Please don't let me be misunderstood.

Is there a case for removing legislative fire safety enforcement from the UK Fire Service and other regulatory bodies to create a national fire safety agency?

"Grenfell changed everything, Ben.” Words I have heard spoken to me from many, many people, the good, the bad and certainly the ugly, over the last eight years.

I can confidently say that Grenfell didn’t change a thing. It just revealed many things that had been ignored deliberately or otherwise for some time. After my own soap opera since 2023, I am only just formulating my thoughts again on fire safety matters.

Now feel free to agree, or disagree, please just have an opinion.

My own perspective is that the fire safety legislation is a mess, statutory instruments creating secondary legislation further modified by statutory instruments again. A lot has been said about the “life cycle of a building from conception and design to demolition and destruction” and rightly so.

Here is a mere selection below of some of the legislation touching into this cycle and relatable to fire, but it isn’t exhaustive, I’ve omitted CDM regulations for example.

• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005- the primary legislation itself created by the use of statutory instruments.

• Fire Safety Act 2021 to clarify the nature of buildings (enacted by statutory instruments)

• Building Safety Act 2022 about the safety of people in or about buildings and the standard of buildings. Section 156 modifies the RRFSO 2005.

• The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (enacted by statutory instruments)

• Housing Act 2004- covers any inspections within flats/individual demises

• Building Act 1984

• Construction Products Regulations 2013

• Construction Products (Amendment) Regulations 2022- safe products to be used within constructions, including fire safety thereof.

• Housing and Building Control Act 1984

• Building Regulations

Now, in an ideal world, the parliamentary draftsmen would be working on a comprehensive and consolidating bill to cover all relevant Fire Safety legislation. This would need to go through Parliament’s legislative processes prior to becoming enacted and these things don’t happen overnight.

I’m not naive, nor am I confident in this government’s ability to understand the complexities needs or how to address them. Nor am I convinced that many in the fire sector truly grasp the issues presenting. There are notable exceptions.

So how can some continuity of thought be provided throughout all of these phases and avoid the misinformation and disjointed approach with the obvious potential to go quickly wrong? A return to a more paternalistic approach or firm hand on the shoulder from a firm but fair regulator at all stages of a building’s lifespan would seem to present part of a solution.

Regulators … or just a gang of cowboys?

At present, fire safety is considered/regulated at various stages of the process, to various depths, including but not exclusive to;

• Building Control Officers/Approved Inspectors

• Health and Safety Executive (during construction)

• Fire Service Inspecting Officers

• Building Safety Regulators / HSE

• Local Council Environmental Health Officers (H&S Officers)

Now, years ago when I had hair, most of the larger Fire Brigades (as were were) had delegated Fire Safety Officers working alongside local authority building control officers. In short, the service knew what was being built and it’s fire safety features, or more importantly any anomalies or issues that could cause any operational problems for responding Firefighters.

It is a sad fact now that the rate of building is outpacing both Fire Services (who are technically meant to be ‘consulted’ and BCO’s. Fire Service’s Fire Safety departments also have been decimated in number and understanding of fire service operations and practicalities, though it should be acknowledged that many are now undertaking and achieving Fire Engineering degrees.

Council Inspecting Officers, may inspect an adjoining premises to a residence under the Licensing Act. There is a compelling need to share information, but in reality, this isn’t happening effectively. Fire Service protocols for gathering, processing data from risk information and implementing that to inform training, procedures, plans is not coherent amongst wider strategic risk management plans that are not fit for purpose.

Advantages?

(all the experts around one table?)

Having a single agency with experts regulating at each phase incorporating Building Control and then throughout a building’s lifespan, where the Fire Service and local authority would normally inspect, would consolidate all risk information in a central database, where access/ information sharing arrangements and liaison with relevant response-based agencies could be developed and straightforward.

Any issues with a specific building could be dealt with from a regulatory perspective “in-house” by one agency and not require the time lapse, expenditure and overcoming inertia when multiple agencies are involved. I have seen it on many occasion when I was in uniform where a project or a department is led by someone, who subsequently is promoted, retired, transfers and impetus is lost. A classic example was one of the many visionary projects my erstwhile employer was working on 25 years ago was a Trauma Care Technicians package accredited by the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh). The excellent guy overseeing it got poached by BP and it fell by the wayside. The same happens in Fire Safety all of the time.

Would creating a national “Office of the Fire Marshal” as the primary fire safety regulator (I have left Defence and Crown premises out of this) also then free up the Fire & Rescue Service to become a more agile agency that can increase it’s scope of response. For example should the fire service be the lead agency for planning and response to climate change related emergencies? Many readers wont know but flood response is actually led by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). Shouldn’t a professional rescue organisation be leading on these issues?

Get Walker!

Anyhow, just some musings above, nothing definitive, nothing cast iron in my own mind, just things that I think may be worth discussing, despite the obvious vociferous opposition.

I am away next week, back up on the stomping ground of my late youth and early adulthood with a few things to take care of and seeing old an old friend or two. I shall write when I am able.