Keynote Sessions
Collaboration keynote – Hayley Robinson, Group Chief Underwriting Officer, Zurich Insurance. It seems that collaboration is a given in the highly regulated and complex insurance industry but it isn't. Hayley will address how collaboration needs to start at the top and how this can initially appear overwhelming when working with legacy systems and understandings. The common goal of shared incentives and open communication need to be central to the fire sector as it moves forward and away from mistakes of the past.
Changing leadership and culture keynote – A Framework for the Future. Amanda Long, Chief Executive, Building a Safer Future Charter will explore why the industry needs to change and how do we go about it? How do we ensure that building safety always comes first? How do we rebuild public trust? And how will we be able to measure such changes are taking place?
Plenary Sessions
Building Safety Regulator plenary – As the first Chief Inspector of Buildings is appointed following the recommendations in the ‘Building a Safer future’ report, come and listen to the HSE and understand the impact of the new regime for high-risk buildings.
Workshops
Procurement: the whole picture, ethics and sustainability workshop - looking at the structure of procurement and how contracts can hamper collaboration, this FIA led workshop will consider organisational reputations and if this can supersede an awareness of conduct. It will address customer expectations versus realities and bring in the relationship around cost and issues with value engineering.
CROSS-UK workshop - Neil Gibbins will introduce the Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures UK (CROSS-UK) scheme and how it can benefit fire engineers globally through the early identification of trends and developments which might contribute to an increased risk to structural safety.
Technical update workshop - Hear the latest news and updates from a selection of IFE Special Interest Groups as well as an information update from Peter Wilkinson, IFE Technical Director.
Tall building fire workshop - Peter Stephenson of Warrington fire will provide an international perspective on tall building fires with a particular focus on specific incidents and the lessons learned.
Transforming culture and competence to improve fire safety workshop - this workshop led by the Fire Sector Federation will highlight the best management systems to facilitate competency and the ongoing national framework for fire risk assessor competency along with benefits of third-party certification.
The future of certification workshop - how can we trust the tests? With several testing failures being highlighted by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, this workshop led by Jonathan O'Neill OBE will address if real life scenarios are sufficiently accounted for in the current suite of fire tests. Are the results of tests sufficiently clear or is there too much left for interpretation? Are organisations that undertake tests satisfactorily accountable and how do standards and testing keep pace with a fast-changing environment?
SEG – Origins of waking watch. Following the discovery of buildings involving similar external wall systems (EWS) to Grenfell, it became clear no central guidance existed on how to implement a temporary change to the evacuation strategy. In some cases the only alternative options may have placed people into worse living conditions, or left others without accommodation. To enable people to continue to live in relative safety in their own homes, interim solutions were needed to mitigate the risk. NFCC convened a group of industry professionals to produce a technical guide, whilst accepting that the principle way to reduce risk was to urgently remediate the non-compliant EWS. Following extensive consultation, the group have produced a third edition of the guidance. Amendments underscore the firm expectation that building owners should move to install common fire alarms as quickly as possible to reduce or remove the dependence on waking watches. We will also discuss where waking watch originated from.
Panel Debates
Modern methods of construction panel debate – Various speakers, including the FPA's Technical Director, Dr Jim Glockling. As the use of modern construction materials and methods continues to grow, this panel debate will consider some of the challenges this brings and more recent initiatives such as self-extinguishment by design, protection and incident management for the fire and rescue service and uninsurable methods of construction.
Gender imbalance, female diversity and inclusion in the fire sector and related industries panel debate - what is industry doing? Hosting high-profile leaders from fire, security and facilities management sectors, this panel debate will consider the imbalance of demographics and how diversity and inclusion can help to bring in change required for transforming cultures and practices.
With of particular interest to colleagues in the Fire and Rescue services the conference will also have sessions on the White paper reform of the fire and rescue service and updates on the work of the Fire Protection