Further to the Home Office call for evidence as part of its review of the effectiveness of the Fire Safety Order introduced in 2006 and the MHCLG consultation on proposals to meet the challenge of Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations and fire safety, called Building a Safer Future, the Federation has made its responses and these are published on its members webpage. Responses to Government Consultations
The FSO review prompted members to both re-applaud the original concept and register concern over implementation. Moving from prescription to functional requirements had been seen as the right way to extend innovation and personal responsibility but the lack of competency, regulation and enforcement has weakened effectiveness.
The MHCLG proposals also gained plaudits for describing a welcomed sense of direction although again linked to deeper concerns that the framework, especially the regulatory oversight and application, being largely defined yet having multiple responsible persons, would create arguably a far more confusing picture, and one that was ‘too big an ask’ to be achieved collectively by industry in the short term.
The Federation now, like everyone else, awaits the considered judgements of government while remaining open and willing to make further contributions.
Allied to the two responses above work has also continued for over a year involving multi-disciplined groups of many professionals under the auspices of the Competency Steering Group, itself part of the collective fire and construction industries response to the Grenfell Tower fire.
Published in August a CSG interim report entitled RAISING THE BAR aims to improve competence as part of the building a safer future initiative. Intended to start a consultation the report will be presented to wider industry conference being organised for September and October. The report’s authors have made many recommendations to this comprehensive report.
Additionally the Federation’s Executive Officer with support from the Fire Protection Association and Fire Industry Association produced two animations aimed at improving general understanding of fire. The animations that it is hoped will be part of a series can be found at www.firesafetyeducation.info