How the National Fire Chiefs Council responded to Grenfell

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How the National Fire Chiefs Council responded to Grenfell

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Stewart Edgar, Chief Fire Officer for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service and prevention lead for the National Fire Chiefs Council, spoke to FIRE and provides some insight into how the NFCC supports fire and rescue services in a post‑Grenfell world

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n amongst the thousands of column inches devoted to the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, there are occasional references to the NFCC. Working diligently behind the scenes, the successor to CFOA has been supporting fire and rescue services as they seek to make sense of and respond to the consequences of the worst fire in living memory.

The spotlight has been firmly on London Fire Brigade, but all other fire and rescue services are feeling the impact of Grenfell. The role of the NFCC is critical to ensure a joined up message and a united front when fire is seemingly never off the front pages. CFO Edgar shares his perspective on how this has worked in the immediate aftermath and beyond for the still relatively new NFCC arrangements.

“I think Roy Wilsher as Chair of the NFCC has demonstrated real leadership. Communication has been outstanding between fire and rescue services.

It is unprecedented – and I know that word’s been used an awful lot in the last few weeks – but the situation reports that we got twice daily from the NFCC have been excellent. They have allowed all the CFOs to be up to date; we try to do things once and we try to do it well.”

Stewart Edgar, Chief Fire Officer for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service

He goes on to explain: “There has been a significant improvement in direction under the NFCC. As Co-ordinating Committee Chairs, me for prevention and Mark Hardingham for protection, we had daily phone calls about Grenfell. We take the responsibility on a national basis to promote position statements on our respective specialisms.”

And this is borne out by the recently produced animation about fire safety in high-rise buildings.

Understanding that having 50 versions of a high-rise fire safety animation may not be the best use of limited resources, the NFCC has already demonstrated that working together is the best approach.

At just over a minute, the animation serves the attention span of most consumers of video on the Internet and provides key messages to reassure the public. One of those key messages is about the stay put policy. CFO Edgar is pragmatic about the difficulties of maintaining this policy.

“You have the graphic images of Grenfell Tower, which have been portrayed across all media over the last three to four weeks. It’s very difficult to try and understand why we had a stay put policy in the first place.”

“There does need to be some work on some clear messages to the members of the public who live in high-rise blocks so that they understand what they have to do” 18 | July/August 2017 | www.fire–magazine.com

Grenfell Tower

“Historically, CFOA and now the NFCC have vociferously campaigned for the installation of sprinklers to enhance and improve both public safety and firefighter safety”

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Under the Order, the Fire and Rescue Service is, in the main, the enforcing authority. Now that local authorities and housing providers are focusing their attention on their high-rise housing stock, they are naturally turning to the Fire and Rescue Service.

A very public example of this was the evacuation of four high rise blocks in Camden on Friday June 23 after Camden Council reviewed fire safety with London Fire Brigade. Those buildings had fire risk assessments carried out between January and April 2016 (these went into the public domain on July 12) and showed many failings and yet it took Grenfell to re-examine and respond to their recommendations for action. Camden updated its website on July 14 to reflect its new fire safety policy for high rises.

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‘Grenfell has however changed everything.

So now and into the future 1. The Council will be appointing a new Director for Resident Safety.

2. A new wave of enhanced fire safety checks (over and above the current statutory requirement and beyond current best practice) on every block in Camden will be undertaken. These will be thorough and their scope will be clear. The reports will be published so the process is transparent to our residents.

3. We will set up a borough wide resident safety-working group led by tenants and leaseholders to oversee these processes.

4. Advise and provide training opportunities for tenants in every block in Camden on fire safety.’

This example demonstrates how politicians can act quickly in response to tragedy and how fire and rescue services are central to that effort. The question remains, though, is it storing up problems for the future by blurring the boundaries between enforcer and adviser?

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Stay put policy is detailed on the NFCC website and as CFO Edgar explains it during this interview, it soon becomes apparent that the message is too complex.

It requires too much explanation about how high-rise buildings are constructed and firefighting tactics.

“I agree with you on this”, he says. “There does need to be some work on some clear messages to the members of the public who live in high-rise blocks so that they understand what they have to do.”

He goes on to talk about a “triangulation of the stay put policy when an incident starts to develop”. By this he means the person who calls 999, incident commanders on the incident ground, seeing at firsthand what the potential fire spread is going to be and control room staff who are remote from the incident. “Once the incident starts to develop, the fire and rescue service will make a determination if the stay put policy is fit for purpose for this incident or not.”

Questioned on whether this is a change in policy post Grenfell, CFO Edgar explains that fire and rescue services vary in their approach, but the approach outlined above “has been fairly well known for a number of years”.

Looking at the most recent fire statistics, CFO Edgar is keen to point out the small number of fires in high rises that required more than five people to be evacuated.

