Scottish Health and Safety Revitalizers Forum. In conjunction with the Federation of Small Businesses they are running free short seminars over Scotland in February/March 2003 for SMEs. Please pass message on.

Membership: National Total: 26448 Branch: 764

Corporate – 320; Associate – 248; TechSP – 98

Construction – 190; Public Services – 159; Environmental – 98; Offshore – 47; Healthcare – 39; Fire Risk Management - 20

5.0 BRANCH EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT ADVISOR - Liz Young.

Occupational Nurse Forum: speaker in Glasgow required in early April. Any volunteers please contact Liz.

6.1 PUBLIC SERVICES - Marion Johnstone.

National Symposium 1-3 September 03 details given of the subject to be covered – Procurement from HSE Perspective; Environmental Law; Recycling and Waste Management; Violence and Aggression; HAVS; Access and Work Design; Legal Issues; Latex Allergies; Pest Control. Cost £415 + VAT

6.2 CONSTRUCTION - Roddy McLean

SAFETY Health Awareness day at Ingliston had attracted a large number – 350 plus 150 on waiting list.

6.3 FIRE RISK MANAGEMENT - Dave Sinclair. Nothing to report.

6.4 HEALTHCARE - Martin Scott-Smith. Nothing to report.

6.5 ENVIRONMENT - Max Bancroft. Nothing to report.

6.6 OFFSHORE - Tam Boyd. Nothing to report.

6.7 RAILWAYS - Need a representative

6.8 CONSULTANCY - Derek Cawkwell. Nothing to report.

6.9 SAFETY SCIENCES - Steve Boucher. Nothing to report.

6.10 TELECOMMUNICATIONS – need a representative

7.1 AGM held – very successful. Good attendance (>40). Constitution adopted and Executive Committee elected: Kirsten Paterson – Chair, Dave Devey – Secretary.

7.2 Karen McDonnell now on Branch Executive as District Liaison in succession to Brian Pill who had presented District with wooden gavel for the Chair at the AGM as a parting gift.

8.0 MEMBERS ITEMS

9.1 Presentations of Certificates etc

Dick Morrison

Vick Stewart

Tech SP – Bob Stainton

9.2 Branch AGM: following posts due for election:

Chair, Vice-chair, Secretary, Treasurer, 2 Committee members, 2 Auditors. All current holders eligible for re-election. Nominations to be with Secretary by March meeting in writing. Nomination forms available and downloadable from Branch website.

9.3 The first presentation was one of the short (10 minute) Members presentations by Andy Sharman entitled "Tackling Behavioural Safety". Andy firstly indicated that he worked within the Scottish and Newcastle group and showed an image of "Bacus" the God of Wine. He indicated that he suspected a number of workers were frequently using "beer goggles" invented by Bacus as they had magical properties of making ugly people appear beautiful and worrying for the safety Professional – unsafe conditions appear safe.

Andy then used a number of pictures of accidents (FLT overturned, Artic trailer collapse, FLT falling off loading dock) to demonstrate how he felt the employees were not taking adequate cognizance of safety in their work and how he had utilized the HSE Climate Survey Tool to develop a questionnaire to establish a benchmark of an employees perspective of safety. The questionnaire was used in both a Distribution Region and within a large brewery.

600 questionnaires consisting of 30 statements covering 9 factors and the details from the 60% return were fed into the HSE software tool to provide details which led to a number of conclusions – amongst which were –

• Communications from senior management were not always effective
• Some procedures impractical, sometimes ignored and were not monitored
• Individually the employees feel they contribute positively to H&S
• They are prepared to take risks to – save time, meet peer pressure, financial incentives
• A blame culture may exist

From this is it hoped to put in place a new culture, one which will show commitment from the management, by adequate communication, involvement and teamwork and it is hoped to demonstrate this by monitoring performance and repeating the survey in a years time.

9.4 Mr B Crook, Member, of Kelso has passed on.

The Chairman then introduced the speaker for the main topic as Graham Horsman, who was well versed in Fire safety having worked his way through the ranks of front-line fire fighting prior to going on to the Fire College to teach the subject to fire staff. Graham had then moved on to work for the Home Office within the Fire Prevention legislation team.

Graham then stated he had in total some 40 year experience gained within the Fire Brigades of England and Wales prior to moving into Commerce and Industry as the Global Fire Safety Manager within Cable & Wireless. Since the outsourcing of the H&S department of Cable & Wireless Graham had provided both a Fire Safety Manager’s role within the outsourced Company – Praxis42 and had operated as an Independent Consultant within the specialization of fire safety..

Fire safety legislation in the UK as a whole is still going through a fairly traumatic set of changes and a reform to the main Act is going through Parliament where a full rehash is being considered. Today’s presentation however would not be looking in detail at the actual Fire Safety Legislation but would instead be looking more into the links to Scottish Standards and how they are, or may be interpreted.

