FSDG - FOBFO Summer Parliamentary Seminar 13 June 2000:

"Joined Up! Tackling Arson"

Sharing the same platform for the first time, London's Chief Police and Fire Officers presented a common approach to tackle the increasing problem of arson in the United Kingdom.

Sir John Stevens Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service

The Fire Service alone cannot, and must not be the only professional body in our society dealing with issues relating to arson. In the same way that tackling crime, its causes and consequences is no longer thought to be the domain of the police alone - neither should the work of the fire service be compartmentalised.

There is an increasingly important trend towards partnership in all aspects of society. More and more people have come to realise that often the solution to a problem rests with a number of different agencies each playing their part. There is often a blurring of professional boundaries, where the knowledge and skills of different professionals needs to come together to provide the most appropriate response. This can be seen in the way the fire service and the police investigate and help prevent arson.

Statistics on arson, as for any crime, cannot tell the whole story. Arson affects not just individuals but also communities. An arson attack on a single home can instil fear in a whole neighbourhood and arson attacks on businesses may damage the economic well-being of that community, with all the attendant problems following from it.

Consequently the investigation of arson needs to bring together the technical expertise provided by the Fire Service's Investigation Units but also the expertise of the Police to investigate and bring offenders before the courts. This is a partnership that has been ongoing for a long time, but there should be no room for complacency. We must be open to ways of improving both the service the police can deliver and how we add value to the services our partners provide; all of this within the framework of the Government's 'Best Value' approach.

In this regard I would like to speak briefly about Project LION, which is the LONDON INFORMATION On-LINE project. Project LION will facilitate the collection and dissemination of good quality information between partners to act as the foundation for future strategies and plans. I believe the timely exchange of high quality information between partners is the key to an effective response to crime in general and to arson in particular. The collection and exchange of this information supplies two needs in relation to arson:

Firstly, there are the Strategic needs - by knowing when and where fires are occurring across London, resources aimed at prevention can be better targeted.

Secondly, Tactical needs are addressed through better information exchange, which allows criminal methods and patterns to be more easily identified, thereby increasing the risk of apprehension of offenders.

As you may be aware the Government's Property Crime Reduction Action Team (PCRAT) has an arson working group, which sends out a powerful message on the importance of arson as an issue, and the impact it has both on the economic and social well-being of our communities.

The recommendation from the Arson Scoping Study carried out by the Home Office has identified the need for greater co-ordination of effort at a national level. The formation of an Arson Control Forum will certainly assist this process, although we should recognise the good work that the Arson Prevention Bureau has already undertaken. The keys to the effective control of arson, which are implicit from the scoping study, are information exchange and working in partnership.

The Crime and Disorder Act has been a driver for information exchange amongst the Crime and Disorder partners, although I believe the fire service and police still need to be working more closely than perhaps we have in the past. But this is not to say there are not examples of good practice in existence.

A recent audit of police forces' approaches to dealing with arson (with a response rate of 75%) showed that of all the respondents:

57% of forces were in joint training to varying degrees with the fire service involving both police officers and scenes of crimes officers.

39% have some form of established protocol on the investigation of fires.

36% are engaged in arson-related crime prevention measures.

24% had addressed the issue of language.

It is clear that effective partnerships have and are being formed, but we also need to recognise the nuances and needs of differing organisational cultures.

A good example is how language influences perceptions and why there is a need for a commonly accepted professional definition in relation to the categorisation of fires. At present there is a disparity in reporting procedures between a fire being 'malicious' and 'deliberate' and the status of a fire dubbed 'doubtful'. We need to continue to work with the Fire Service and other forces to resolve such issues.

There is also some national debate about the balance between achieving security and reducing criminal opportunities, while in the event of fire ensuring there is an adequate means of escape through doors. I am aware that these apparently conflicting goals have created some difficulties especially in the area of residential housing. Currently the police are participating with the fire service in a scheme funded by the DETR and chaired by the Building Research Establishment looking at a solution to this problem and I believe some answers may soon be forthcoming. As with most things common sense will eventually prevail and mutual ground will be established.

Continuing on this theme, good security not only has the potential to reduce levels of crime such as burglary but also benefits for our fire service partners. A scheme known as 'Alleygators' that was developed by the Metropolitan Police aims to 'gate off' alleyways which are often used by burglars to gain entry to the rear of premises. Not only has this approach reduced burglaries by up to 90% in some areas, its use in Merseyside has also reduced the number of calls to secondary fires by up to 80%, thereby providing a resource saving to our Fire Service colleagues.

By stipulating minimum levels of security within the built environment, as promoted through the ACPO 'Secured by Design' Scheme, I believe we can reduce opportunities for arson - as indeed the Chief Executive of the Arson Prevention Bureau has recently stated in relation to arson attacks on homes:

"Taking a few simple security measures will reduce significantly the risk of an arson attack .... "

We will continue to work in partnership with the fire service and I certainly commit my force to improved dialogue, problem sharing, and problem solving.

Naturally there are operational differences between the police and fire service, some of which we have touched on this evening, but we should not lose sight of the good practice that is out there, the innovative approaches being undertaken, and the willingness of all parties to help build safer and sustainable communities, free from the fear of attack by fire.

Brian Robinson CBE QFSM
Chief Fire Officer & Chief Executive London Fire & Civil Defence Authority & President of FOBFO

Arson or deliberate fire setting - the preferred terminology for the fire service - is one of the major problems facing the fire service nationally. I wish, however, to discuss the issue in the context of my Authority's principal aim of making London a safer city.

If we are to achieve that aim we must set three key objectives:

Seek to prevent fires occurring by a combination of educating the community on the risks posed by fire, actively intervening where the risk demands that response (for example by installing smoke alarms in the homes of high risk groups such as the elderly and/or disabled) and enforcing compliance with fire safety legislation for public buildings;

Responding rapidly to calls to fires that do occur and extinguishing them as quickly as possible;

Investigating the circumstances leading to the fire to determine how it started, how it might have been prevented and whether it holds any lessons in respect of our firefighting techniques.

The Authority's Best Value Performance Plan gives substance to these principles through a series of interrelated projects and objectives.

Most people would, I suggest, still find it hard to believe that the place where they are most at risk from fire is their own home. Over 500 people lose their lives annually as a result of fires in the home and public buildings in England and Wales. A majority of these deaths are the result of accidental fires. They do, however, include fatalities resulting from deliberate fires. I shall return to those figures later in my remarks. The government has set the fire service a target for 20% reduction of these figures by 2004. They have also set equally robust targets for reductions in the incidence of fires, injuries resulting from fires, malicious fire calls and the false alarm calls due to the malfunction of fire alarms. These are reflected in the Best Value Performance Plan that I mentioned previously. The campaign to reduce the incidence of deliberate fire setting should be seen in that context.