“The actual stay put principle works. It works effectively in most if not all cases.”

Moving on to talk about the fire safety in the communal parts of high rises and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, CFO Edgar says that he, Mark Hardingham and Roy Wilsher have had long conversations about this and about the de-regulation agenda more broadly. He is also mindful that the Order does not apply to all parts of the UK and is also in discussion with CFO Alasdair Hay from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service about their own legislation.

“Carrying out risk assessments [under the Order] has proven to be very successful. But the problem I have with this is that the people who carry out these assessments can do a three-day course, get a certificate to say they are a competent fire risk assessor.” He reiterates the points he made in the ITV Tonight programme which aired on July 6.

There is some reassurance available. The creation of the Fire Risk Assessment Competency Council was a major milestone in supporting the Responsible Person to protect their buildings and the people in their communities. First published in 2011 and revised in 2014, the Council’s Guide to Choosing a Competent Fire Risk Assessor is ‘a set of criteria against which the competency of those undertaking fire risk assessments can be judged’.

However, for CFO Edgar seeing someone with little experience being able to go into large, complex buildings and sign off fire risk assessments is a real concern. “I have no doubt; we should have some kind of third party accreditation of fire risk assessors.”

www.fire–magazine.com | July/August 2017 | 19

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Photo: Catherine Levin

at this point in time. We do need to have a conversation with government about money at some stage because actually we don’t have the capacity long term. We can prioritise for the short term but long term it is not sustainable.”

That capacity is also affected by the demands from the media for information and insight at both a national and local level. The modern media cycle demands a lot and particularly in times of crisis will want to be fed continuously.

In the early days after Grenfell there was little or no sign of the NFCC as London stood centre stage and the world fell in love with London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton. But as her press office has reduced her exposure – to the extent that they declined to be interviewed for this edition of FIRE* – the media has gone looking elsewhere and this creates pressures on the NFCC to respond in a co-ordinated and joined-up way.

It has been a wise decision to have a full-time Chair for the NFCC and move away from the one-year Presidency.

The vice chairs and the Co-ordinating Committee leads juggle their NFCC roles while still busy with their day jobs.

CFO Edgar shows it can be done and so far it is looking good for the NFCC; let us see it continue that way. *FIRE looks forward to speaking with London Fire Brigade leaders in a forthcoming issue and would like to reiterate our support for all personnel involved with the Grenfell Tower response.

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“I think we would be able to manage that conflict really well,” responds CFO Edgar. “People trust us. I think we do things professionally. We are publicly accountable. Some people may say there’s a bit of a conflict but I think we have got the professionalism to do that.”

While CFO Edgar rightly notes the limitations of the Order and its focus on the communal parts of highrise buildings, he moves on to point out the efficacy of sprinklers in dwellings as an additional fire precaution.

Sprinklers have had more mentions in the press in the last four weeks than they have in the last decade.

The appearance of Nick Ross, a long-term campaigner for sprinklers, in the Daily Mail is just one example. He called for the NFCC “to show leadership” and the response on Twitter confirms the NFCC view that sprinklers are just one part of an overall fire safety solution and not a panacea.

“Historically, CFOA and now the NFCC have vociferously campaigned for the installation of sprinklers to enhance and improve both public safety and firefighter safety.” CFO Edgar is keen to point out that sprinkler policy varies across the four nations of the UK. “It is a good opportunity to remind people about sprinklers. I think they are a life-saving tool.

They reduce damage to property, especially since sprinkler technology has improved so much.”

He is pragmatic about the challenges faced by successive governments who on the one hand want to increase house building and keep those costs low, but have been under pressure for many years to fit them all with sprinklers, which inevitably put up the costs.

The government position has also been highlighted many times. In particular, when Brandon Lewis, former Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, said in Parliament in February 2014: “We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation. It is clear that fire sprinklers work, and I am happy that the government continue to emphasise that; I do not think there is any disagreement about that.”

Councils are now making decisions to fund the retrofitting of sprinklers, as in the £10 million pot announced by the London Borough of Brent and £31 million in the city of Birmingham. How will the sprinkler industry cope with the surge in demand?

Knee jerk reactions post tragedy will inevitably happen, but throwing money at the problem and investing in a one dimensional solution is not the right way forward to get the best outcome.

The aftermath of the Grenfell fire has also increased financial pressure on fire and rescue services as they have responded to local demands for reassurance that high rises across the country are safe. The NFCC met on July 6 and discussed how services are coping with these demands and to consider the financial impacts.

“We had a discussion about the capacity of the Fire and Rescue Service to deal with what has been an increase in demand. We are working within our own financial envelope

“We do need to have a conversation with government about money at some stage because actually we don’t have the capacity long term” 20 | July/August 2017 | www.fire–magazine.com