Identifying the truth of the matter

There is much to be applauded in the long-awaited publication of the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry Phase 2 Report as stakeholders welcomed the need for systemic culture change. There is more being done than is sometimes recognised.

Whilst the recommendations are sweeping and nothing if not comprehensive – adding to the reference library of 100s of “next steps” from numerous organisations and individuals compiling myriad reports – not least Dame Judith Hackett’s Building a Safer Future: Independent Review of Building Reform and Fire Safety. The danger here of course is that the same thing keep being repeated, albeit in subtly different language.

It could also be said that we’re going over old ground, whether it be the formation of a multi-discipline educational programme at a College of Fire, instituting a public fire research station, or establishing a baseline of fire engineering knowledge. The former I used to think took place at the Fire Service College but have been educated that such an establishment is no longer necessary – what we need now, using that subtle switch in syntax, is a College of Fire – which will of course be entirely different. Except, to date, nobody has been able to explain to me exactly how it will vary.

“The Fire Sector Federation has recognised that reinventing the wheel is exhaustive, distractive, unnecessary and utterly futile”

Equally, somewhat naively, I presumed that we already had a fire research station and establishing a baseline of fire engineering knowledge is the very essence of what the Institution of Fire Engineer is all about.

Encouragingly, the Fire Sector Federation has recognised that reinventing the wheel is exhaustive, distractive, unnecessary and utterly futile, hence developing a Fire Consultation Forum, aiming to ‘streamline fire-related consultations and develop greater alignment across organisations involved in fire safety and building regulation’.

Another anomaly is the complete disregard for the immediate past, most notably the success of reducing deaths and injuries in the home through the community fire safety interventions initiated in the early 2000s. Long gone are the days of 1,000 deaths a year and the subsequent loss and sorrow inflicted on tens of thousands of families. Many readers have been in touch to remind me of content and commentary featured in FIRE magazine that precipitated the ground-breaking campaigning, alongside the substantial contribution to the body of sector knowledge from the Fire Service College and others over the decades.

None of which is to denigrate the significance of the findings, as widely applauded by stakeholders for holding successive governments to account; the impact of deregulation, failures in the construction industry, the council, and regulators with a downright shoddy approach to building regulations. All of which, in fact, were analysed and deconstructed as being significant contributors to the catastrophe – plus the failure of fire safety lobbyists to unite and articulate critical and substantial weaknesses in the system – in the July/August 2017 issue of FIRE magazine. We called for systemic culture change then and we’ve been calling for it ever since.

It doesn’t take seven years to identify the truth when it is readily apparent.

Norman Murray

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