Fire safety guidance - existing high rise domestic buildings and specialised housing and similar premises: impact and effectiveness

1. Introduction

Progressive Partnership was commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake research to understand the impact and effectiveness of the Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Existing High Rise Domestic Buildings and the Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Existing Specialised Housing and Similar Premises. The research approach included qualitative research in the form of depth interviews with housing providers, care providers, representative organisations and unpaid carers; and an online survey targeted at housing and care providers. The remainder of this chapter describes the background and context to the research (section 1.1), outlines the research aims and objectives (section 1.2) and explains how the report is structured (section 1.3).

1.1 Background and policy context

Following the Grenfell tragedy in 2017, the Scottish Government acted quickly to ensure that Scottish buildings were safe. To this end, a Scottish Government Ministerial Working Group on Building and Fire Safety (MWG) was established in June 2017 to oversee a review of building and fire safety regulatory frameworks.

The MWG's review established a fire safety regime for high-rise buildings (those over 18m) in Scotland. One of the review recommendations was a single source for fire safety guidance and the Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Existing High Rise Domestic Buildings was published in 2019. It provides practical fire safety advice on how to prevent fires and reduce the risks from fires. It does not introduce any new statutory requirements but brings together best practice in a single guidance document.

The guidance is for those responsible for fire safety in high rise domestic buildings. This includes owners, managers, property factors, property advisors and landlords, managing agents, enforcing authorities and those assessing fire risk in high rise domestic buildings. The guidance is not specifically for residents, although it may be of interest, and Fire Safety Law does not generally apply to their individual dwellings. The aim of the guidance is to reduce the risk to life from fire: the focus is therefore on life safety rather than the protection of property, in line with fire safery law.

The review also recommended that limited, easily accessible, informative, fire safety guidance aimed at those responsible for managing specialised housing and similar premises was available. It highlighted that such guidance was needed, given a disproportionate number of fire deaths and injuries involve older people or others with recognisable "contributory factors", including physical, cognitive and mental health issues. As this falls outwith the high-rise remit, separate Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Existing Specialised Housing to address these matters was produced.

This guidance aims to strengthen fire safety for people who receive care or support by providing advice on how to prevent fires and reduce the risk from fires. This guidance applies to a broad range of parties, including housing and care providers; commissioners of care; building owners and factors; and family and friends. The guidance helps them to manage fire safety effectively and to undertake fire safety risk assessments; not only of the premises, but also person-centred assessments of individuals who are at greater risk from fire. Some will have well established and effective systems in place to manage fire safety but this may not be the case across the whole sector. This guidance is concerned, therefore, with both person-centred fire risk assessment and premises-based fire risk assessment.

1.2 Research aims and objectives

The overall aim of the research was to determine whether the Guidance in its current form is used by those it is intended for; is helpful; and what may be needed to strengthen it.

High Rise Buildings

There are 774 high-rise domestic buildings in Scotland that are covered by the new fire safety guidance. These buildings are owned and managed by local authorities, registered social landlords and private owners. The guidance targets those responsible for safety in high rise domestic buildings and asks them to take a stronger greater, voluntary role in ensuring the fire safety of the buildings than is currently required under fire safety legislation.

The key objectives of this stage of the research were to:

measure awareness of the guidance and establish the extent to which it is being used;

explore how the guidance is being used, and its effectiveness in supporting implementation of fire safety measures/procedures; and

determine improvements that could be made to the guidance, in terms of format, delivery, content and more generally to strengthen the effectiveness of the fire safety support it provides.

Specialised housing

This guidance was developed because older people and those with physical, sensory or mental support needs are at increased risk from injury or death from fire. The guidance is designed to support owners, managers and staff in sheltered housing, extra care housing, supported housing and small care homes (akin to supported housing) to minimise fire risk. The guidance is also aimed at individuals who provide care to people in 'general needs' housing, such as friends, families and in-home carers.

The key objectives of this stage of the research were to:

measure awareness of the guidance and establish the extent to which it is being used;

explore how the guidance is being used, and its effectiveness in supporting implementation of fire safety measures/procedures; and

determine improvements that could be made to the guidance, in terms of format, delivery, content and more generally to strengthen the effectiveness of the fire safety support it provides.

1.3 Structure of this report

This research report is structured as follows:

Chapter 2 outlines the method adopted in the research project, including a summary description of the qualitative and quantitative elements

Chapters 3 to 6 report on the main research findings from the evaluation of the guidance for existing high rise domestic buildings and specialised housing, including an overview of key points from each chapter

Chapter 7 details the conclusions

Appendices contain a note of the detailed issues that were raised with respect to the guidance on specialised housing; and the research instruments used for the research: case studies of the unpaid carers who participated in the research;the topic guides used for depth discussions and the online survey questionnaire.