The recent Home Office Arson Scoping Study indicated that deliberate, or possibly deliberate, fires account for 44% of all fires in England and Wales. The figure for London is 34%, one of the lowest in the survey. It is also significantly lower than the comparable figure for any of the other Metropolitan Fire and Civil Defence Authorities. Deliberate motor vehicle fires account for some 50% of all deliberate fires in England and Wales and 44% in London. Nonetheless this is clearly an issue that we cannot overlook.

The Scoping Study also gave stark details of the human and financial costs of deliberate fires. In the last ten years 1.7 million deliberate fires in England and Wales have cost:

£1.3 billion per annum

1,100 deaths

22,000 injuries

This means that in an average week there are:

3,500 deliberate fires

50 injuries

2 deaths

an estimated cost to society of £25 million

The fatalities included in these figures are also reflected in the overall figures for fatalities in buildings to which I referred earlier. There is clearly no room for complacency.

By any standard the problem facing the fire service and our colleagues in the police and forensic science services, the insurance industry and other partners is daunting. The Scoping Study identified the fundamental weakness in the campaign against arson - the lack of a formalised structure for interagency working.

In London arrangements have been in place for some years involving the Metropolitan and City of London Police services, the Forensic Science Service and London Fire Brigade fire investigators (supported by the expertise of our Scientific Advisor). These arrangements operate at a number of levels, including:

Level 1 - Six-monthly meetings at principal officer level to discuss policy and strategic issues

Level 2 - Six-monthly meetings at operational level to discuss issues at incident level and attended by fire investigators, local police inspectors and forensic scientists.

Level 3 - individual incidents where the cause of the fire is determined to be deliberate.

The new local government arrangements for London with the Mayor, Greater London Authority, Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority will strengthen these ties still further.

We now need to augment these arrangements by involving the other major stakeholders. I therefore welcome the Government's announcement that a new national Arson Control Forum is to be established to bring together all of the public and private agencies. Hopefully this will both help establish a partnership network to strengthen the fight against deliberate fires and also foster best practice to assist those agencies concerned to deliver best value for the resources they commit to the fight. This latter should help overcome the problems with duplication of effort and waste of resources identified by the Scoping Study.

I trust that the new Forum will lean upon the expertise of the Arson Prevention Bureau on arson and that of the National Community Fire Safety Centre at the Home Office on education and publicity. This would assist in promoting increased public awareness of the risk presented by deliberate fires and the measures that can be taken to mitigate its impact.

I can also state with confidence that the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association will contribute fully to the debate and to the consequent initiatives that I am sure will be forthcoming to address the incidence of deliberate fire setting.

I also support the proposal that the new Forum should address the confusions arising from the variations in vocabulary and definitions used in the course of fire investigation. My colleagues in the police record "malicious fires" as those defined as arson by the Criminal Damages Act 1971. This Act demands a higher level of proof that arson has been committed than that required for the fire service to attribute a fire as "deliberate". The same applies to the use of terms such as "doubtful". To the fire service this means "suspicious"; to others it implies "cause not established". There is ample room for confusion and this must be eliminated for the benefit of all concerned with the fight against deliberate fires.

The new Crime and Disorder Act 1998 also provides a vehicle for reducing the incidence of deliberate fires. The police service and local authorities are obliged to conduct audits to establish the nature and extent of crime and disorder in their locales and then develop strategies to reduce the incidence. Other agencies, including my service, must assist them with information relevant to those audits and strategies.

My Authority has been proactive in seeking involvement in the arrangements made to take the new legislation forward. We are doing this at both strategic and local levels. Strategically the Brigade is a full member of the Joint Steering Group for Community Safety in London, alongside the Metropolitan Police and the Association of London Government to develop London-wide strategies. The Steering Group will also take an overview of the activities of the London boroughs and police commands to discern best practice and best value. Locally, we are connecting with the London boroughs and police commands to ascertain how we can contribute to their endeavours. To further assist in this process we are presently reviewing our operational structure to secure closer alignment with the London borough boundaries.

Central to the success of these endeavours is the availability of relevant management information. Between the agencies concerned I have no doubt this already exists in significant quantities. Unfortunately it is not in formats that make it readily accessible for the purposes we are now discussing. My Authority is working to rectify this and through the auspices of the Joint Steering Group for Community Safety in London we are also participating in the London Information On-Line (LION) project. This project aims to enhance and improve both the quantity and quality of information available to, and shared by, the partnership agencies.

Identifying the causes of fires is an essential element in combating deliberate fires. Since 1984 my Authority has maintained full-time, shift-related fire investigation teams for that purpose. This has, and does, enable us to investigate in depth a large number of fires each year. Special attention is given to those fires where deliberate fire setting is known or suspected. Our expertise has been recognised in that we have been asked to second officers to assist in major investigations overseas.

Our capability in this area will be significantly enhanced later this year when London's first detector dog becomes operational (it is presently in training). These developments notwithstanding we are conducting a review of the fire investigation function to ensure it delivers best value for money. This is, of course, in line with Government policy on the delivery of best value in the public sector.

Returning to the detector dog it is being trained to scent the presence of accelerants used to start fires. Its exceptional sense of smell (200 times that of a human investigator) materially improves our ability to detect the presence of these substances. Whilst this does not in itself offer irrefutable proof of deliberate fire setting the experience of other brigades already operating detector dogs is very positive. I must at this point acknowledge the assistance of Zurich Financial Services whose sponsorship enabled us to acquire the dog.

We have also developed a real fire database that is used to record the results of fire investigations and we are intending to make further improvements. Analysing data relating to deliberate fires is only one of its projected uses. It will enable us to compile reports on the scale of the problem, the materials/substances employed and also to identify any concentrations of deliberate fire setting activity.

The Scoping Study identified four categories of arson, namely:

Youth disorder - nuisance and vandalism;

Malicious - revenge, racism, personal animosities, etc.

Psychological - mental illness and suicide; and

Criminal - fraud, concealment of other crimes.

We must develop appropriate responses to all of these. As regards youth disorder we hope to dissuade individuals from anti-social activity by intervention in schools. We will employ our existing Schools Liaison Officers to deliver the message that such behaviour can put others at risk both directly and indirectly (i.e. crews responding to acts of vandalism are not available for incidents where lives are potentially at risk).

Such anti-social activities often appear to go hand-in-hand with malicious fire calls (i.e. that is starting a fire with the express intention of calling the brigade to put the fire out). The Schools Liaison Officers activities are not confined to deliberate fire setting; their brief extends to all aspects of community fire safety. Once again we are presently conducting a review to ensure we deliver best value from the resources committed to this purpose.

