Agenda item

Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Ben Norman presented the report.  It was noted that on 13 July 2020 the Planning Committee approved a paper entitled ‘Implementing Regulatory Change and Transforming Fire Protection Service’. The paper explained that the Grenfell tragedy of June 2017 had highlighted fundamental inadequacies in the way the built environment had been constructed and regulated over the past two decades and the increasingly rigorous planning and building control regulatory frameworks, standards and testing regimes that would now be introduced. The report updated Members on the changes to legislation that had already occurred and those which were upcoming. The update also included the amendments to Protection workforce planning which had been required to keep pace with the change.

 

Building Regulations

In December 2018 Building Regulations were amended to ban the use of combustible materials in the external walls of new buildings over 18 metres high. The ban meant combustible materials were not permitted on the external walls of new buildings over 18 metres and those currently under construction. The new building regulations applied to all new residential housing, hospitals, residential care premises, boarding school dormitories and student accommodation as long as they were over 18 metres high. The ban also applied to balconies, which were often made from combustible materials and had helped spread fires across walls in the past.

 

Building Regulations were not retrospective. Approved documents relating to fire safety in Building Regulations were also updated on 26th November 2020 with some new requirements. A key part of those changes was the trigger height to fit sprinklers in tall buildings which had been reduced to 11m (typically four floors), from 30m (typically 10 floors). The changes also included signage for the fire service for floor identification and flat indication signage within blocks of flats with storeys over 11m.

 

Fire Safety Act

The Fire Safety Act that covered England and Wales received Royal Assent on 29 April 2021.  The Act would come into force over the summer when the Government has provided a risk prioritisation tool for social landlords. Its prime purpose was to address a potential legal ambiguity in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Fire Safety Order).

 

The Fire Safety Order imposed duties on “Responsible Persons” to take appropriate fire safety measures for premises other than private domestic premises. The Order did not cover individual flats in apartment blocks, but it did cover the common parts. The new Act amended the Fire Safety Order to make it clear that Responsible Persons for multi-occupied residential buildings, which were likely to be building owners, freeholders and managers, would be under a duty to risk assess the structure and external walls (including windows, doors and balconies) of buildings and entrance doors and take general fire precautions to ensure those areas were safe.

 

The new Act did not deal with the question of who paid for the costs of making residential buildings fire safe. In February, the Government announced a levy for England on developers to fund cladding remediation costs, and a fund to pay for the cost of replacing unsafe cladding for all leaseholders in residential buildings 18 metres and over, and a new loan scheme for buildings between 11 and 18 metres. There were gaps in these schemes particularly where the defects extended beyond cladding.

 

Article 24 Regulations

Article 24 of the Fire Safety Act allowed secondary fire safety legislation to be added which addressed specific recommendations emanating from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. A number of consultations would be undertaken over the summer of 2021 and additional legislation would be introduced soon after to enhance fire safety in High-Risk Residential Buildings (HRRBs) to potential include:

 

·         Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans;

·         Premises Information Boxes;

·         Firefighting lift status updates;

·         Provision of plans to FRS.

 

Building Safety Bill

The draft Bill, which was likely to come into force in 2023, aimed to both improve the existing building safety regime and introduce new measures aimed more specifically at high rise buildings. The Bill sought to address long standing concerns around fire safety, quality and competence by ensuring that there was always someone responsible for keeping residents safe in high rise buildings, from the design and construction phase right through to occupancy.

 

The Bill established a new regulator, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), to operate as a division of the HSE with approval, enforcement and prosecutorial powers. The BSR would include Fire and Rescue Services and Building Controls. The BSR would oversee the safety and standards of all buildings, directly assure the safety of ‘higher-risk’ buildings and improve the competence of people responsible for managing and overseeing building work. This centralised the operation of the regulator and moved away from the current framework where developers/contractors could choose a local authority or approved inspector for higher-risk buildings.

 

Assuming that the Bill was enacted in its current form, the law would differentiate between buildings and ‘higher-risk buildings’, which were subject to higher safety and reporting obligations. Higher-risk buildings were likely to include those that were 18 meters or 6 storeys or more in height. The Bill also established a gateway regime which was intended to ensure that safety was considered by all parties involved in the lifetime of a building’s construction from planning to occupation.

 

An ‘Accountable Person’ (such as a building owner or a corporate entity) would need to be appointed to bear the responsibility for the safety risks relating to their building. This included taking all reasonable steps to prevent the occurrence, and control the impact of a major incident resulting from those building safety risks. The Accountable Person would need to record these risks and steps by conducting and maintaining a ‘safety case risk assessment’ for the building. This document was required to be produced to the regulator when applying for the Building Assurance Certificate, but the regulator would also have the power to request sight of this document should they so wish.

 

The Accountable Person would also need to appoint a suitably competent Building Safety Manager, whose function would be to manage the building on a day-to-day basis in accordance with the safety case risk assessment. The Building Safety Manager would also liaise with residents to ensure the building was safe.

 

The Bill extended the existing time limits for prosecution under sections 35 and 36 of the Building Act 1983 in relation to non-compliance with building regulations from 2 years to 10 years. The new regulator would also have new enforcement powers to prosecute all new offences under the draft Bill and would have powers to issue compliance and stop notices, powers of entry and powers to replace an Accountable Person or Building Safety Manager with a Special Measures Manager where they find serious failures endangering the safety of residents in the building.

