fig leaves

The newsletter of the Fire Information Group UK (FIG UK)

www.figuk.org.uk

No. 64
September 2022

Wishing Everyone a very Happy, Healthy Autumn 2022

Edited by Sheila Pantry, OBE
Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd
www.sheilapantry.com
www.oshworld.com
www.oshupdate.com
sp@sheilapantry.com

This latest edition of fig leaves contains:

• News from around the World
• Dairy of Events
• Minutes of FIG UK Meeting held online 18 August 2022
• Date of Next Meeting

News from around the World

FBU raises shortage fears as wildfires on the horizon again

The Fire Brigades Union has warned that the fire service continues to be understaffed and needs huge investment.

The heatwave in July 2022 saw firefighters fighting wildfires across the country, including in Wennington, East London, where two rows of terraced houses were destroyed.

https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2022/08/09/fbu-raises-shortage-fears-wildfires-horizon-again

Fire Brigades Union Record of Decisions

Record of decisions from the 2022 Fire Brigades Union annual conference.

https://www.fbu.org.uk/publications/record-decisions-2022

Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures UK (CROSS-UK) Newsletter 65, June 2022

It is now over five years since the fire at Grenfell Tower took 72 lives. The on-going Public Inquiry has revealed failings which created the situation where a fire developed and spread through the tower. Dame Judith Hackitt identified key issues that need to be addressed to help prevent a similar failure occurring in the future, including the expansion of CROSS, to facilitate the sharing of learning and to foster a better safety culture.

The Building Safety Act, part of the legislative response to Hackitt’s recommendations, received Royal assent on the 28th of April 2022. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR), previously operating in shadow form, will now enforce the new measures introduced by the Act for the safety and standards of all buildings. The BSR will also establish a new regulatory framework for all higher-risk buildings that are in scope. Not all parts of the Act will come into force immediately and the government has published a transition plan and associated timeline.

Higher-risk buildings (HRBs), currently in scope, are defined as all buildings, existing and new, with 7 or more storeys or that are more than 18 metres from ground level to the floor surface of the building’s top-storey and contain 2 or more residential units. It also applies to all care homes and hospitals meeting the same height threshold during design and construction. There is the ability for Government to extend the scope to other buildings.

https://www.cross-safety.org/uk/news-and-events/cross-uk-newsletter-65-0

CROSS-UK Safety Report: Concerns over robustness of some 20 year old buildings

A correspondent is concerned about the robustness of several two-storey buildings with which their design team were involved in the early 2000s. It was a stressful time with a high workload and there was pressure on the design team, some of whose members were inexperienced.

The structures generally had masonry support walls and precast floors. The architects kept pushing for thin walls, small support piers, and short or no buttressing returns. There was resistance to using steelwork over its cost. Furthermore, the architects sometimes specified floor insulation between the precast floor and the screed. This negated any membrane action the floor topping/screed could have provided.

A large internal review resulted in remedial work to a number of the buildings. However, the dreadful collapse in Miami in June 2021 of a much larger building, has reawakened the correspondent’s recurring concerns as to whether they had not done enough at the time.

The correspondent says emphasis should be placed on:

• not succumbing to cost and time pressures
• having a very thorough checking regime
• not always trusting people to follow instructions

Full report: https://www.cross-safety.org/uk/safety-information/cross-safety-report/concerns-over-robustness-some-20-year-old-buildings-1051

The OSHWORLD Diary of Events

The OSHWORLD Diary of Events is intended as a guide to the wide range of Health, Safety, Fire, Chemical, Environment events, conferences, seminars, training courses and other related activities worldwide. It is updated during the first week of the month, and includes validated Internet links to further information. If you cannot attend these events the organisers are usually willing to let you have papers and other information, if you contact them.