Operational personnel based on fire stations are at the centre of my Authority's Community Fire Safety strategy. Their activities are directed to the particular problems in their locality. If deliberate fire setting is perceived to be a problem then they will direct their efforts to tackling that difficulty.

Brigades where the problem of deliberate fire setting has become acute have developed initiatives to respond specifically to their local problems and these have proved highly successful. In London we are actively seeking to identify individuals who might benefit from such attention. We are liaising with the newly formed Youth Offending Teams, another offspring of the Crime and Disorder Act, at local level for this purpose.

The creation of Personal Advisors to help young people in the transition from school to employment or higher education and from living at home to independent living is also relevant in this context. It is proposed under the CONNEXIONS initiative launched recently by the Department for Education and Employment. The aim is to prevent young people disengaging from society and assist those who do disengage to find a route back. Interface between these Personal Advisors and the fire service would be advantageous where the young person concerned has been involved in anti-social behaviour involving fire.

Part of the role of the Personal Advisors is to link young persons with role models with whom they can empathise. Firefighters retain a very positive profile with the general public and the diversity of the workforce in London with ethnic minorities and women represented (although their numbers are not as we would wish) should be of advantage in this context.

For the malicious, psychological and criminal categories it must be accepted that deterrence is the answer. Possible perpetrators must be aware that the chances of their actions being detected are significantly greater than is the case at present. Whilst the responsibility for apprehending and successfully prosecuting perpetrators rests with my colleagues in the police and CPS, the fire service can assist materially in the ways I have outlined in this presentation.

As with many crimes it must also accept that deliberate fire setting can never be completely eradicated. There will always be an incident such as the tragic fire in Chingford when seven lives were lost and which was the subject of legal action recently. No amount of education or deterrent action will prevent such cases.

Mercifully they remain the exception and not the rule. Most of the initiatives I have mentioned in this presentation were not initiated specifically to address the issue of deliberate fires. Taken together, however, they form the nucleus of a deliberate fire reduction strategy which will have a real impact on the incidence of deliberate fire setting and help make London a safer city.

However, my Authority cannot deliver this objective unaided. As I hope my previous remarks have demonstrated success will call for the closest co-operation with the police service, London boroughs, Youth Offending Teams and others in the public sector and with the insurance industry and their clients in the private sector. Only if we all work together can a substantial reduction in the current level of deliberate fire setting be achieved. For that reason alone I welcome the Government's decision to proceed with a Thematic Review which will focus on the adequacy (or otherwise) of the current arrangements for interagency collaboration to combat deliberate fire setting.

The Arson Session was followed by a Paper entitled: "From Building Regulations to Building Standards".

Frith Hoehnke ARIBA, ARIAS, MRTPI (Rtd.)

My subject is the relationship between building regulations and building standards. Hardly anybody ever refers to the building regulations whereas everybody involved with building tries to make sense of Approved Documents or Technical Standards. Structural strength and stability is probably the most important aspect of the regulations, closely followed by fire safety considerations.

I mention this to emphasise that fire precautions are only one part of many which need to be taken account of during the design of a building. And none of the parts making up the regulations can be considered in isolation. That is often forgotten, especially by those who have expert knowledge of a single part - for example, the fire safety one.

For the moment there are two different systems of controlling fire safety when designing a building in Great Britain - one for England and Wales; one for Scotland. The differing systems come about because the relevant Building Acts are a little different and certainly their legal interpretation is quite different.

You will probably also know that the Scottish Executive has put out a consultation paper inviting ideas on the reform of the building control system in Scotland. However, it is fairly clear to me that this is the first step towards a reform of the Building (Scotland) Act 1959 as amended. My guess is that we shall in the future have only one Building Act for Great Britain, or if it must be two, it will be Acts which in effect mean the same thing.

I also imagine that Scotland may wish to abandon a mandatory system in favour of acceptable design guidance. Should this come about - and I believe it will - it would be a simple matter to align, or if you wish harmonise, the actual Regulations. These are "3 liners" which precede the "Guidance". In England they are called "the Requirement"; in Scotland, more properly in my opinion, "Regulation". The Regulations set out what must be achieved, and the "Guidance" in England or the "Technical Standards" in Scotland, tell you how to go about satisfying the regulation requirement.

With a harmonised Great Britain Building Act and harmonised Building Regulations it is time to consider a common set of guidance documents which will describe how you go about getting things right. I am assuming the guidance will not be mandatory but have the same standing as is proposed for the Approved documents for England and Wales. This is where we come to the tricky bit.

At the moment "Guidance" and "Technical Standards" are produced by civil servants North and South of the Border. Indeed, there are separate statutory committees called Building Regulations Advisory Committee and Building Standards Advisory Committee advising Ministers in England and Scotland on how to meet the provisions of the Regulations.

I see no future for such an arrangement if we want a common set of Great Britain good building guidance. In my past experience it was extremely difficult to get the two above-mentioned committees ever to adopt equal standards, sometimes for very good reasons. As time goes by I guess it will be Europe, through Directives, that will change the Regulations or some part of them. European Standards will also have to be taken account of in the Guidance supporting the Regulations.

So where do we find building standards that would broadly meet the requirements of Government Regulations, that are not nationalistic, and that can be quickly amended to take account of European directives and standards?

Look at the back of Approved Document B. There is an Appendix called "G: Standards Referred to". There follows three paragraphs with lists of appropriate British Standards. Scotland does better. The Technical Standards contain fifteen pages of relevant British Standards but since these cover more than fire safety the comparison is not fair.

When my predecessors and I wrote standards we almost always lent on British Standards Code of Practice and sometimes paraphrased chunks of them. Not surprisingly, since Government officials often pulled the greatest weight on BSI committees. Therefore it appears to me, as it did to my colleagues when we paved the way for the BS.9999 series, that time has come for government openly to call up relevant British Standards as meeting the intentions of their Regulations. And at the same time putting Approved Documents and Technical Standards to rest. That would free BSI committee members of the constraints imposed by the Approved Documents.

Well do I remember the committee chairman's argument that he could not accept a Code of Practice which recommended a different standard from that suggested in the Approved Document since no-one would buy the code were it different! He was right, of course, but the present system of Code writing does suffer in this respect.

Therefore, let government make the Building Regulations for Great Britain but let us consider the possibility of removing the guidance material in support of the Regulations from direct government control. I say "direct" because I strongly believe that government officials have an important part to play as members of the committees which create the guidance but they should not be alone in doing so.

