Draft London Safety Plan 2010/2013 - Fire Brigades Union London

We will however need to set our target for the total
number of visits carried out a little higher than this as
there will be occasions where we want to deliver home
fire safety visits to those who may not be at the greatest
risk, but where we can bring additional benefits.
Examples of these visits include visits where, after a
serious fire, we will campaign in the local vicinity of the
fire and where we work in partnership with other
organisations to help achieve wider benefits for the
community.
To achieve our ambition would mean that by 2015/16,
around 74,000 visits a year would be carried out by our
staff or our partners in high risk areas, or to high risk
individuals
Proposed changes to the start and finish times of our
operational shifts are intended to release additional
productive working time from the day shift. We expect to
release three additional productive hours each day and
some of this time will be used to meet our increased
delivery targets.
FIRE SAFETY REGULATION
In July 2009, six people died in the worst domestic fire in
London in recent years. The full repercussions of this fire
will probably take some time to materialise, but the
Authority is already aware of a higher level of scrutiny on
fire safety regulatory responsibilities and on risk
assessment processes.
Fire safety regulation applies to virtually all buildings,
places and structures, other than individual private
dwellings. Figures from the Valuation Office Agency
suggest that the Authority has enforcement
responsibilities for over 570,000 premises. Of these, up to
334,000 are premises where it is calculated that both the
Housing Acts and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety)
Order (the fire safety order) apply. In addition to these,
there is an unknown number of premises of mixed
commercial and residential use.
The Authority’s fire safety regulatory responsibility is to
ensure that building owners and occupiers and those that
manage buildings comply with fire safety laws. This
means:
seeking to influence those responsible for designing
buildings so that, as far as possible, fire safety
measures, such as sprinklers, are installed in
buildings where the risk justifies it;
influencing those who make fire safety laws;
providing advice and guidance to the business
community and others on how they can comply with
the law and also proving general fire safety advice;
and
the proportionate use of enforcement powers,
including prosecution, where it is appropriate.
There are not sufficient resources to inspect every
building subject to fire safety law in London and the
legislation never envisaged that there would be. We
therefore tailor our inspection programme to target those
buildings which pose the greatest risk to safety from fire.
TARGETING BUILDINGS MOST AT RISK
We have an extensive database of information about the
risk in buildings, gathered from fire safety audits and
inspections, fire investigation and operational activities.
We combine this information with the local knowledge of
fire safety officers and firefighters working in local
communities to prioritise our inspection programme.
Using this information, we aim to focus our regulatory
inspections and resources towards those buildings
where:
there is the greatest risk of fire occurring;
the most casualties and most significant
consequences occur if a fire does happen; and
where our regulatory advice makes a significant
improvement to the overall safety of the building.
For example, the risk to life from a fire in a residential care
home where people sleep and also may have mobility or
mental health problems is higher than the risk in an office
where people are awake and the number of people with
mobility issues is usually much lower.
Once audited, premises are given a risk score which takes
into account the premises use, the quality of the general
fire precautions measures in place and the management
of the premises. Re-inspection of premises is also
prioritised on the basis of risk but as the premises have
previously been audited, the priority given also takes into
account the level of risk identified by the risk score for the
premises.
High rise blocks of flats do fall within one of the higher
relative risk levels (when compared, for example, to
offices). But because there are very specific
responsibilities placed upon housing authorities and
because there are regimes in place for the inspection and
assessment of local authority performance, LFEPA’s
inspection programme does not prioritise the inspection
of the majority of the housing sector except for mixed
commercial/residential use). This approach is consistent
with Better Regulation guidance from the government
and also the findings of the Hampton Report into local
authority enforcement practice.
In addition to the risk- based audit and re-inspection
programme, fire safety officers will attend and audit
premises to which the fire safety Order applies if there
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