30 Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs) shoved in a drawer does not make you compliant

I have spent the bulk of my working life trying to make a difference for housing providers with issues big and small. Be it staff, asset, process, policy, or financial performance I keep telling myself I’ve seen it all. Yet time and time again, the sector manages to surprise me and take me on another journey into the unbelievable.

I decided I wanted to re-live a few old memories and to tell others about my time in compliance and in particular how to ensure all staff understand the difference between barely, nearly, and totally compliant.

Many moons ago I was working for a client in the role of Head of Responsive Repairs. With the departure of the Asset Manager, I was asked to pick up the role whilst a new, full-time replacement could be found. As you do when your name goes on the board report, I did my “tell me, show me” round up of all things compliant and, having sampled a few water hygiene reports, the asbestos register, electrical and gas certificates, I was pleased to note that everything looked good.

Of course, good is not always enough! When I asked the surveyor responsible for the Fire Risk Assessments for a copy of the reports and his programme of works I discovered that our apparent compliance was based solely on the holding of a report on each property. The recommended works were neither ordered nor programmed, with some reports having Cat 1 failures and requiring immediate action.

The problem in this case was a lack of understanding within the compliance team of what it took to be compliant. The outgoing manager was outgoing for “lack-of-detail reasons” and he held the position of arbiter of quality. Additionally, the surveyor in charge had been given the task of collecting reports without a budget allocated for works, so he simply collected the reports and stuffed them in his desk drawer.

The Management and Board were happy to know that the programme of assessments was being met but had no idea that the list of works that were needed were sat in a drawer. The external FRA providers role was fulfilled by simply providing the report and recommendations. They had no desire or need to chase up the actions. When they did their next assessment of the building they assumed that the faults were all new.

What was needed back then was a system which not only held the FRA as a PDF but collected the failings in an auditable format which reported on performance by category at the touch of a button. What we had was paper files on our desks or at best rudimentary spreadsheets to deal with the issue, and frankly it was all down to the quality of the manager.

Thank the stars that today we have a single platform system which works.