I believe the work of the British Standards Institution deserves more time and effort by those who participate on its committees, but if the standing of a British Standard were enhanced more effort is likely to be expended. What I believe we should resist is a mass of documentation, all of which might contain guidance, but with different definitions of terms, different rules of measurement and sometimes with standards less onerous than those suggested in Codes of Practice. There must be a limit to the pain we inflict on certifying authorities, let alone architects whose time is precious and whose fees are slender!

Let us have a one-stop-shop with a product we can all subscribe to, whether we live in the South or in the North. A product associated with procedures that accommodate innovation and changes in user requirements. A product which allows account to be taken of perceived risks at design stage rather than at hand-over stage.

In short, I suggest we should now look at the system of meeting requirements of the Building Regulations and not so much at the fine tuning of English and Scottish building standards. Those should be phased out and be replaced by a common set of Great Britain reference documents.

Europe's Fire Safety Challenge - Professionalism and Politics

Edited speeches from our annual Parliamentary Seminar, held this year on March 29, are given below.

For more information, please email secretariat@fsdg.org.uk

Brian Robinson
Chief Fire Officer & Chief Executive London Fire & Civil Defence Authority President CACFOA Vice President CTIF

I am very grateful for the opportunity to talk to this Fire Safety Development Group Parliamentary Seminar.

It would not be appropriate for me to talk to this audience today about the political implications of Europe's fire safety challenge - but I am pleased to be able to offer my thoughts as a fire professional on how we can move towards improved fire safety in the home, in the workplace and while enjoying our leisure.

In a recent address to the Local Government Association our Minister (Mike O'Brien) said "Today's fire fighter must be able to carry a child out of a burning building or quietly teach children in a classroom the dangers of matches. That means a change in training and requires high standards of performance and skill. The vision of today's fire service is to keep people safe from fire and save people in an emergency . The first priority is to stop the fire from happening in the first place". Improving fire safety presents a key challenge for all parts of the "family of fire" in this country. The Home Secretary has set challenging targets as part of the Public Service Agreements to reduce fire related deaths in the home by 20% by 2003; and to reduce the projected trend in the number of fires by 2002.

These targets cannot be met by improving the speed and effectiveness of the emergency response. They require a change in approach where prevention is seen as better than cure; where fire authorities work much more closely with local communities, other public sector agencies and the private sector to educate people about how to improve fire safety and to minimise the damage caused by those fires which still break out.

The key word here is partnership: as a Chief Fire Officer - even as head of the largest Brigade in Europe - I cannot deliver the improvements we are all looking for without pooling my efforts with others. I can learn from the experience of other fire professionals around the country and - through the networks developed by CTIF - across Europe. I will develop better links with the other emergency services and the local authorities who share our aim of making the communities we serve safer. We also need to work more closely with colleagues in the fire industry, especially those involved in supplying, installing and maintaining fire protection and suppression equipment. There is no doubt that this is an area where combined efforts are much more likely to succeed that uncoordinated initiatives by each of the partners.

To work effectively with all local communities to improve their safety, we need a diverse workforce which reflects the different communities we serve. Unless we achieve this, it will be more difficult to gain the confidence of all communities, and to develop ways of improving their safety which are tailored to reflect their differing problems, needs and aspirations. I therefore welcome the Home Secretary's decision to set targets for the recruitment, retention and development of women fire fighters and staff from the black and minority ethnic communities. These targets are - rightly so - very challenging. I am sure the service will respond to this challenge and deliver real improvements in the diversity of its workforce, improvements which are long overdue.

This new approach is, of course, fully compatible with the Government's modernisation and best value agendas, which are about looking at innovative and cost effective ways of improving services to the public - in this case reducing the number of people dying, or being injured, in fires.

We must also acknowledge that fire safety is only one aspect of community safety - and one which tends not to worry people as much as, say, violent crime - unless they have been unfortunate enough to see for themselves the devastating effects which fire can have. It is therefore important for the fire service to work closely with the other emergency services and the local authorities as part of the broader partnerships to improve community safety. The fire service can, and should, play its part in taking forward the Government's policies to develop what can be grouped together as "domestic safety partnerships". This means not just looking at fire safety but also, for example, at health issues raised in "Our Healthier Nation" or crime and disorder by becoming active participants in local community safety plans with the aim of ensuring that they address action to tackle deliberate fire setting and malicious fire alarm calls. We may also be able to work with others to help achieve the objectives of the Government's new CONNEXIONS initiative, which aims to prevent young people "disengaging from society" and engaging in the type of misbehaviour that may lead to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

This will be a particular priority in London where shortly both the fire and police services will become part of the new Greater London Authority. I look forward to working with the new Mayor in developing new approaches to tackling issues affecting community safety across London.

The approach developed in Europe to safety issues has been built on the risk based approach. That approach is now being increasingly reflected in both policy and practice in the UK. For example the Health & Safety Commission advocates the risk based approach as the basis on which the health and safety of workers across all industries should be secured. In the fire context, the new Workplace Regulations incorporate the risk based approach into the statutory framework for the first time. And following the Audit Commission's report "In the Line of Fire", pathfinder projects in a number of Brigades - including London - are now going ahead to develop a more flexible, risk based approach to the planning and resourcing of fire cover. Such an approach will focus on reducing life loss and injury from fire, in contrast to the current system based on property.

The Government has agreed in principle to introduce a new Fire Safety Act, when Parliamentary time allows. This would bring together all fire safety measures into a single piece of legislation : and would base the new duties of both building owners/occupiers, employers and fire authorities to secure fire safety firmly on risk management principles. This would clearly emphasise the developing role of the fire service as an enforcement, advisory and consultancy service to secure public safety from fire and other emergencies.

As President of CACFOA I welcome this move, and hope that time can be found to get this new Act on the statute book as soon as possible. The effect of this approach will be to develop the role of fire officers as professional risk advisers. While these skills would be developed in the context of risks from fire - the approach is transferable and fire officers will be in a good position to work with other partners on the broader community safety agenda. The planning for the recent millennium night celebrations in London is an excellent example of how this can work in practice. In the future I would see the fire service providing this professional risk advice at a number of levels. It can provide strategic risk advice on London's infrastructure - working with the new Mayor; tactical advice on the deployment of resources or planning for major events or new developments; and local advice by going into people's home and workplaces and advising on how they can be made safer.

I also welcome the Fire Prevention Bill recently introduced in the House of Commons by Peter Pike MP. This Bill seeks to amend the Fire Services Act 1947 to give fire authorities a statutory duty to make arrangements by way of education, information and publicity to encourage fire prevention and the prevention of death or injury as a result of fire. I understand that the second reading has been deferred until 7th April, following objections from two MPs. The Government is urging fire authorities to do more to promote community fire safety: as indeed it must if its targets for reducing deaths and injuries from fire are to be achieved. This Bill seems consistent with those objectives and there are indications that - given all party support - the Government will not block the move. I hope that all political parties will feel able to support this Bill, and that the objections raised by MPs can be successfully overcome. Fire authorities across the country, are only too anxious to respond to such initiatives and a lot of innovative and effective work is now being done.

