Fire safety enforcement: an ‘unnecessary’ £428m burden?

The “biggest shake-up for decades” in fire regulations in 2006 brought all B&Bs within the enforcement regime for the first time, and the disproportionate way the regulations were interpreted and enforced in the first year or two posed a huge threat in regulatory and cost burden to our £2.1bn, 30,000 businesses sector. The total additional, “unnecessary” cost burden, based on figures released last November by the Scottish Government, may have been £428m across the UK – that is, a fifth of the total gross turnover of the sector.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order ("RRFSO") abolished Fire Certificates and required property owners in England and Wales to do a "risk assessment" and put in place "appropriate" fire precautions, commensurate with the size of the business. Parliament intended the RRFSO as a deregulatory measure, easing the burden on businesses and adopting a less prescriptive, more risk-based approach. So far, so sensible.

However, Parliament's intentions failed to be realised in practice. The way the RRFSO was enforced by local Fire & Rescue Authorities (FRAs) for the first couple of years imposed huge new burdens on very small businesses, disproportionate to the actual risk.

Many B&Bs in ordinary family homes were asked by fire inspectors to put in multiple fire doors, emergency lighting, commercial-type fire alarm systems, and make expensive alterations to their premises. Many small B&Bs closed and more were considering closure.

The Bed & Breakfast Association considered that most such action was contrary to the intention of Parliament and had no basis in the RRFSO itself – local fire officers were simply applying previous ‘hotel’ standards to small B&Bs, and failing to make the step-change required to a proportionate, risk-based regime.

Figures released in Parliament showed that there was one death due to accidental fire in ALL commercial sleeping accommodation in England (hotels, guest houses and B&Bs) in the five years 2002-6. (This death was a result of smoking, and pre-dated the 2007 smoking ban.)

Concern within the domestic tourism industry about the disproportionate enforcement of the RRFSO became strong and widespread. VisitBritain stated it was “very concerned about the way in which some businesses are being dealt with."

The Bed & Breakfast Association took a lead role in lobbying for proportionate enforcement and proper interpretation of the regulations. We met a group of industry leaders, who agreed with our proposal to launch a national campaign. In October 2008 the "Fire Safety SENSE Campaign” ( www.FireSafetySENSE.com ) was launched, which was supported by twelve organisations representing over 460,000 businesses and became the 5th most widely supported business petition on the Downing Street website.

Revised Government Guidance

As a result of all this lobbying, the latest guidance ('Do You Have Paying Guests?'), was produced with the involvement of the Bed and Breakfast Association and other industry bodies, and was published officially by the Government on 18 November 2008, backed up by an official Government Circular (number 60-2008) to the FRAs.

The Fire Safety Minister said: “It is our belief that this [guidance] will help embed a practical, common sense approach to the enforcement of the [RRFSO regulations] by Fire and Rescue Authorities".

After the involvement of tourism leaders in its drafting, 'Do You Have Paying Guests?' is much more helpful to owners of B&Bs and other small premises than previous Government guidance addressing the most common issues. "If your premises are similar to a family home, the fire safety precautions you will need to take are likely to be simpler than those needed for larger premises." "In many cases, you should be able to buy fire safety products for use in small premises from local retailers, such as DIY stores." "What you need will depend on your business and your premises. The law does not require any particular measures to be in place. What it does say is that you must adequately manage the overall risk." "Premises similar to a family home … are likely to need an automatic fire detection system … Grade D LD2 … designed for domestic premises. In the very smallest accommodation … a connected system of detectors with a 10-year battery, or radio interlinked detectors [grade F LD2] may be good enough … You may be able to fit a Grade F system yourself." 'Emergency Lighting' may be unnecessary: "If a fire knocks out the normal inside lighting, you should think about whether any ‘borrowed lighting’, for example from nearby street lamps, would be enough… If not, it may be acceptable, in small premises, to rely on rechargeable torches which come on automatically if the main supply fails." "One [fire] extinguisher on each floor near the stairs and a fire blanket in the kitchen should be enough in most small premises." "Signs are only required where they are needed. In small premises the escape route and the front door are likely to be obvious, so there may not be a need for emergency exit signs." On fire doors, the Guidance is: "Although self-closing devices are a good way to make sure doors are closed, they can impact on the appearance and affect how you use the premises. If you decide these would be unsuitable, ‘in-frame closers’ or rising-butt hinges may be acceptable alternatives. Doors need to be strong enough to hold back smoke and fire long enough to give you time to escape. For small premises, a reasonably solid timber door that fits well into its frame is likely to be good enough."

New Guidance starting to work

There are some encouraging signs that the new Guidance is beginning to change enforcement practice by local FRAs - for instance, Suffolk Fire & Rescue Service wrote to a B&B owner in January 2009 stating: "a new guidance document was issued on 18th November 2008 titled 'Do You Have Paying Guests?'... The impact of this new guidance has led to a review of existing [Enforcement] notices issued under the previous guidance to such premises. In the light of the work [the Suffolk B&B concerned had] already carried out coupled with the reduced standard in the new guidance it is felt that there remains minor deficiencies such that your management approach reduces the risk to a level that does not require any further action from this authority. The existing [Enforcement] notice is to be withdrawn and replaced by a deficiencies notice that can be managed by [the B&B owner], in line with the new government guidance."

What is happening in Scotland?

In Scotland, enforcement action against small B&Bs was put on hold in December 2008. The Head of the Scottish Government's Fire and Rescue Advisory Unit, Brian Fraser, issued a letter to all Chief Fire Officers in Scotland, saying "concerns have been raised with Ministers about the enforcement of fire safety for small bed and breakfast accommodation providers. The concerns raised suggest that … compliance and enforcement … may be resulting in expensive and unnecessary fire safety measures being put in place which are not proportionate to the risks.

"At the recent Ministerial Advisory Group meeting… it was agreed that guidance for this sector would be withdrawn. It was further agreed that a working group, including tourism industry representatives, will be convened to produce new guidance, which will be subject to full consultation… It is therefore recommended that fire and rescue services reschedule their routine audit and enforcement activity in this sector until such time as the revised guidance is available."

Revised Scottish guidance was put out for consultation last November. An independent analysis compared the average cost of compliance under the new guidance at £1,090 per B&B, compared with £15,376 under the previous guidance – a reduction of £14,286 per B&B or £100m across Scotland. These figures would imply a total additional, unnecessary cost burden of £428m across the UK.

Monitoring consistency in England and Wales

As part of our monitoring of the situation, I wrote to the Chief Fire Officers' Association (CFOA) reporting that a B&B owner in County Durham had been told by his fire officer that "we don't work to [‘Do You Have Paying Guests?'] in County Durham".

Iain Cox of the CFOA replied "I did raise the issue with the Fire and Rescue Service concerned at a very senior level … it is clear that this was not a policy matter but rather it was an interpretation of policy by the Enforcing Officer.” The CFOA then acted to “gather those responsible for policy making for the Fire Service in one room” at a seminar in October 2009 for the English and Welsh FRAs, on “consistency, proportionality and the status of guidance”, therefore giving us hope that our sector will not, it seems, be forced to spend £428m unnecessarily after all.

This feature was written exclusively for Accommodation Know-How by David Weston. David Weston is Chief Executive of the Bed & Breakfast Association, the UK trade association for the £2.1bn B&B and guest house sector, and heads the ‘Fire Safety SENSE’ campaign. He co-wrote “How to Start & Run a B&B”, and is a Fellow of the Tourism Society.