Key Facts

• The National Fire Chiefs Council and other organisations are scheduled to give oral evidence.
• Witness sessions will take place until no later than 1.00pm on Thursday 25 June.
• The committee will deliberate in private before admitting witnesses.
• The Building Act 1984 and Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 are mentioned as relevant legislation.
• There are around 400 third-party registered fire risk assessors and potentially 400 APQC independent assessors.
• A differentiated approach to training based on building complexity is proposed.
• The issue of defining common parts is crucial for the success of the Fire Safety Bill.
• External wall systems, including insulation and fixing methods, have been debated since August 2016.
• Property owners or managers will be held responsible for ensuring compliance with fire safety regulations.
• James Carpenter is head of fire safety at L&Q, a large housing provider managing over 110,000 homes.
• Dennis Davis is executive officer of the Fire Sector Federation, an organisation working to improve public fire safety competency.
• The witnesses aim to ensure amendments to the Bill are realistic and achievable for building managers and residents.
• The built environment is complex, ranging from single-storey dwellings to multifunctional developments.
• Access for maintenance and inspections in residential buildings with leaseholders is a significant challenge due to lack of legal mandates.
• There are discussions about transferring ownership rights through legislation to ensure proper fire safety compliance.
• L&Q has 191 buildings over 18 metres with an estimated £450 million cost to resolve.
• The G15 group of housing providers in London has over 1,100 buildings with an estimated cost of up to £6.8 billion.
• EWS1 forms have created issues by stopping the sale or movement of properties due to delays and unclear regulations.
• James Carpenter highlights over 100,000 homes with challenges related to tenant cooperation for fire safety improvements.
• Dennis Davis notes that there could be around 50,000 people calling themselves risk assessors but varying levels of qualification and training among them.
• The Committee is convened until 1 pm.
• Adrian Dobson is the executive director for professional services at RIBA.
• Matt Wrack represents the Fire Brigades Union as general secretary since 2005.
• There has been a 19% reduction in watch managers, 23% in station managers, and 20% overall staff reduction from 2011 to 2020.
• Firefighter training courses have been reduced from 16 weeks to less than 10 weeks over the past two decades.
• Specialist fire safety teams have seen cuts of up to 50% over the last decade.
• The Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council was abolished in 2004 and has not been replaced.
• The Bill is seen as clarifying but does not address issues such as the breakdown of compartmentation in buildings.
• Firefighters have concerns about evacuation policies that may take years to review, while they need immediate strategies.
• There is a call for better regulation of fire risk assessors and ensuring qualified individuals are conducting assessments.
• The G15 needs to spend £6.8 billion on fire safety modifications.
• The Fire Safety Bill addresses issues of cladding and insulation materials.
• Witnesses have highlighted the need for a comprehensive review of building regulations and industry competence requirements.
• There is concern over the scale of fire door defects, with 65% of inspected doors found to be wrong in some way.