IOSH
FORTH
AND TAY DISTRICT
of
EDINBURGH
BRANCH
33rd Meeting
Dewar Centre, Glover Street, Perth at 7.30 pm Thursday 1st November 2007
Sederunt.
A. Fowler D. Mann A. Thomson R. Paterson P. Szawlowski I. Scragg K. Paterson D. Binnie A. Pill R. Stainton R. Turner J. McDonald L. Roberts A. Milne J. Goddard E. Mollison S. Chisholm M. Powell (Ms.) M. Powell (Mr.)
Apologies
K. McDonnell J. Little K. Driscoll D. Morrison A. Reavie B. Davies E. Stobie N. Doherty B. McDonnell D. Stephen H. McRea
1. Chairperson Dick Mann (Deputising)
· Dick Mann opened the meeting at 7.30 pm welcoming everyone attending the 33rd Meeting of the Forth and Tay District. He apologised to the meeting on behalf of Karen McDonnell who could not attend and stated that he would conduct the business for the evening. Dick then went on to remind the members of the emergency and administrative arrangements for the meeting at the Dewar Centre
2. Minutes of the 32nd Meeting on the 6th September 2007
· The meeting was asked if there were any comments to be made regarding the Minutes of that meeting. No comments were forthcoming and, so, it was proposed that the Minutes be accepted as a true record of that meeting.
Proposed: Sandy Chisholm Seconded: Andy Pill
3. Secretary’s Report Dick Mann
· The Secretary informed the meeting that the following addressees for e-mails had been removed from his (e) mailing list:
Jimmy Noblett Dave Devey
Any member who is contact with either of the people listed is requested to inform them of the Secretary’s action.
· The Secretary announced to the meeting that he would have to retire from the District Committee at the next AGM. In fact Dick is retiring altogether and will be relinquishing his IOSH membership in 2008. Members were asked to consider being nominated for the Secretary post next February.
· The Secretary had spoken to the Chairperson – Karen McDonnell – a couple of days before the meeting and Karen too had signalled that she would have to step down from the Committee. (However, subsequently Karen has indicated that she is willing to continue in post for another year if required but believes that a volunteer should be working alongside her to take over when she must step down in 2009)
· The Secretary told the meeting that anyone wishing to be considered to serve on the Committee should contact him for Nomination Forms to be sent out in good time before the AGM next February.
1. Correspondence
Continuing Professional Development –CPD.
The Secretary had received – by e-mail – a Power-point presentation explaining how the electronic processing of CPD will run. Because of the importance of this topic for all safety professionals the whole presentation had been forwarded by Dick to all addressees on his mailing list. Members were asked to take note that electronic CPD Registration must be completed by December or people risk loosing their professional status with IOSH.
5. Branch Liaison – (normally) Karen McDonnell
At the meeting the Secretary stated that he had not directly received any information from Karen regarding Branch liaison but that he would contact Karen after the meeting for anything that should be included.
In a later telephone call (7th November) Karen confirmed that the IOSH booklet “Think About Health and Safety – Supporting MSPs in Their Work” had a very successful launch at Holyrood on the 30th October. IOSH Headquarters Staff from Leicester were well represented and the Parliamentary side include Rhona Brankin.
6. Any Other Competent Business
Sandy Chisholm announced details of the following “public” course sponsored by Tayside Contracts:
Vibration and Noise - Two 2-day competency courses.
28/29 November – Vibration
18/19 December – Noise
The delegate costs will be approximately £500 per person per course based on an attendance of six people; it will be less if more delegates attend the courses.
The courses are being presented by Accoustic Associates from Peterborough on behalf of Tayside Contracts.
For more information please contact Sandy Chisholm at the following e-mail address:
sandy.chisholm@tayside-contracts.co.uk
7. Ten Minute Speaker
No member attending had any presentation to give. If any member would like to address the AGM in February, they are requested to contact the Secretary so that they can be confirmed for the Ten Minute Speaker slot.
8. Guest Speaker – Mr Iain Kelly,
Group Manager, Community Safety (Prevention).
Topic: Fire Risk Assessment and Fire Safety Guidance.
Iain opened his presentation by explaining who he was and how he had got to his position within the Fife Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) over a 30 year career. He then proceeded to show the meeting two pictures that illustrated graphically that not everyone is fully alert to their own safety: one showed a welder “protecting” his lower face by use of a newspaper(!), the second was a worker sitting in the bucket of a JCB-type of vehicle with the hydraulic arm elevating him to work on overhead (power?) cables.
Having obtained the meeting’s attention most effectively Iain told the audience that he would be explaining how fire safety legislation impacted upon people in the workplace. Prior to the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 (the Act) and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (the Regulations) coming into force in October 2006 there were over 90 pieces of legislation that could be applicable across the range of Fire Service operations in Scotland!
● The “new” fire safety regime is based on the principles of fire risk assessment (FRA) and the requirement to take steps both to prevent fire and to mitigate the effects on premises and the people that could be exposed. People who may be at risk are not only employees but would include anyone lawfully on a premises and even others in the vicinity who could be affected by the fire directly or the products of fire (such as toxic smoke).
