Introduction to Fire Safety Management

Introduction to Fire Safety Management
of work assists an employer or responsible person to
comply with the law.
In order for an organisation to effectively use safe
systems of work as part of its risk control strategy it will
be necessary to consider the follow:
➤ When a safe system of work is required
➤ How safe system of work will be developed
➤ How the safe system of work will be documented
➤ How the system will be communicated and persons
trained
➤ How the system will be monitored, reviewed and
when necessary revised.
6.5.2 When is a safe system of work required?
As discussed above a safe system of work may well be
recorded and documented for the majority of tasks or
operations undertaken. In general the risk assessment
of an operation will determine the need to document
the safe system or consider that an informal approach
is appropriate. To assist in determining the level of formality
that a safe system of work takes the following key
factors may be considered:
➤ The level of risk identifi ed in the risk assessment
➤ The legal requirements, i.e. (Construction Design
Management Regulations ACoP)
➤ Guidance from trade bodies in relation to ‘best practice’
(Fire Protection Association)
➤ Complexity of the task or operations
➤ Previous experience (safety events, accidents,
incidents)
➤ Level of resources required to implement and monitor
the SSOW:
➤ Documentation
➤ Training
➤ Supervision.
Safe systems of work do not always require documenting,
for example the changing of a light bulb on a desk
lamp. If, however, there is no formal safe system of work
the mechanisms by which people undertake tasks and
operations may vary and there is the potential that people
may be harmed as a result. A formalised system enables
standards to be communicated, implemented, monitored
and reviewed which will assist in managing the risk.
6.5.3 Developing a safe system of work
The development of a safe system of work for a work
activity requires an adequate level of resources to be
committed. The level of resources required will refl ect
the complexity of the operation, those that will be
involved and the resources available.
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One key area in the development of a safe system
of work is to gather suffi cient information from a variety
of sources. Table 6.1 identifi es such sources of information
and provides a brief overview of the information that
may be provided.
Once the information has been gathered the development
of the system of work will need to be coordinated
and recorded. The responsibility for this task rests with
the employer or responsible person. Assistance of a
competent person will on many occasions be required,
so that the coordination of the team producing the
SSOW and the development of the system refl ect the
preventive and protective measures required by law.
The competent person is likely to have knowledge
of a variety of techniques for analysing the operation
including:
➤ Job safety analysis (JSA)
➤ Hazard and operability study (HAZOP)
➤ Fault tree analysis (FTA)
➤ Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).
The last three may assist in preparing the safe system of
work, particularly when the operation may have a high
loss potential.
The JSA technique is frequently used to
assist in the development of a system for a
variety of operations and includes the following
steps:
Select the job to be analysed
Record the component parts of the
job in chronological order
Examine each component part to
determine the risk of harm
Develop control measures for each
step to reduce the risk of
harm
Record the job safety instruction
Communicate the information in the
Maintain
instruction to operators and
supervisors
the safe system to ensure it
remains effective
Regardless of the technique adopted to develop the
system of work, there are four essential factors that must
be considered when developing it: people, equipment,
materials and the environment.