However it does become increasingly difficult to sustain, let alone expand, resources supporting fire safety education when resources are tight and there is no statutory duty to carry out this sort of work. After several years subject to capping regimes, and now the target to deliver 2% efficiency savings year on year, the first call on limited resources has to be to support our current statutory duties and meet national recommended minimum standards for the emergency response. This is despite the fact that we know that those areas which receive the fastest heaviest response (the major city centres and industrial areas etc) are not where the majority of fire deaths are occurring. Making community fire safety work a statutory duty will help us to focus our resources where they can have the greatest impact on reducing risks from fire.

I certainly hope that Government will accept that there is a strong case for using cash savings achieved from improved efficiency elsewhere in the service to support and expand investment in community fire safety work. This is consistent with the principles of best value and, in my view, the only way in which the Government can meet its own targets for reducing the numbers of fires and the deaths and injuries they cause.

The risk based approach, developed in Europe, should be applied here to make our communities safer. In essence, it is a very simple concept. It involves looking carefully at which parts of our community are most at risk from fire. This involves not only looking at risks which people face at home, work or play - but also the risk to property, to our heritage and to the environment. Having identified the pattern of risks, resources are then deployed in the most effective way to reduce those risks to "tolerable" levels.

Expressed as simply as that the benefits seem self evident. However we need to face up to the fact that the results of applying such an approach will require a number of changes to the way the fire service has traditionally done things. This is no bad thing - indeed at the heart of best value is challenging received wisdom about "the way we do things around here". However those advocating and supporting such changes need to be clear about where it is likely to lead us, and to manage that process - in particular to ensure that the public understand and support the changes which may result.

As a fire service professional, the risk based approach leads me to question the traditional fire service approach in several areas. At the core, is the need to re-examine the balance of investment between fire safety (both education and prevention) and the emergency response. Fire safety education in particular represents a tiny fraction of the average fire authority's expenditure (less than 1% in London). A relatively small shift in the current balance of investment would not have a major impact on our ability to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies, but could have a dramatic impact on the amount - and the effectiveness - of the fire safety work which we do.

We need to take a hard headed look at the effectiveness of various activities on our goals of reducing fires - and the deaths and injuries they cause.

Of course we must maintain our ability to respond quickly to emergencies. But what is the most cost effective way to reduce the risk to the community from fire? Is it ensuring that the current national standards of fire cover are met? Is it the cumbersome and bureaucratic process of issuing fire certificates? Or is it working more effectively with schools, community groups and local people to develop their awareness of the risks from fire? Is it working closely with the police, local authorities and others to tackle the serious problems caused by arson? Is it working with industry to extend the campaign to ensure that smoke detectors are fitted - and regularly maintained and tested. Perhaps fitting free smoke detectors in the homes of people most at risk from fire would be much more effective than providing a new fire station round the corner which can respond when their home catches fire? Is it also working with those same firms to reduce the number of false alarms from automatic fire detection systems, which cause such a drain on our resources? Is it working with local authorities, property developers and the fire industry to fit sprinklers into all new and converted residential premises (i.e. properties for single families, houses in multiple occupation and residential care premises)? The risk based approach leads us to ask these questions, and to gather some evidence to support our conclusions.

Arson is a good example of where a different approach can deliver real benefits to the community. As the recent report of the Home Office Arson Scoping Study indicated, deliberate fire setting is a growing problem nationally and one that would benefit significantly from the partnership approach. The fire service already has begun to develop a range of innovative ways of tackling it:

In Tyne & Wear the fire and police services are working together in a single team to combine their efforts to identify malicious fires and to bring the culprits to book, with very encouraging results.

Dogs trained to detect fire accelerants are being used in an increasing number of brigades, and are dramatically improving the speed and accuracy with which brigades can identify suspicious fires. We have recently agreed to introduce such a dog in London, sponsored by the Zurich Insurance Company - a prime example of partnership in action.

The second area which I am certain needs to be addressed is flexibility. Risk from fire is caused mainly by people. People move around: from their homes at night, to work during the day, to restaurants, cinemas and sports clubs in the evening and weekends, to the seaside and other tourist centres at weekends and over the summer months and back to their homes again. And yet our response is static - we provide the same emergency response 24 hours a day, 365 days a year even though the risks we are responding to vary enormously.

The obvious example of this is the City of London. Do I need to provide the same speed and weight of response in the City during a weekday when there are millions of people working there as on a Sunday morning when it is largely empty and fire engines can get their much more quickly as there is little or no traffic congestion? I believe I need the flexibility to move my resources around London as the risk changes. This is why I am pleased to be part of the pathfinder project developing a more flexible risk based approach to planning fire cover.

It is also why I support efforts by the national employers to develop more flexible national terms and conditions for fire fighters. Greater flexibility in the deployment of fire engines needs to be matched by greater flexibility in the way I use human resources. While I believe that core national terms and conditions on working hours, pay etc need to be preserved, I cannot provide a service which is effective in reducing deaths and injuries from fire, when my hands are tied by national terms and conditions which state that staffing levels on every fire station must remain constant 24 hours a day, even though the risks they are covering may change considerably.

Another difficult area for the fire service, will be to accept that the nature of the fire fighter's job - and the public's perception of what we do - has to change. Increasingly the fire fighter's job will be as much about going out into the local community, working with local residents and businesses and other public agencies to improve public safety as it is about riding on the back of a fire engine when the emergency call comes in. This means we need to look critically at the skills, knowledge and experience we look for when selecting, developing and promoting fire officers. This is timely, as the same process also needs to be carried out to ensure that our selection procedures are non-discriminatory and that we can move towards achieving the targets set by the Home Secretary for the recruitment retention and development of women and black and minority ethnic fire fighters.

We also need to look at the sort of vehicles we use - and the equipment they carry. We know that for the vast majority of incidents, the first appliance to arrive carries all the equipment we need to handle that incident. Any others sent are basically just "people carriers". Do we need to use fully stowed, expensive fire appliances simply to transport fire fighters? A risk based approach requires fast effective means of delivering crew, with the equipment they need to handle the vast majority of incidents, back up by arrangements to provide extra support (in terms of more personnel or specialist equipment) where that is needed.

