THE NATIONAL Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has, ‘following extensive consultation’, updated its guidance on simultaneous evacuation, with ‘key changes’ made.
The NFCC reported, and Inside Housing discussed, the changes to the guidance, with the NFCC stating that ‘following extensive consultation’, the guidance ‘introduces key changes’ after its stakeholder group on simultaneous evacuation discussed and published the guidance. It has published it alongside ARMA, the Fire Protection Association, the Fire Industry Association, OPTIVO and the Institution of Fire Engineers.
This amended guidance ‘advises consultation with residents and leaseholders to explore cost/benefit options’, and ‘emphasises’ the need for considering the ‘installation of common fire alarms where measures are now, or are likely to be in place for the longer term’, as well as providing a ‘clear distinction between waking watch and evacuation management as separate roles’.
It also emphasises that residents ‘can carry out waking watches and/or evacuation management as long as they are appropriately trained’, and provides two new definitions, the first being short term, or ‘the time required to formulate a longer-term, remediation plan, as soon as practically possible and no longer than 12 months’.
The second is temporary, or ‘non-permanent measures implemented to mitigate an unacceptable risk in a building, as an interim measure, adopted for the safety of residents while works to rectify the identified fire safety failings are carried out’. The NFCC noted this is the third edition of the guidance supporting a ‘temporary change’ to strategy, which ‘should only be considered when all other interim risk mitigation measures […] have been found to be insufficient in managing the risk’.
It stated that the guidance ‘sets out measures to support the immediate safety of residents, whilst fully accepting that the princip[al] way to reduce risk is to urgently remediate the non-compliant external wall systems’. NFCC chair Roy Wilsher commented: ‘Waking watches have been used prior to this current building safety crisis as a short term measure in buildings with increased fire risks and should only be used temporarily.
‘It is clear that waking watch should not be the first measure to mitigate risk and the Consolidated Advice Note provides guidance on this. We share the very real concerns that residents have about how long some of these measures have been relied upon, and how waking watch is being implemented by responsible persons around the country.
‘We also do not believe the costs of serious building defects should end with leaseholders, and have called on Government for support and to consider more ways of how costs can be recovered from those who design and construct buildings.
‘These key changes to the guidance reinforce both the stakeholder group and NFCC’s firm and long held expectation that building owners should move to install common fire alarms as quickly as possible to reduce or remove the dependence on waking watches and the arrangements for existing buildings should be reviewed regularly. This is the clear expectation for buildings where remediation cannot be undertaken in the “short term”.
‘This approach should, in almost all circumstances, reduce the financial burden on residents where they are funding the waking watches. Our advice issued to fire and rescue services has been to ensure that close attention is paid to all buildings with these measures in place, and this is supported by the Building Risk Review Programme. However it remains that the best way to remove the risk is to fix the building.
‘We have expressed frustration on the pace of remediation and continue to call for measures to make all homes safer places to live. NFCC recognises that some progress has been made but more needs to be done and we will continue to work with the Government on the reforms to fire safety, to ensure that buildings are built, refurbished and maintained safely.’
Inside Housing added that the guidance also ‘defined for the first time how long it should take for building owners to put in place longer-term remediation plans’, and said this ‘should be done as soon as practicably possible and no longer than 12 months’. It also pointed out that the guidance ‘does not outline’ the training needed for residents to undertake waking watches, but that they should be ‘aware’ of the principles of fire, how to spot indications of it and how to raise the alarm.
It also pointed out that while resident led waking watches ‘can significant reduce the costs’ of the service, ‘so far only a handful of blocks’ have done so, including the Northpoint block in Bromley, London, which has halved the monthly bill for the watch to £14,000. The news outlet did add however that ‘there are concerns that resident-run waking watches could be impractical duie to requirements form building insurers’.