5-9 September 2022 – The Third International Conference on Occupational Radiation Protection: Strengthening Radiation Protection of Workers – Twenty Year of Progress and the Way Forward
Geneva, Switzerland
Contact: https://www.iaea.org/events/occupational-radiation-protection-2022

7 September 2022 – International Bio-Agent Day 2022: Biological agents at work – lessons learned from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
Berlin, Germany
Contact: https://www.baua.de/EN/Service/Events/Calendar/09.07-Bio-Agent-Day.html

19 September 2022 – Accident investigation Training Course
Online
Contact: RoSPA | https://www.rospa.com/shop/products/accident-investigation-training

19-20 September 2022 – 4th World Nanotechnology Summit (Worldnano-2022)
Miami, Florida, USA
Contact: https://www.phronesisonline.com/nano-technology-summit

19-20 September 2022 – Audit and Reviewing Health and Safety Systems: Training Course
Online
Contact: RoSPA | https://www.rospa.com/shop/products/audit-and-reviewing-health-and-safety-systems

21 September 2022 – Electric vehicles and Risks to First Responders, by Paul Christensen, Newcastle University
Online
Contact: https://www.fabig.com/events/lunchtime-webinar-electric-vehicles-and-risks-to-first-responders-paul-christensen-newcastle-university

21-22 September 2022 - The Emergency Services Show 2022
NEC Birmingham, UK
Contact: https://www.emergencyuk.com

22-23 September 2022 – International Conference on Fire Safety Science and Technology (ICFSST)
London, UK
Contact: https://waset.org/fire-safety-science-and-technology-conference-in-september-2022-in-london

25-28 September 2022 – Working on Safety 2022: 11th International Conference
Olhão, Portugal
Contact: https://wos2022.net/

25-29 September 2022 – From Exposure to Human Health: New Developments and Challenges in a Changing Environment
Lisbon, Portugal
Contact: https://intlexposurescience.org/ises-2022-annual-meeting

25-30 September 2022 – European Microwave Week
Milan, Italy
Contact: https://www.eumweek.com

26-30 September 2022 – Technical meeting on the protection of whistle-blowers in the public service sector
Geneva, Switzerland
Contact: https://www.ilo.org/sector/activities/sectoral-meetings/WCMS_824077/lang--en/index.htm

28-29 September 2022 – Safety, Health and Wellbeing LIVE (SHW Live)
Farnborough International, UK
Contact: https://www.safetyhealthwellbeing.live/farnborough-international

Minutes of FIG UK Meeting held online 18 August 2022, 11.00 am – 12.50 pm

Welcome and chair – Sheila Pantry OBE

1. Attendees

Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd – Sheila Pantry

Burgoynes – Sally Walsh

IFC – Tony Pearson

West Midlands FRS – Julie Farruggia

2. Apologies

Adair Lewis Fire Safety Management – Adair Lewis

Alyson Warner

Arup – Richard Waites, Molly Atkins

Boat Safety Scheme – Dave Washer

Bureau Veritas – Liane Crouch, Jeff Ansell

FireQual – Steve Skarratt

FPA – Ian Abley

John Galvin

LFB – Apollo Gerolymbos, Jo Fox

Penny Morgan

Swiftclean – Gary Nicholls, Martin Hembling

UKAFI – Emma Watson, James Acott

University of Greenwich – Enda Rooney

3. Matters Arising

Nothing from previous online meeting

4. Treasurer’s Report – Sally Walsh

By agreement of the members, the bank account was closed in April 2022, with the last remaining funds £748.82 being transferred to Sheila Pantry for the Seminar 2022 (now cancelled – See Seminar News below). The last four years of accounts are ready for auditing. This brings to an end Sally’s role as Treasurer for FIG UK, pending the auditing. She will, however, continue as a volunteer, alongside Sheila to assist in the running of the group. Many thanks to Sally for her tenacity and enthusiasm.

5. Change of Auditor

Special thanks to Alyson Warner for doing the auditing for us in past years!

Dave Washer of Boat Safety Scheme was nominated, and agreed (Thanks Dave!) to replace Alyson Warner as Auditor. Dave is already treasurer for a Club so has some experience in this area.

Dave Washer’s appointment is proposed by Steve Skarratt (by email), and seconded by Dave Wales (by email) (Thanks Steve and Dave).

6. Important news – 2022 FIG UK Seminar News – from Sheila Pantry OBE

We have had to cancel the proposed 19 October 2022 FIG UK Seminar due lack of people support needed to make it worthwhile. It should have been held at the Bedford Hotel across from the Imperial Hotel on Southampton Row, London where we have previously held our Conferences.

See https://www.figuk.org.uk for details of the previous seminar programmes and papers. There is still a lot of really useful good information in these seminars.

7. Disposal of the remaining FIG UK funds

The following were ruled out at the meeting (or by email feedback from non-attendees) as too complex in the current circumstances (including the fact that the bank account is now closed):

• A scholarship
• Subsidised conference fees
• Paid for seminar

A donation to charity was decided upon as the best route to go.