We need to ask how effective we are at damage control, so that after a fire a householder can get back to something approaching a normal life as soon as possible? So that a local business (often providing essential employment to local people) can resume its operations quickly - keeping in mind that the longer that business is unable to get back to work, the more likely it is to cease trading as a result of that fire. Our efforts to secure business continuity are often overlooked, and in my view have an important part to play in meeting the Government's broader objectives on job creation and economic sustainability.

I have focused on the challenges which I see facing fire professionals as we seek to be more effective in improving community safety.

However I have also stressed that we cannot achieve this by ourselves. Developing more effective partnerships with a range of agencies will be an essential skill if we are to move forward. I would like to dwell briefly on the potential benefits which I can see from improved joint working between fire authorities and those parts on industry and commerce which are also part of the "family of fire".

We need to work with those companies to look at the cost-effectiveness of the different inbuilt fire detection and suppression systems. In London we have been developing a Real Fire Research Library which looks at how different buildings behave when they catch fire, and whether the various systems with which they were fitted operated as anticipated, and delivered the benefits which were expected. We need to analyse this information so that both fire brigades and individual companies can give the best advice to building owners and occupiers on how to reduce fire risk - while not jeopardising those in built measures which are essential to protect fire fighters who may have to enter that building if it ever does catch fire. We have therefore entered into a partnership with Southbank University to engage a postgraduate research student to evaluate the data held within this research library. The aim will be to validate the existing data and produce associated research papers evaluating the effectiveness of fire engineering design strategies. This process should also help companies to develop better and more competitive products for the future.

The Real Fire Research Library will also provide valuable data that will help progress London's Community Fire Safety initiatives by providing insights into the causes of fires in the home. It will further assist us in the battle to contain and reduce the incidence of deliberate fire setting.

Today's seminar is timely - as the fire service is facing a period of major change. We are - perhaps for the first time in fifty years - questioning the role of the fire service in modern society: what are we here for, how will we measure our success? The answers are that we need to work in partnership with a range of other agencies to protect local communities from the effects of fires and other emergencies. To do that effectively means adopting a risk based approach. It means being prepared to change the way in which we work - moving away from a service preoccupied with delivering a rapid emergency response (important though that will remain) to one which takes informed decisions about the best way to reduce fires and the deaths and injuries they cause. It means working in partnership with others to achieve our goal of making the society we all live in safer. I can only wish our Minister well when he says "The vision of today's fire service is to keep people safe from fire and save people in an emergency. The first priority is to stop fires happening in the first place".

Ends.

Challenges to European Fire Safety

Robert A Graham MBE MIFireE
Executive Director

Alliance for Consumer Fire Safety in Europe

What is the challenge? When we established the Alliance we saw 15 countries with 11 official languages, no common fire safety standards, no common regulatory framework, no consistent legislative decision making, no common statistics, no common media and few pan European fire safety organisations.

As we progressed we found significant differences of fire safety awareness, knowledge and perception; a variety of approaches and practices for achieving fire safety; and differing national priorities, economic and environmental considerations.

We also had to take account of the reality of the ultimate harmonisation of fire related standards throughout Europe and also the increasing globalisation of manufacturing that is taking place; two major issues that are not necessarily mutually beneficial from a fire safety point of view.

In seeking to achieve our goal of a high level of protection from fire for consumers in Europe we had to decide what would provide the best result for all, bearing in mind the aforementioned considerations.

The fire equation has many variables, but it also has two constants:

· The same materials, presented in the same way will burn in a similar manner irrespective of the country in which the fire occurs.
· Fire and its products of combustion do not discriminate between race, creed or nationality in the way they take human life.

An analysis of fatal fires, both major disasters and domestic fires, also identified similarities in the circumstances resulting in loss of life:

· The contents, fittings or structure producing rapid fire growth.
· The absence of early fire detection and/or suppression.
· Inadequate compartmentation or fire hardening.
· Escape provisions becoming inadequate, people being trapped.

Following fires there is also often criticism of the occupants, either for not reacting, or for overreacting. This may be the reason why in some countries of Europe reliance on telling people how to prevent fires has traditionally been given more emphasis than protective approaches.

Our view is that on its own this approach is a very fragile one upon which to base a national fire safety strategy. It exposes to risk the must vulnerable in society by making them dependent upon the behaviour of others who themselves are subject to many pressures which often displace fire safety to a much lower priority in their daily life.

If we take the UK as an example, this approach is not very successful. The number of fires in buildings over the last decade has never dropped below those at the start. This also applies to the previous decade.

There has been success however in reducing the number of fire deaths and injuries and of course that is the important thing. Life safety legislation in the UK for places of work and public resort and some residential occupancies is aimed at preventing multiple fatality fires and compared to most other parts of Europe is a success. A major contributor to this success has been the role of enforcing authorities.

The Alliance has a European role and we intend to make best use of the experience of our colleagues in member states to achieve our objective of fire safety. In the UK we are now beginning to see proven benefits from a particular initiative to reduce fire deaths in dwellings, this in spite of a continuing rise in the number of domestic fires. This upholstered furniture legislation validates the philosophy of the Alliance on consumer fire safety, of promoting the manufacture of fire-safe products using fire-safe materials.

To justify this approach and influence change we needed to demonstrate that fire was a European problem. We have been assisted in this by the information supplied from the World Fire Statistics Centre and we also commissioned our own poll of Germany and the Netherlands to obtain more consumer specific information.

This revealed that almost half of those polled felt they were not well-informed about fire prevention. The hazards of fire in the home were dangerously underestimated and particularly in Germany people were living under a false sense of security about the fire safety of consumer products.

Information from the German insurance industry estimates a fire every 3 minutes; over 200,000 p.a.; over 700 fire deaths and damages of 5 billion Euro p.a. They report that the fire risk is disproportionate in areas covered by voluntary fire brigades due to the relocation of industry and dwellings from urban to rural areas. That various fire safety technologies are used separately and are not exploited in a combined approach and that there is no harmonisation of best practice by regulators.

But Germany is a world leader in the development of fire safety technology and it is recognised that there is a need to convert this to achieve a high level of protection for the consumer.

There are notable examples in Europe where fire safety is high on the list of the regulators' priorities but there are factors which even they cannot address nationally and which have a major influence on fire safety - the design and manufacture of consumer products. Harmonisation of standards and globalisation of manufacturing will determine the fire hazards in our homes and our fate rests to a large extent with the European standard making bodies and industry.

Advocating fire safe consumer products is just one strand of our strategy, but is perhaps the most important. The approach to fire safety through safer product design and materials - the fire safe environment approach - has much to commend it.

· The impact is permanent.

· The benefits can be achieved in a relatively short time.

· The improvements can affect all sections of the community including those least susceptible to the education approach.

