Fire safety used to be a sector existing under the radar, that is until a catastrophic incident takes place, or more latterly when a potential scandal hits. The Grenfell Tower tragedy is perhaps the single largest event to catapult fire safety into the public consciousness, but the recent exploits of Tri Fire could arguably prove as serious and damaging to the belief and confidence that the sector has got its act in order since the shocking events of 17 June 2017.
Investigations are ongoing into the actions of Tri Fire and its director Adam Kiziak, however mortgage lenders have already heard enough, and are not waiting around for an official enquiry as they pull offers for people hoping to purchase flats with a fire safety certificate (EWS1) from Tri Fire. The impact on would-be homeowners and vendors has predictably been bewilderment and anger, but this has also sent shockwaves across the entire built environment sector, all musing on the same question – where else could this have happened?
This issue runs more deeply to the core of a skills competence and capability deficit that has been broadly acknowledged by many key commentators. There is not currently a standardised accreditation that all fire safety engineers must possess to carry out inspection or certification work. The general lack of requisite skills and expertise are recurring themes from Dame Judith Hackitt and Dr Barbara Lane’s investigations, and ‘suitably qualified’ is open to all manner of interpretations and challenge.
Now enter the Fire Risk Assessment (FRA). This regime pre-dates Grenfell, but the unintended consequences of this largely mis-used assessment has the potential to become another costly problem coming down the tracks.
The FRA was intentioned as a regular check for organisations to ensure their buildings remained compliant to fire safety regulations. As all UK multi-occupancy residential buildings require a comprehensive fire strategy plan – the FRA was designed as an MOT for fire safety compliance against the detailed and unique plan for each building.
All too often today, the regular FRA check, is morphing and replacing the fire strategy itself, leading to poor decision-making and mis-aligned resource allocation to the actual fire risk. When presented with a long list of non-compliant issues within a building, it’s easy to see how organisations quickly mobilise to ‘tick off the issues’ to show progress, without necessarily recognising the broader context or prioritising based on rigorous risk analysis data. This can manifest as a knee jerk approach, rather than a strategy guided by an overarching and unique assessment of resident risk on a building specific basis.
An individual building’s fire strategy plan can be forgotten or sidelined in the scramble to fix the FRA identified list of issues and ‘clear the problem’. This is not how the system was designed to work, and not only fails organisations committed to doing the right thing, but also fails residents on the very issue designed to be tackled – their safety and security.
If recent history teaches us anything, it’s that a certificate is only meaningful when it’s based in reality, backed up by expertise, impeccable insights and experience, and when it serves to deliver on the fundamental reason for its existence. If an assessment or certificate does not provide this confidence in compliance – then it’s time to re-evaluate and return to first principles. We cannot afford to wait for another crisis to focus minds on the real prize here.