The following two organisations were suggested:

• https://www.fire-aid.org
• https://www.firefighterscharity.org.uk

Please send your vote for which one to Sheila by 14 October 2022, email: sp@sheilapantry.com or phone 01909 771024.

8. Dissolution of the Old Constitution

The Constitution April 2003 https://www.figuk.org.uk/constitution.html is now formally dissolved by quorum of meeting attendees.

9. New Constitution

The changes / new constitution (objectives and rules of the group) as proposed are accepted with no opposition and will be added to FIG UK website https://www.figuk.org.uk

Accepted, with thanks, by:

• Liane Crouch (via email)
• Steve Skarratt (via email)
• David Lane (via email)
• Sheila Pantry OBE
• Sally Walsh
• Julie Farruggia
• Tony Pearson

This puts us on a much more informal footing…. Anyone is very welcome to volunteer to assist in the running of the group.

10. FIG UK newsletter

Sheila will have this newsletter uploaded to the FIG UK website now.

Sheila will continue to host, fund and update our https://www.figuk.org.uk website and send out news emails to members.

She welcomes any of your news, notice of new publications and events details at all times.

11. OSH UPDATE + FIRE

Sheila is happy for members to ask for free of charge trials of the long standing, (OVER 30 YEARS) ever growing OSH UPDATE + FIRE COLLECTION of 26 databases containing 1.2 million records and full text DOCUMENTS.

Used by subscribers from across the world for many years. Why not ask for a trial?

See www.oshupdate.com

Very user friendly price subscription on offer.

12. Volunteers

Sheila is happy to continue to run the website, updated the directory and send out newsletters. Please send Sheila any news or articles on happenings in your organisation, or updates to the website.

Sally will assist with gathering information re the membership list and checking with everyone once a year re mailing lists etc. But please note Member obligations in the new rules – i.e. please check your info and keep us up to date on any changes / preferences.

13. New Members

Sheila will double check to ensure Jim Glockling (ex FPA) wishes officially to be a member.

Steve Skarratt is now at FireQual and wishes to be a member – his details will be added to the directory. See News from Steve.

Assuming Jim is also joining us, above two proposed by Sally Walsh and seconded by Sheila Pantry (as per the new group rules!)

As the group is now fee-free please publicise to fire and fire information contacts and encourage people to come forward to join. (Ask them to email Sheila Pantry or Sally Walsh)

14. WhatsApp Group

This may be an easy way for people to share news, or discuss things. Sally will email all about this separately.

15. Round Table and News

1. From Steve Skarratt

   The FSC made my role redundant from June 10th, however Firequal who are a relatively new “fire sector only” awarding organisation set up by BAFE (but not technically part of BAFE for legal reasons) – so I am still on site, just not working for Capita anymore. I would like to remain part of FIG UK.

   Steve Skarratt, Qualifications Manager, FireQual

   https://www.firequal.com (Steve’s contact details will be in the directory soon)

2. From Jim Glockling

   I am due to finish at the FPA on 30th June 2022 with a view to returning to academic and consultancy roles.

   www.glockling.co.uk

   (Jim’s contact details will be in directory soon)

3. From Sally Walsh

   A new Approved Document J has just been released.

   https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/combustion-appliances-and-fuel-storage-systems-approved-document-j

   The Merged Approved Documents is not yet updated, however.

   https://www.gov.uk/guidance/building-regulations-and-approved-documents-index#approved-documents

4. From Ian Abley (re Conferences)

   The FPA Fire Conference is on 18 October 2022 https://www.thefpa.co.uk/events/our-events/fire-conference-2022

   The following day RISCAuthority has organised a London Seminar 2022 at Aviva for the insurance sector members, on 19 October 2022, with an expected online attendance.
   https://www.riscauthority.co.uk/events/seminars/riscauthority-london-seminar-2022

5. From Julie Farruggia

   Julie has been very busy and has completed her MA with Distinction and is in line for a special award. Congratulations Julie.

   NB separate writeup from Julie following these notes.

6. Discussions

   • Discussion about “fireproof” document bags.
   • Discussion about training and quality control.
   • Discussion about availability of digital and physical information sources.

Next Meeting

Will be 11.00 am – 1.00 pm, 16 November 2022 – Sally and Sheila will report back on disposal of remaining funds and auditing.