We believe this approach, more than any other course of action, offers the quickest and most effective way of reducing the annual burden of 4,000 fire deaths and over 70,000 injuries in Europe. We do of course educate and publicise fire safety and self help but we recognise the limitations of this as a single approach.

In many ways what we are doing is what some regulators have done, with proven success, with building construction and use, creating a fire safe environment. The benefit of our efforts will also become evident when safer consumer products make their way into hospitals, hotels and similar occupancies.

There are three issues we are presently advocating and have placed before the European Commissioners and MEPs.

· The need for upholstered furniture flammability controls throughout Europe.
· Improved television set fire safety; manufacturers for the European market (not the US and Japan) have ceased the practice of using flame resistant plastics for TV enclosures.
· Computers for home use to meet similar standards of fire safety to those advocated for televisions.

We have had meetings with the Deputy Head of Cabinet of the relevant Directorates in the European Commission who have acknowledged the need for action. We have met and gained the support of several MEPs who have put down questions in the European Parliament.

Finally you will be aware of claims relating to environmental and ecological risks from the use of flame retardants. This has implications for the whole of the fire industry, but more importantly as far as the Alliance is concerned for society itself. Fire hazards are real; they are demonstrated with deadly efficiency every day throughout Europe. They are also avoidable and the improvement and maintenance of safety standards must be an important consideration in the debate on this issue.

The Alliance stance is simple - to ensure that consumers are not unnecessarily put at risk from fire and that the fire safety performance of materials in consumer products is maintained at a high level. How that is done and what materials are used is for the industry to decide but the performance levels must be achieved. We have made this point most strongly in our meetings with the European Commission.

Ends.

The Challenge of European Fires

Dr Jim Denney
FPA/CFPA Europe/CEA

I have an involvement with two groups of people who are deeply concerned with fire problems at a European level and would like to first talk about them separately and then briefly bring them together.

CEA Concerns

The CEA is the "Comité Européen des Assurances" and is the overall European insurance association. One of its principal committees is the Fire/Theft Management Committee and last year this reviewed the overall priorities for European property insurers. It concluded that the three main priorities were:

Natural events
Criminal behaviour
Regulation and standards

It is in the latter area that the principal concerns are with fire although the second priority does include the very large problem of arson and malicious fires.

1. Regulatory requirements

In many countries the principal concern of regulations is with life safety although this may not be explicitly stated. It is not the case in all countries however and in some insurers have not found it necessary to establish common rules for the constructional requirements of buildings in order to achieve adequate protection of buildings, contents and business assets. Over recent years the Prevention Council of the CEA Fire/Theft committee, which I chair, has considered preparing common requirements for property protection but has deferred this until the European standards to be applied to Construction Products were finally agreed. This stage is almost with us and at the next meetings of the Prevention Council and the Fire/Theft Committee the subject will be considered again. There is a real fear that if (when) European harmonised Building Regulations are drafted they will be at a lowest common denominator level and aimed solely at life safety.

The other problem about which insurers have concern but which is not covered by regulation except in the broadest sense are the contents of buildings. These obviously have a major influence on the development of fire and also upon the damage which results. The CEA has a catalogue of materials which can be used as the basis for assessing risk due to building contents. It interfaces sensibly with the UN and EC classifications for dangerous goods but covers a much wider range of materials. In the latest version of the LPC Design Guide for Construction of Buildings there is a simpler approach adopted using the Hazard Classes of the Sprinkler Rules to divide industrial occupancies into two classes. However the problem is to be tackled, setting performance requirements for construction or for active fire protection without taking account of the full nature of the risk must surely be a recipe for failure.

2. Standards

The second area of concern is with progress towards European standards or rather the lack of it. European insurers are in the fortunate position of being able to prepare common technical specifications for products and installations under a "Block Exemption Regulation" to the Competition Directive. This requires that such specifications are prepared and applied under quite strict conditions. To meet these conditions the CEA has been preparing specifications in collaboration with other European organisations representing test laboratories, manufacturers and users. This collaboration has resulted in 24 "EFSAC" endorsed specifications covering mainly fire detection and extinguishment components and systems.

These specifications have been drafted to meet market needs where protection systems are being installed with no agreed standards in sight. They are intended only as interim standards to plug a gap until European standards are published when they will be withdrawn. No construction standards have yet been published using this system but now that the test methods and scope of standards for CE marking under the Construction Products Directive are clearer, insurers will be considering the need for additional specifications to meet the property protection objectives. European insurers believe that this is a professional approach to meeting a real market need without competing with the official standards bodies.

The real aim for insurers is to have reliable protection systems (in the broadest sense) installed in their insured risks. To achieve this consistently requires that the individual products making the system are tested and produced within a quality control regime; the system must be designed by competent personnel to a proven system design procedure; the system must be installed and commissioned to a recognised set of Rules or Code of Practice and, having been installed, it must be regularly tested and maintained. This is quite an onerous set of requirements but experience has shown that following this route results in fire protection which performs to expectation when called upon to do so even if this is many years after the initial installation.

CFPA Europe concerns

Turning to my other responsibility, the Confederation of Fire Protection Associations Europe, the members here see a different but related set of challenges. The CFPA Europe members are concerned with both life safety and property protection. The individual members of the fire protection associations are the fire safety managers in industrial and commercial companies. Since 1989 CFPA Europe member associations have been training fire safety managers to obtain a common Diploma in fire safety management. This is based on a common harmonised level of training and competence, an agreed common syllabus and an agreed level for a final examination. The result of this course of study is a basic diploma which can be augmented with optional specialist modules. It is not intended to be an academic qualification but rather an indication that the holder has a basic competency in fire safety management.

This relates directly into regulatory needs since a qualification of this sort is the minimum which ought to be expected for a person doing company risk assessments under the Workplace Regulations. A major concern for CFPA Europe members is establishing that this diploma meets that need and to do this is necessitating constant watch on changing standards and regulations.

Members of CFPA Europe are also cooperating on preparing common management approaches to common problems. The biggest of these is arson which I have already mentioned. CFPA Europe has worked on this topic for at least 15 years and has held a number of successful conferences and prepared dossiers of guidance on malicious fires. A further conference is planned in Strasbourg later this year. The result has been an enhanced awareness of the arson problem and a professional approach to combating it based on exchanges of best practice.

A simpler problem being addressed in CFPA Europe is that of managing hot work. In some European countries it is mandatory for an operator to have been properly trained before being allowed to carry out cutting, welding, bitumen application or other hot work. The result in these countries has been a major reduction in the number of fires from this cause. The CFPA Europe members are examining the hot work recommendations in each country with the aim of preparing common requirements for procedures to follow and the training of operators. Again we are trying to combat a fire challenge by adopting a professional approach to its management.