The basic form of interpretation is however one of the major issues with Fire Prevention Officers from the Fire Brigade. Members of the Brigade often look on the Fire Prevention officer as fitting into one of three categories –

• Those in the Fire Prevention Office in order to complete a section on their personal development career profile – He generally fall back on the letter of the law and his knowledge is based on what he learned at the "College of Knowledge" which is the term often used to describe the Fire College at Morton on the Marsh.
• The "lame/sick/weary" being those individuals who are in line for retirement on a variety of grounds, often because they have become permanently unfit for 3 months, and they are not interested in the task but are just filling in time.
• Then there is the Career FPO – he "wants" to be there and it is at that stage you will start to see an interpretation of what "is reasonable" rather than just following the letter of the law. He will look to what are some of the LIFE safety issues from the fire legislation, rather than just following the Building Code for building fire safety and this was what Graham intended to use as the basis for his presentation.

The primary act is the Fire Precautions Act 1971 (frequently termed as the Principle Act) under which have been created two orders dealing with the actual requirements for fire safety within Hotels & Boarding houses and the second one on Factories, Shops & Railway Premises. The bulk of the legislation and the related orders following on from a disaster of some form, such that these orders were the result of a fire at the Rose & Crown public house where 8 people died, the fire at Bradford’s valley parade football ground and then the Kings Cross fire.

Then we started to see the influence of the EC directives and since then we have seen the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations and the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations which has made a change of emphasis where the fire authority define safety of buildings & certification, to shift the onus from the owner/landlord over to the employer. This placing of the duty on the employer is likely to be extended further still in the future.

Building standards in Scotland are defined within the Building Standards (Scotland) Regulations of 1990, which have been amended in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999 and the sixth amendment laid before the Scottish Parliament 24/9/2001 came into force on the 4/3/2002 (but allowed work under warrants applied for before then to be done under the fifth amendment. Will we be looking to a seventh amendment or a new act? The Building (Scotland) Bill laid before Parliament 18^th September 2002

Local authorities administer building control in Scotland enforcing regulations made by Scottish Ministers subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament.

Building control applies to – Construction, Alteration, Extension, Demolition, or and change of use which attract additional or more onerous requirements under the regulations.

It is an offence for anyone to carry out building works without a warrant fro the local authority. It is the responsibility of the building owner to apply for and obtain the building warrant. A building warrant is the legal permission to commence work. Where it is impractical or unreasonable to meet the requirements you can apply for a relaxation. A warrant is valid for three years from the date it is issued, but this period can be extended if a request is made in that period.

Before a building can be occupied it is necessary to obtain from the local authority a certificate of completion. This provide formal confirmation that the building work has been carried out in accordance with the building standards regulations.

Technical Standards relative to fire safety of buildings are –

• Part D – Structural Fire Precautions (Regulations 12)
• Part E – Means of escape from fire, facilities for fire fighting, means of warning of fire (Regulation 13)

Technical standards refer to British Standards and there are currently 104 British Standards relating to Fire – Graham then asked the members if they knew of two BS’s = 4970 & 8300

• 4970 – is the "hot nut test" – to verify carpet in an escape route will not support fire
• 8300 – relates to the access/egress arrangements for disabled persons

The basic intention of the requirements for means of escape is that everyone within a building may reach either a place of safety (outside) or, in certain circumstances, a protected zone within a reasonable travel distance

A building must be planned so that –

Suitable provision must be made for access to the outside of a building

a for fire-fighting and rescue vehicles from a public road.

b a water supply installation must be available and, in the case of high buildings,

c suitable provision must be made for fire-fighting within the building.

Minimum number of exits in relation to occupancy capacity

Not more than 60 persons at least 1 exit

61 – 600 persons a minimum of 2 exits

More than 600 persons a minimum of 3 exits

Travel distances for different groups – with one or more exits

Where travel distance includes an unenclosed staircase the travel distance is measured along the pitch of the nosings including any landings and where two exits are available the enclosed angle between them must be a minimum of 45 degrees

Fire doors must:

• be easily opened without the use of a key
• be self closing
• be suitably marked on both sides

Where a corridor forms part of an escape route and escape is available in two directions and the corridor is more than 12m long the corridor must be sub-divided for smoke control purposes.

Any part of an escape route must have:
a) artificial lighting provided from a protected circuit; or
b) emergency lighting

Every workplace must be provided with means for detecting smoke and means for raising the alarm

Whilst a number of the basic requirements for fire safety in Scotland are based on the related British Standards, the regulations from the Building Standards (Scotland) Regulations frequently allow an increased level of interpretation and common sense, but there are some areas of this same degree of common sense within the Fire Regulations throughout the UK. The requirements for means of fire detection and fire warning being examples of this level of sensibility – Graham asked the members if they thought that someone "sniffing smoke" and then shaking a school bell or shouting "fire" would be sufficient to meet the regulations = it is. This sort of interpretation was aimed at ensuring the "corner shop" could still operate legally.

There then followed a very lively and varied question and answer session which the Chair had to call to a halt as time had run out.

11.1 BRANCH MEETING

Thursday: 13 March: Occupational Health - Hot topics familiarisation workshop : skin, lung function tests, audiometry. Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Service. Members will be asked to chose two workshops out of three on arrival. Branch business will be at a minimum due to time constraints.

11.2 DISTRICT MEETING -

Thursday 3^rd April 2003 Happy, Healthy and Here: a proactive partnership approach to Health at Work Scottish Power

12.0 CLOSURE

Richard closed the meeting and encouraged members to stay and chat especially new ones.

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