● The level of responsibility for ensuring fire safety depends upon the degree of control at the relevant premises; the more control you have, the more the responsibility. More than one person may have responsibilities. For example, an employer, owner, landlord, tenant or contractor carrying out work may all have responsibilities and will be required to co-operate and co-ordinate fire safety measures.
● Under the Act the employer has a duty to protect employees by;
- Conducting Fire Safety Risk Assessments
- Identifying fire safety measures arising from risk assessment
- Use risk reduction principles (As per MHSW Regs) to implement the above
- Keep measures under review
- Comply with any specific requirements – such as the protection of young persons
- Make and keep records of their actions.
Similar responsibilities are placed on others to the extent that they exercise control at a relevant premises.
● What has changed under the new legislation? Dutyholders must now consider:
- Not only how to reduce the risks of fires starting but also how to reduce the risk of fires spreading.
- All relevant occupants of the premises and not just employees
- Environmental impacts
- Firefighter safety.
● The FRS will enforce the requirements of the legislation by:
- Adopting a risk (to persons rather than to property) based approach
- Dealing with compliance failures when they are identified
- Being consistent across all the Scottish Fire Services
- Giving advice.
The Service across Scotland has adopted an Audit programme that facilitates the deduction of a risk rating for a premises; and the frequency of enforcement visits will be based upon the risk rating.
● Failure to comply with the legislative requirements is detected through:
- Programmed audit visits
- Investigating complaints
- Investigation following fires
● In order to be consistent the Service will follow a Scotland-wide Enforcement Concordat that operates in line with the Health and Safety Executive’s Enforcement Management model.
All Scottish FRS Enforcement Officers use the same Audit Form and Guidance
The Guidance used by the FRS is exactly the same as is available for the dutyholder in any particular work sector.
Enforcement Officers are all trained from one source
The Chief Fire Officers Association (Scotland) meet to agree common interpretations so that consistency across the Services is enhanced.
● Iain pointed out to the meeting that although the Service had a legal duty to provide advice, they could not actually do the work for the dutyholder: it would be entirely wrong to be both executing and enforcing legislative requirements in a premises.
● Dutyholders are required to ensure that fire risk assessments are completed. They may do this for themselves or nominate a consultant or proficient employee to carry out assessments on their behalf. However, employers can only delegate the task and not the responsibility; they must retain ownership of the assessments and manage their outcomes.
A person considered to be proficient to assess risk will have knowledge of:
- the principles of fire safety
- the causes of fire
- fire prevention measures
- the design of fire protection systems
- the behaviour of fire
- human behaviour in a fire situation
● Common failures found when enforcers visit include:
- No nominated person with responsibility for compliance
- No Fire Risk Assessments undertaken!
- Risk assessments not kept under review
- No actions taken to remedy deficiencies identified by assessments
- Means of Escape blocked!
- Irregular or no testing and maintenance of fire protection systems
- No competent persons nominated (to take charge in emergencies)
- No staff training.
Iain emphasised that most of the failures noted above can be avoided by good management following widely available guidance (see details below); carrying out assessments diligently; training, informing and instructing staff; and checking that it is understood and done.
● Towards the end of his presentation Iain stated that there are a wide range of information sources that can be used to assist dutyholders to undertake their responsibilites. Internet web sites illustrated included:
www.fpa-fireriskassessment.com
The Safer Scotland website provides some “sector specific” guidance: it is being updated and added to steadily.
● After a thoroughly enjoyable and informative hour Iain invited questions from the floor. Questions included:
- was the domestic sector more of a risk to life than the workplace? (As a generalisation the answer is yes).
- What percentage of staff should be trained to become competent to take charge in fire emergencies? (Iain stated that this depended on the functions they were to perform, eg. Fire wardens, trained to use extinguishers etc. As an example Iain pointed out the benchmark sought in the education sector was a recommended 25% of all staff because of the people in their care. This caused some animated discussion [!] in the meeting with argument about the practicalities and costs to employers. Iain calmly dealt with the matter and drew it to a close by stating that Enforcing Officers will normally expect to find at least two capable persons at a premises.)
- If Fire Risk Assessments have previously been carried out using “Building Regulations” as the guidelines will this still be OK? ( Basically, yes, but they should be reviewed to ensure they meet all legislative requirements.)
- Building regulations do not specifically cater for some of the categories of people that may be in the buildings when fire occurs; what about that? (Iain gave a detailed response carefully pointing out that the emphasis must be on protecting life.)
● Finally, the Secretary guillotined the questions session as it was getting late and the Centre staff would be wanting to tidy up after our departure.
9. Vote of Thanks – Sandy Fowler
Sandy Fowler stood up and gave a short Vote of Thanks to Iain Kelly for his excellent presentation. It was not necessary to embellish the simple fact that everyone had been totally involved for well over an hour and had gained much. During the forthcoming applause the Secretary presented Iain with a gift on behalf of the District.
10. Next Meeting.
The next meeting will be the Annual General Meeting – AGM – and will take place on Thursday the 7th February 2008 at 7.30 pm. The Guest Speaker for the evening is David Stephens, HSE Edinburgh and he will present “HSE Enforcement of Stress Management”
------------------------------
Have a happy, safe and healthy Christmas and New Year: if you can get a holiday – take it, it will be good for your stress level! See you in 2008.
---------------------------------