It is the view of the CFPA Europe members that good management of fire risks, which includes training staff to respond properly if a fire occurs, is a fundamental part of the fire protection equation but one which is often overshadowed by the requirements for construction and specifications for equipment. And yet the best fire resisting wall can be rendered ineffective if it breached to allow a service to pass through and the fire safety management does not ensure that the fire stopping is properly installed. The most elaborate protection system needs to be regularly checked and maintained.

Recognizing the complementary interests of the CEA regarding construction and systems and of CFPA Europe regarding management, the two bodies are agreeing a memorandum of understanding which has the aim of ensuring that the work of the two groups does not duplicate but properly complements each other. They both recognise that a partnership approach is needed to cover the whole range of the challenges presented by fire.

And that I think is the message I would like to leave you with. The challenges of fire are many and various but they can be tackled professionally by partnerships between all interested parties. This seminar brings together an even broader range of interests than we normally meet in the fire protection world and is another step to achieving the professional partnerships needed to meet the fire challenge.

Opportunites and Obstacles:
The View of a European Manufacturer

Rick Wilberforce

European Market Development Manager
Pilkington

I would like to give you an overview of the key European issues from my company's perspective. Pilkington is a manufacturer of specialist glass for fire protection in buildings. We make these products in Germany and the UK, and market them throughout the EU and beyond. In addition to our fire protection products, we manufacture and process other building products in nine EU countries.

Our headquarters might happen to be in the UK, but they could be anywhere. We regard all our European operations as one business, and we would like to regard Europe as a single market.

These days it would not be unusual for us to be supplying glass from our Italian factory, to a building in France, designed by an English architect, a Swedish engineer and constructed by a German contractor. National boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant - or at least we would like them to be.

That is why the philosophy behind the Construction Products Directive (CPD), of eliminating barriers to trade by introducing common product standards, is so appropriate. Under the CPD, fire safety products can only be put on the market if they are fit for their intended use. This will be demonstrated by possession of a CE mark, which is obtained if the product is successfully tested to a relevant European harmonised test method.

However, although the CPD became law in 1989, the test standards which underpin it, and are necessary to demonstrate compliance, are still not finalised. For the last twenty years, experts have been buzzing around Europe, sitting on committees trying to agree the new CEN standards and tests. Many, if not most, of the experts have been supplied by industry at industry's expense. A cynic might imagine that the whole CEN process was a brilliant idea from the Business Development Manager of the European Airlines Federation (if there is such a thing).

We want to see the new harmonised European standards implemented quickly. But we want to see them implemented fairly and at minimum cost. Let me explain.

First, "fairly". There are already concerns that when the new standards come into effect, some Member States will superimpose their own test methods or criteria. Another fear is that some Member States might only accept test results as valid if they have been conducted in laboratories in that country.

Secondly, "minimum cost". The new harmonised tests for reaction to fire and resistance to fire, when they emerge, are likely to be different from the existing test methods. Ultimately all products currently certified will therefore have to be retested. Pilkington estimates - conservatively - that the cost of these fire tests to the glass industry throughout Europe will be £20 million. A different cynic might imagine that the whole CEN process was a brilliant idea from the Business Development Manager of the Federation of European Test Houses (if there is such a thing).

And let's not forget, we are talking about the retesting of products which are already established and whose behaviour has already been proven. Their performance in real fires will not diminish just because a CEN committee has decided to change a test method. It would be perverse if industry had to add further costs by modifying their products to adapt to fit to a new test method.

Finally - and this is an issue of both fairness and cost - there is the question of whether there is sufficient test laboratory capacity to cope with the demand for testing to the new standards. This impacts on the transitional period during which the validity of certificates to the old test methods will exist in parallel with the new. If it is too short a period - say less than ten years - it will create an uneven playing field on which the manufacturers at the back of the queue are unable to enter the single market until the backlog of testing is complete.

I would now like to move on and ask some broader questions about overall fire policy at EU level. Is there a policy? Are fire protection matters co-ordinated, or even monitored, in any structured way by the Commission? Does the Commission believe it has a role? If so, which Directorate has the lead?

Because Europe is a single market; because we are moving towards harmonised test methods; because the major players in the construction industry are active across Member State boundaries, it is increasingly relevant that we all operate within a single framework.

Such comparative research as I am aware of shows significant differences in fire performance between countries. For example in 1997 Britain had eight fires per 1,000 population, whereas Germany had only two-and-a-half. And fire deaths per capita in Britain were 50% higher than in Germany*. Is this simply due to the difference in the way statistics are collated, or is there something fundamentally different in our laws, our culture, the way we design buildings, our priorities, and our government policies?

The day when we have a common set of Building Regulations or other fire safety legislation in Europe may be a very long way off. But surely there is a role for the Commission in identifying the best and worst performing countries, disseminating best practice and encouraging - through Directives or otherwise - a raising of standards in the under-performing countries.

There are precedents and parallels. For example in the field of noise protection, I believe that Commission officials are drafting a Directive on Noise. This is likely to include plans to establish a European Noise Unit, which should eventually lead to an Action Plan with targets for each Member State to improve the noise environment of its citizens.

Similarly, officials are currently preparing an "action plan to improve energy efficiency in the European Community". Buildings are the biggest energy-use sector, so this Action Plan will ultimately affect the way Europe's buildings are designed and used from an energy-efficiency perspective.

If protecting our citizens from noise, or improving the energy-efficiency of our buildings, are important enough to become the concern of EU policy, then why not fire safety?

The lead has to come from the Commission. But industry and the professions can form partnerships with the policy-makers to help achieve best legislative and constructional practice across Europe. I believe that what has happened in the UK in recent years - I mean the much greater communication and understanding between the different players, as exemplified by events such as today's - could be replicated at EU level. FSDG for example is aware of like-minded organisations in other countries, for example the AFPPI (Association Francaise pour la Protection Passive contre l'incendie) in France. FSDG intends to build contacts with AFPPI and similar bodies. Ultimately I would like to see a pan-European network of all public and private bodies dedicated to improving standards of fire safety in buildings, working with the Commission.

So here is what I, as a European manufacturer, would like to see happen. Let's extend the level playing field, let's create a genuine single market with no barriers to trade, let's understand why it's safer to live in some countries than others, let's bring the poor performers up to the standard of the best, and let's share best practice throughout Europe.

* International Technical Committee for the Prevention and Extinction of Fire (CTIF): Fire statistics for 1997.

"The Challenges of Mounting Fire Loss"

The edited report of a seminar organised by the Fire Safety Development Group on 1st February 1999 is available here for download in RTF format. This is a generic document format which can be opened by the majority of Word Processors.

Download Conference Report 1999 (RTF - 177K)