You may well have read of the recent embarrassment for the government when the very office which is responsible for fire safety failed its own inspection.  The Communities and Local Government building, Eland House, was served with an enforcement notice for a string of failings which were summarised as a lack of understanding of the terms ‘competence’ and ‘responsible persons’ when it came to fire safety in its premises. This came after the 2009 fire at the Fire Service College in Gloucestershire resulting in over £1 million of damage where no fire risk assessment had been completed.

To cap this, the latest news is that another four premises have also failed their inspections with more failures expected to follow suit.  This is four years after the introduction of the Fire Safety Reform Order and begs the question does the government takes its own regulations seriously.  A source of malcontent amongst those of us working outside the public sector is the immunity given to all crown premises and all crown employees when the fines imposed for the private sector can be alarmingly high.  You only need to go back a few months to see the case against retail giant New Look ending with an eye watering £400,000 (reported in our December News Release).

Perhaps it’s time for the public servants to enjoy the same level of accountability as the rest of us, when the bodies responsible for the enforcement of the regulations fail to put their own house in order something needs and to done and as the old adage says “there is no change in behaviour without consequence”.