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Posted By Scott d
Hello All,
I have been advised that a fire certificate is no longer required for factories and a risk assessment, carried out by a competant person is now considered sufficient(under the workplace regs?)
Could anyone fill me in on this and is the fire precautions Act. 1971 no longer valid.
Many thanks,
Scott
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Posted By Roj Smith
Scott,
Fire Certificate requirements are still in force until April 2006. If you haven't got a certificate for your factory, then you will have to apply for one from your local fire authority. Chances are they will not actully issue you with a new certificate though. They will be interested in seeing your fire risk assessment.
Whether you have a certificate or not, you are still required to undertake a fire risk assessment and to manage the identified risks as necessary.
Roj
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Posted By Nick House
Not sure about the fire certificate thing as far as factories are concerned, but I believe the risk assessment part is correct.
The Fire Precautions Act is not exactly irrelevent/ not applicable, but both the Fire Precautions Act, and the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regs are due to be pretty much merged with the incoming Fire Reform Order. I believe the purpose of this is to cut out any contradictions between the two.
The FRO will also place the onus on the tenant company, rather than the landlord to carry out risk assessments. I have also been reliably informed that workplaces will need to be audited by the Fire Service within the next 2 years, although how feasible that will be remains to be seen.
Successful audits will mean that you will not be audited again for 2 years, or whenever substantial changes in use of premises occurs (whichever is the sooner). Unsuccessful audits will mean 6 monthly audits until you come up to scratch!
If in doubt, approach your local Fire Officer as I have, they will be pleased to offer advice, and also, by making the first move, you will more than likely be seen as being pro-active on this, and therefore may well receive a whole heap of advice to help you achieve a successful audit first time out.
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Posted By Terry Reading
Scott
Fire Certificates are still legally required and the changes you are talking about have not yet come into force. However, with the imminent changes to the legislation - which will no longer require fire certificates - you may find that the local brigade will tell you that the time it will take them to issue a fire certificate will be longer than the date when the new legislation kicks in. It is relatively simple though to submit an application form and then if they do not issue a certificate you have at least complied with the current legislation.
You are right about the emphasise switching to Fire Risk Assessments, however you are already required by law to complete a fire risk assessment. So if I were you I would go down this route now whilst submitting your application form for the fire certificate. Any fire safety inspector will ask to see a fire risk assessment if they turn up to do any inspection of your premises. A proper assessment should identify any deficiences and should include an action plan to address these.
Sorry for the long winded answer. Hope this helps. If you need more advice you can email me direct.
T.
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Posted By Roj Smith
So far as I am aware, the regulations still stand for factories in which:-
more than 20 persons are at work at any one time; or
more than 10 persons are at work elsewhere than on the ground floor.
Additionally a fire certificate is required if a building contains 2 or more premises of this kind and the aggregate of persons at work in all these premises in the building exceeds 20 or the aggregate number at work elsewhere than on the ground floor in these premises exceeds 10.
A fire certificate is also required in respect of factory premises in or under which explosive or highly flammable materials are used or stored, other than those of such kind and quantity that the fire authority has determined that the issue of a fire certificate is not required
Roj
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Posted By Roj Smith
Missed this bit off the end...
As has been said by others, you need to apply for the certificate but your local brigade probably won't get round to issuing it before the new legislation is introduced and certificates have been phased out anyway.
Roj
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Posted By Scott d
Thanks to all of you who replied,
I had received confusing information from a fire assessment adviser who simply informed me that a fire certificate was no longer required and I couldn't get my head around this, knowing that current legislation was still in place. Im sure he was thinking along the same lines as yourselves but just didn't do as good a job of explaining the situation.
Many thanks,
Scott.
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