The Housing and Fire Safety Advisory Panel met to receive a wide-ranging update on fire safety, gas, asbestos, water and electrical safety in the borough's social housing stock. The meeting also considered a report on progress in implementing the Council's Fire and Building Safety Charter.

The most significant item on the agenda was an update on how the council is complying with its statutory duties in regard to fire, gas, asbestos, water and electrical safety. This included the news that all of the high risk fire actions arising from Fire Risk Assessments had been completed. The report also included an update on the work that has been done on water safety, where the council has been focussing on ensuring that it has up to date risk assessments.

Compliance with statutory duties

The report pack for the meeting contained a detailed breakdown of the work the council had scheduled in order to meet its statutory duties for electrical, gas, water and asbestos safety, and it also reported on how these duties relate to the council's commitments in its Fire and Building Safety Charter. The report identified a number of areas where performance was not meeting the council's targets, in particular in relation to lift safety and water servicing. In particular, the document noted that:

The Council’s insurer, Zurich, carries out statutory “LOLER” inspections which involves each lift being inspected at 6 months and annually to make sure they are compliant, and have insurance is in place.

The report set out the progress the council had made toward completing all of the outstanding actions arising from Fire Risk Assessments, and reported that no high risk actions were outstanding. In total, more than 8,000 actions were outstanding, and the council has agreed a target with the Regulator of Social Housing to have no outstanding actions by December 2025.

This was the first meeting of the Housing and Fire Safety Advisory Panel since the publication of the final report of the Grenfell Inquiry, and the meeting received an update from officers on the report.

Fire and Building Safety Charter

The Panel received its third annual report on how it has been performing against the commitments it made in its Fire and Building Safety Charter. The charter contains five commitments that the council has made to residents to improve fire safety and building safety in its housing stock.

The report acknowledged that access to properties remains a challenge, particularly in street properties.

Access to homes, particularly, street properties, remains an ongoing challenge.

and committed the council to working with residents to provide more flexible appointments for safety checks.

BS9997 Fire Risk Management Audit

The meeting received a report on the outcome of an independent audit of the council's fire safety management arrangements that was carried out against the BSI standard BS9997, which sets out a framework for managing fire safety.

BS9997 is the British Standards Institute criteria set for the audit and certification of enhanced fire safety management systems. It is designed to improve accountability and help create an audit trail, ensuring that the management of all stages of fire risk management (FRM) can be tracked through robust change control processes.

The report outlined four 'non-conformities' with the standard:

1. That the council has no specific route for capturing the views of disabled people on fire safety
2. That the council's existing fire policy does not cover buildings that have a mix of residential and non-residential uses
3. That the council's fire policy does not adequately describe the roles and responsibilities of all the parts of the council that have a role in fire safety
4. That the council's policy does not specify how it will assure itself of the competence of its staff or contractors

The report proposed a number of actions that the council will take to address these non-conformities, including a commitment to update the council's fire safety policy.

Work Programme

The meeting also considered its work programme for the remainder of the year, which included a commitment to discuss a report on leaseholder property access in January 2025.