Risk Management

The Risk Management Department forms one half of the Service Delivery business stream and consists of the Legislative Fire Safety section and the Risk Management section. The Head of Risk Management and the managers who coordinate the activities of the Legislative Fire Safety team are based at Perth Fire Station. The Risk Management section is located within the Command and Control Centre building at Macalpine Road, Dundee.

Legislative Fire Safety
Our Legislative Fire Safety section strives, through the enforcement of legislation, to prevent and reduce the risk of fires in non domestic property.
Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force on 1 October 2006. This Act replaced more than 100 pieces of outdated legislation and changed our approach from being a prescriptive one towards one based on risk assessment by the occupier. Its primary aim is to ensure the safety of people in the workplace and other non-domestic premises in the event of fire. In addition to giving generic advice, as required under Section 8 of the Fire (Scotland) Act, Legislative Fire Safety Officers have an enforcement role to ensure that individuals responsible for premises coming under the Act are exercising their obligations appropriately.
The Act will eventually apply to almost all types of premises with a few exceptions. To assist the duty holder with their risk assessments, guides will be produced for their assistance. It is anticipated that all the guides will be published by late 2007 and will cover the following areas:
·         Residential Care Premises
·         Offices Shops and Similar Premises
·         Sleeping and Accommodation (Large and Small)
·         Factories and Warehouses
·         Places of assembly and entertainment
·         Hospital Premises
·         Educational Premises
·         Outdoor Events
·         Transport Network
Our Legislative Fire Safety section has three bases covering each of the constituent authorities, Macalpine Road for Dundee, Perth Fire Station for Perth and Kinross and one at Forfar Fire Station covering Angus. Our team also have the responsibility for Fire Investigation at more serious incidents which Tayside Fire and Rescue attend.

Risk Management
The work of the departments responsible for reducing the risks from fires and other emergencies within Tayside is supported by our dedicated Risk Management Section at Macalpine Road complimented by support staff working in the headquarters building at Blackness Road. This is achieved by the application of analytical skills in three core areas; community safety initiatives, operational support and strategic support. The application of these skills underpins our drive to provide a more effective prevention and intervention service to the communities of Tayside.

Community Initiatives
Our modern fire service places prevention of fires and other emergencies firmly at the top of our priority list. Operational firefighters now understand the importance of communicating with the public to make them aware of the risks. To do this effectively they require information and statistics which will highlight to them the sections of the community who are most at risk, e.g. elderly, disabled, children etc. Statistics can also reveal the common causes of incidents and locations which most frequently have fires and other emergencies.

Operational Support
Modern fire and rescue work presents many risks to our crews from fires, explosions, hazardous chemicals to safety devices in crashed cars and many more. Our team ensure that front-line firefighters are provided with the most up-to-date possible operational risk information at incidents. This includes maintaining Tayside Fire and Rescue's risk databases and ensuring that Tactical Plans are carried out on premises that are deemed to be an operational risk. This risk information is easily accessible by firefighters when attending emergency incidents using our Vehicle Mounted Data Systems. This in-cab computer which is fitted to all front-line vehicles allows firefighters attending emergency incidents to access the ‘whole picture of the incident’ by retrieving a suite of information which includes street mapping, safe systems of work, Tactical Plans and Computer Aided Design (CAD) plans of building floor layouts.

Strategic Support
Risk Management provide strategic support to Senior Management in relation to Community Safety Planning and the development of Tayside Fire and Rescues Integrated Risk Management Plan. We use a wide range of data sources and techniques to identify and analyse the potential risks within Tayside, such as:
·      Analysing historical incident data to identify potential risks within Tayside and evaluating how effective community safety initiatives have been at reducing those risks;
·      Compiling Station Risk Profiles, which act as a statistical data source for local fire stations when devising strategies to reduce risk in their communities;
·      Undertaking risk based assessments of Tayside, using the Fire Service Emergency Cover (FSEC) toolkit, which can calculate the societal and financial consequences of potential resource allocation strategies, and
·      Analysing the demographic and lifestyle characteristics of the people of Tayside at postcode and household level to give a clearer picture of where to allocate resources.
These all help to assist the Senior Managers of Tayside Fire and Rescue make informed decisions about how to improve community safety and make more productive use of Tayside Fire and Rescues resources.

For more information about Risk Management please telephone 01382 825295 and ask to speak to the Risk Management section. For more information about Legislative Fire Safety in non domestic property call 01738 622226 and ask to speak to the Legislative Fire Safety Manager for your area.

Risk Management Organisation Chart