There has been alot of discussion on various Fire Safety Groups and Blogs regarding the use of Guidance Documents. My feelings on this are well known but in case anyone is in doubt, here is a copy of my contribution on Linkedin's Health, Safety & Fire Networking Group.
The Guidance Documents are as described....for Guidance. They were written to assist the RP or Duty Holder here. Unfortuneately Fire Safety Officers are using them as required minimum standards and if your FRA does not follow the Technical Annexes they can be marked as not suitable nor sufficient. This is patently rediculous in existing properties.
The Legislation and assosciated documents make it plain that requirements should be "reasonable and practicable". This is further reinforced by "making sure that the benefits gained are worth the expenditure."
The problem is that many of these buldings have had Fire Certificates issued or were inspected as a Section 9a of The Fire Precautions Act 1971. In many cases the requirements made at the time are not adequate and improvements or upgrades are required. But in other cases the risk has not changed and existing measures should be deemed acceptable.
Many FSO's however, don't have the neccessary skills, experience or knowledge to ascertain whether this is acceptable or not and rely on the Gudance Document Technical Annexes as a crutch.
The Guidance Documents were written for people with no knowledge of Fire Safety ie The RP, not for Fire Safety Officers. A lack of decent training is apparent or Heads of Department are following the easy route by not making informed desicions based on the knowledge, skills and experience that their Staff are meant to have.
Discussion and awareness should be encouraged.Please feel free to comment.
The thread for this was originally started regarding means of escape through pubs. The whole thread can be read here:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=89992&type=member&item=69251122&commentID=51279370&report%2Esuccess=8ULbKyXO6NDvmoK7o030UNOYGZKrvdhBhypZ_w8EpQrrQI-BBjkmxwkEOwBjLE28YyDIxcyEO7_TA_giuRN#commentID_51279370
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I'm on the same song sheet as you there Dennis, far to many "Guide Reader's" with no actual understanding or experience to inform their decisions and no one capable, or perhaps willing, to stand up to them in court.
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