by Editor » June 18th, 2010, 7:35 am
As a fire safety professional, all I can have is a view as a potential expert witness, my view for what it is worth is as follows. I feel it is appropriate to split the organisation into assessment areas roughly in line with managerial or supervisor responsibility. This may well coincide with compartmentation, department or floor or process area. In my opinion there would need to be at least one person that is in control of the management of health safety and welfare within each assessment area of the organisation, this may be just a reporting roll or a coordinating roll but that person needs to be identified and all other staff should be aware that the roll has organisation and responsibility for collective protection. It is obvious that Managers and Supervisors are ultimately responsible in the eyes of the law for the personnel that they manage and therefore by default, they wear the mantra "Fire Warden...Fire Marshall". However, it is therefore quite reasonable for him to want to delegate some actions of collective protection to other staff members. The law requires that these tasks cannot be allocated to people that do not have competence.....another word for lawyers to argue about and judges to define, a reasonable view would be to ensure adequate and appropriate training is given to the extent of purpose, duties and responsibilities.
Having just read a piece about human behaviour, reflex and intuitive reaction, the expert view is that we do not all instinctively make good decisions in emergencies. It is vital to have training, coaching procedure and practice.
I’m finished with the sermon and I hope it helps but I have to declare that I do make a living out of selling fire safety training communication and training material.