 

County Councillor O’Toole commented that it was disappointing that the Building Safety Bill would take until 2023 to come into force given the Grenfell Tower fire was in 2017 and for many years there had been very little post inspection by those responsible for building control.

 

County Councillor Hennessy advised that a paper was presented to the LGA Fire Services Management Committee the previous week which advised that new buildings would need to pass through three regulatory Gateways in relation to safety: i) at the planning stage; ii) at the final design stage (before construction can begin); and iii) immediately before occupation when construction was complete.  She understood data analyses was being undertaken which looked at how many inspectors would be required for each area.  She felt it was admirable that the Service was already making an effort to get staff trained ready. 

 

Information: Protection Workforce Change

As a part of the Protection Reform a number of resourcing and competency priorities were identified, and these included the following recommendations:

 

1.    Establish a temporary Protection Transformation Team (PTT); Initial PTT to be x1 Station Manager level B and x 2 Watch Manager level B and a dedicated Project Support Officer;

2.    Establish an Area Manager, Head of Prevention and Protection;

3.    Redefine Community Protection Manager Central to the role of Group Manager Prevention, this includes all youth engagement, road safety and fire investigation/ Incident Intelligence Officer line management;

4.    Redefine Group Manager Prevention, Protection and Road Safety to Group Manager Protection;

5.    Increase Watch Manager establishment by 4 posts, staggered over 2 years in order to meet the demand and complexity of High-Risk Residential Buildings and generate capacity to deliver in-house training;

6.    Increase cohort of Fire Engineer qualified staff from 2 to 4;

7.    Protection activity to be linked and embedded into all relevant roles, both at point of entry and in-career development. This includes wholetime operational firefighter, Crew Manager, Watch Manager, Community Safety Advisor, Community Safety Team Leader, Service Delivery Manager, Community Protection Manager;

      Ops & Command awareness to continue to be embedded in Grey Book Business Safety Advisor, Fire Safety Inspector, Fire Safety Team Leader;

8.    Protection Transformation Team deliverables to be governed by Corporate Programme Board, prioritised and fully integrated into the Protection Support & Delivery Teams;

9.    Review Green Book Development pathway to include Watch Manager level B SHQ  / Training roles.

 

Despite Covid and other organisational challenges, all recommendations had progressed as anticipated.

 

In addition to the above new staff had been recruited into the function via a refreshed ‘Functional Pathway’ and developed in accordance with the NFCC Competency Framework for Regulators.

 

The Protection Transformation Team had developed a new Business Fire Safety Check App and an associated system to allocate premises [based on risk] to the operational crews who would soon undertake them. The process was being piloted in Northern and Western areas from July to Sept 2021 and thereafter would be rolled out to all wholetime operational stations. The training process included additional learning objectives to satisfy item 7 above. Initially the type of premises ‘checked’ would be simple low risk e.g. offices, shops, light industry etc however, as the training and experience of the crews grew the scope would be increased to include simple high risk premises e.g. houses in multiple occupation and hotels.

 

Qualified Fire Safety Inspectors continued to inspect complex and higher risk premises based on the Risk Based Inspection Programme. Training providers had now started to provide training on external wall systems and the Service was utilising Protection uplift funding to source this specialist training.

 

Lancashire had 70 high rise residential premises which had all been audited under the Government’s Building Risk Review process. In addition to reporting back to the NFCC on the make-up of the external wall systems the process had allowed inspectors to identify other aspects on non-compliance. To date Lancashire had 6 premises which had been identified as having non-compliant external wall systems; all have interim measures in place. A further 3 premises also had interim measures, not due to external wall systems, but instead due to other serious fire safety concerns such as internal compartmentation or smoke management.   In response to a question from County Councillor Mirfin as to whether mid to high-rise buildings were in the same position as high rise buildings, the Assistant Chief Fire Officer advised that there was concern regarding some non-high-rise buildings which the Service was trying to address.  He advised that he could provide statistics on the number of premises inspected and what had been identified in a report to a future meeting.

 

In response to a question raised by County Councillor Hennessy regarding the financial implications it was noted that the costs had already been agreed and that the acronyms used in the report would be detailed in the minutes, as below:

 

Financial Implications (included on cost and at pro-rata rate for Year 1)

Year 1 (July to Mar 21 unless otherwise stated)

x1 Area Manager level B from Oct @ £50  = £50k

x3 Built Environment Assessment Team Station Manager level B for 6 months @£37 = £111k

Station Manager level B @ £50k = £50k

x2 Watch Manager level B @ £35K = £70k

x1 Project Admin @ £20k = £20k

OVERALL = £301k

 

Year 2 (April 21 to Mar 22)

x1 Area Manager level B @ £100  = £100k

Station Manager level B @ £75k = £75k

X2 Watch Manager level B @ £54k = £108k

x1 Project Admin @ £20k = £20k

OVERALL = £303k

 

Year 3 (April 22 to Mar 23)

x1 Area Manager level B @ £100  = £100k

X4 Watch Manager level B @ £54k = £216k

OVERALL = £316k

 

RESOLVED: - That Members noted and endorsed the report.