Memorandum by the World Fire Statistics
Centre (FRS 48)
1. The Centre's main object is to persuade
governments to adopt coherent national fire safety strategies
aimed at reducing fire costs, and in support of this aim it collects
and publishes, under United Nations auspices, statistics on national
fire costs from over 20 leading countries worldwide, including
the UK.
2. During the past three years the Government
has been faced with two separate but inter-related challenges
(i) the reform of the Fire Service, and (ii) the development of
a comprehensive fire safety strategy. Rapid progress has been
made on the first, but progress on the second has been more patchy
and, because of this, some of the decisions made regarding Fire
Service operations are open to question.
3. A contrasting example of how to proceed
is available from Scotland, where the Scottish Executive undertook
wide consultation on every major issue concerning fire safety
policy and the role of the Scottish Fire Service, the outcome
being published in Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2005
(November 2005).
4. In its evidence to the Committee's previous
enquiry, the Centre regretted that the opportunity had not been
taken in the White Paper proposals for the reformed Fire Service
in England to make a specific extension of the aims of the Service
to include the protection of property as well as life. Scotland
now provides an example. As in England, the Scottish Framework
puts prevention, rather than emergency response, at the forefront,
but makes it clear that the new approach is not just about saving
lives but also "ensuring that commercial and industrial property
will receive appropriate protection" (Paragraph 22). English
fire safety policy would benefit from a similar clear statement.
That this is not just an academic point is demonstrated by the
recent disastrous explosion and fire at the Buncefield oil depot.
This suggests that in preparing their integrated risk management
plans, individual Fire & Rescue Services need to take account
not merely of recent experience of fire deaths, injuries and property
losses, but also of major industrial hazards within their areas
of responsibility, which give rise to the potential for extremely
serious (if only very occasional) fire incidents
5. In England, reform of the Fire Service
followed rapidly on the publication of the report of the Independent
Review of the Fire Service (Chairman, Professor Sir George Bain)
in December 2002, and in several cases followed or adapted the
report's recommendations with little or no prior consultation.
Particular examples, in all of which a different outcome has been
reached (or is still being considered) in Scotland, are:
(a) the adoption of Regional Control Rooms,
which will force the abandonment of the alternative model of joint
fire/police/ambulance control rooms, strongly advocated by those
Forces which have already moved in that direction;
(b) the removal of inspection duties from
the Fire Service Inspectorate, which may be the precursor to its
complete abolition; and
(c) the abolition of the well-regarded Fire
Safety Advisory Board, and its replacement by two separate fora,
with no overlap between their membership.
6. Apart from the Bain Review, it is also
relevant to look back at the Audit Commission report, In the
Line of Fire (1995). Although its recommendations were largely
ignored at the time, many of them were repeated in the Bain Review
and are now being implemented. The main exception, in the context
of the shift in emphasis from firefighting to fire prevention,
is the proposal that the Government should "encourage multi-agency
efforts to improve fire safety, involving the insurance industry
and others". Evidence that this has been happening in any
meaningful way is sparse, and this is particularly worrying with
the imminent arrival of a completely new approach to workplace
fire safety based on risk assessment by the responsible building
occupant. In this area the contribution of fire insurers could
have been of great importance, particularly with regard to the
tens of thousands of small businesses which have little or no
awareness of their new responsibilities.
7. Building regulation forms another important
part of the overall fire prevention effort, and it was encouraging
when this function was at long last brought within the same Ministry
as fire safety policy. However, under the latest reshuffle of
Departmental responsibilities, it has now emerged that there will
be no direct contact whatever between ODPM staff concerned with
fire safety and those with building regulation below the office
of the Deputy Prime Minister himself. This is a matter of considerable
concern, particularly as on issues such as compartmentation and
the installation of sprinklers the introduction of stricter standards
in England is already lagging behind those thought necessary in
Scotland.
|
