113 Mr Cummings: Would you like
to elaborate, please.
Dr Dennett: If you look at recent
history within the UK alone, you can see that there are the large
chemical releases, large fires, building collapses and environmental
problems and the fire brigade has responded to all of those. Whether
that is caused by terrorist act or by bad management is immaterial
in the way in which the fire brigade attend to it.
Q114 Chairman: I thought that the
prosecution in Manchester by the Health and Safety Executive was
the first of its kind, so is that not another body that is starting
to take an interest in the way in which people in the Fire Service
are trained?
Dr Dennett: No. First of all,
it was not the first of its kind.
Q115 Chairman: How many more have
there been?
Dr Dennett: There have certainly
been improvement notices served on the London Fire Brigade in
the past and I think two others; I do not have the details to
hand.
Q116 Chairman: But it is not commonplace,
is it?
Dr Dennett: No, it is not. The
Health and Safety Executive have also looked at fire brigades
in the past and it has not resulted in improvement notices being
served. I do not think that people should be worried about the
Health and Safety Executive and the role in seeing that the Fire
Service operate safe practices. Fire brigades have traditionally
been very, very safe organisations but there are times when they
fail and, when they fail, there is often civil litigation taken
against them and that happens very, very frequently.
Q117 Mr O'Brien: Obviously we are
interested in the report that has been published by the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister and the evidence of the proposed
changes. Both of you have commented on the White Paper but are
you persuaded that there has been enough evidence to justify the
changed proposals in the White Paper? You briefly commented on
that in the previous question but could you give us a little more
of your views as to whether the evidence that has been produced
is sufficient to make some of the suggestions in the White Paper.
Dr Dennett: I do not think that
any evidence has been produced. I think that we have had a lot
of statements and the White Paper has built on some things that
were done in the past, but I have not seen any evidence in support
of any of the claims. I comment in the written submission about
the comments on the size of fire brigades that have been made
and about the larger the size, the more efficient they will be,
but there is no evidence whatsoever to support that and there
is no evidence, in my view, to support most of the things in the
White Paper.
Q118 Mr O'Brien: What do you mean
in your evidence when you say that a significant flawed research
report—
Dr Dennett: This is the report
that is called the Bain Report. I think it is significantly flawed
because again it did not collect evidence that was available to
it. You have a group of people, I think there were three in total
although it is called the Bain Report, I think there were three
signatures to it, and—
Q119 Mr O'Brien: Did they not take
evidence? Did they not do research?
Dr Dennett: Not according to the
results, no. The comments that they have made in that report are,
in my view, very, very one-sided and do not take account of the
massive amount of research that is available worldwide.
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