Rank: Forum user 
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Looking for a bit of help with the Fire Scotland Act 2005, if you are able to help...
We have a small fire team who train people in this, and at one point they say there is a legal requirement under said Act for people to: -
1) Undergo (at least) one fire evacuation exercise per year
2) Undergo fire fighting refresher training every 3 years.
I am pretty sure (2) is rubbish, but I thought (1) was true. Had a look through the Act seeing as I have not much better to do just now (!), but could find neither sight nor sign of either of those in the Act - Either they're there and I was just skim reading, or they really aren't there...
Any help appreciated
Ta in advance,
Andrew
P.S. CAPTCHA was kisu! Probably not a good idea just now, though...
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Cos I don’t have anything else to do, I also had a look at the Act and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 and there was nothing that specific. (Always interesting to check upon on foreign legislation!) It’s the old, “we do this because the law says we must, even though we haven’t actually read the law” thing which crops too often. Edited by user 26 March 2020 15:24:09(UTC)
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 1 user thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I scrutinised the Scottish fire legislation a while back and concluded it amounts to the same requirements as the English. Which doesn't have either requirement.
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2 users thanked Kate for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Chapter 4 para 113 of the Practical Fire Safety guidance for Non Residential Premises (Scotland) stipulates a minimum of one year between drills.
Chapter 4 also deals with the frequency of training but does not specify a time limit on refreshers.
I know this is only official guidance but the SFRS will check this during an audit.
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2 users thanked Dazzling Puddock for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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But, whether in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK your fire risk assessment might conclude that less frequent checks were appropriate. As example, why would you do an annual evacuation of premises that are non continously occupied? Send a couple of engineers out to e.g. a water pumping station may be once a week or once a month. One of the usual objectives of evacuations is to make sure that only those who need to know are aware that it's going to happen before the alarm sounds. Very difficult in most remote temporary workplaces to do that!
What the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (or other enforcing authority) will audit is whether you have an appropriate system that is relevant to the specific location.
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3 users thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Excellent - many thanks for taking the time to reply. I would only have one other question to ensure I was absolutely correct, and that is, I work at a COMAH site, so am "assuming" there is nothing in those Regs (Having never read them [yet...]) regarding these aspects of emergency training...?
Just want to be certain I know where I stand, having had it thrown back at me previously...
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Rank: Super forum user
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COMAH has requirements for emergency planning going well beyond fire evacuation. It requires you to make your own assessment though. The regs themselves are not prescriptive about the detail of the emergency planning, certainly not to the level of the original questions. It is left to the enforcing authorities to assess whether you have got the detail right for your particular circumstances.
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1 user thanked Kate for this useful post.
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