Bob Docherty takes issue with the Chief Fire Officers Association that inconsistency of enforcement by fire and rescue services is more perceived than real.

I read Tom Welland's article and had to agree with his comments on the inconsistency of enforcement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, as well as the approaches taken to enforcement by fire and rescue services (F&RS). Indeed, Alan Stoker and I organised a conference in mid-2009 called ‘Striking the Balance’ to highlight and address these issues of inconsistency of enforcement, and their impact on the responsible person  and other ‘end users’.

I noted at the time that despite wide advertising of the conference, no one on behalf of CFOA was among the delegates, so it was with some surprise that I read the robust response from CFOA to Tom Welland’s remarks. It was doubly surprising that CFOA was making these comments, as my own experience is that they don’t normally engage directly in these types of ‘arguments’. I am sure that Tom, like me and many others in the fire safety world, have countless anecdotal evidence of inconsistency both between fire and rescue services as well as within individual ones!

I cannot see any of what the CFOA writer refers to as the “development and implementation of a common audit which has been recently refined...should be consistent whatever F&RS geographical area the business operates in”. From my own experience two examples come to mind. Firstly a fire and rescue service which is issuing ‘minor breach notices’ and secondly another which is issuing ‘schedules of work’. Where are these in the guidance documents, the legislation or indeed the procedural guidance to the fire and rescue services? This, I would argue, is inconsistency.
 

Limited resources?
The next quote from the CFOA writer describes the use of the “limited resources” of fire and rescue services. The resources were not particularly limited before this legislation was enacted, so why are they limited now? Surely it is CFOA’s job to argue their case at the highest level to ensure that sufficient resources – not ‘limited resources’ – are available.

The remark made in the reply suggesting that inconsistency of the application of standards by fire and rescue services is only ‘perceived’ by responsible persons and fire risk assessors is, I feel, tenuous. There are a lot of professional fire consultants around who would share their experiences of actual inconsistency. Disagreements will always be inevitable, but I have found an inflexibility in a number of fire and rescue services to discuss alternative solutions and ways of achieving a safe end-result. If readers take a look at the CLG website on determinations, there aren’t that many (the reason for this I believe is that responsible persons are fearful of taking on, or going up against, the ‘enforcer’ and the ‘uniform’) but from the determinations that are there I note that fire and rescue services are not always the ‘winners’!

Legal action
A further point made by the CFOA author was using legal action as a means of publicising the duties of responsible persons. I think that legal action should be targeted towards an individual offender in its own right, rather than be viewed as a publicity seeking weapon to use as scare tactics! Surely fire and rescue services should use their now ‘limited resources’ to take a more pragmatic, understanding and informative approach. Businesses must survive and be safe, but not under a canopy of fear. When an organisation such as CFOA attempts to give a robust defence to some criticism (and not too persuasive in this case), then a nerve has been touched.

I am convinced that the reduction in fire and rescue services’ fire safety resources, knowledge and experience; the lack of a national fire service college where all fire safety personnel are taught national methodologies; the absence of a national fire and rescue service inspectorate; and the lack of a coherent enforcement policy from central government have all combined to create this situation.

My personal view is that CFOA is in the right position to take positive action with its members who are managing fire and rescue services and that instead of being introspective and defensive, they should engage with people like myself, Tom Welland and others to find out what ‘end users’ are experiencing. To be positive, I openly offer myself to sit on any CFOA fire safety committee as a retired member and at my own expense and/or talk to CFOA with any evidence of inflexibility, inconsistency etc. that either myself or my colleagues come across.

Bob Docherty is secretary general of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers