The industry is divided over whether the fire safety guidance offers a realistic response to the building safety crisis
Alongside cards and carols, for some building safety specialists Christmas brought a social media snowstorm over an obscure risk assessment form.
On Christmas Eve, the BBC published an interview with Institute of Construction Management president David Jones, in which he criticised fire risk assessment guidance document PAS 9980 for “allowing developers to game the system”.
Jones’ remarks sparked heated debate, with commentators divided over whether the guidance offers a realistic response to the building safety crisis.
“When buildings are remediated to PAS 9980, they’re not necessarily fixed properly”
Mark London, Devonshires
First published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in January 2022, PAS 9980 quantifies the fire risk of an external wall and is used to determine whether, and to what extent, existing buildings require remediation.
The BSI has just finished consulting on an updated version, due for publication this summer.
The guidance is currently voluntary, although a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Wall construction (FRAEW) using PAS 9980 methodology is required to apply for certain government remediation funding.
This voluntary status is set to change, though, with a new law aimed at speeding up the pace of removing unsafe cladding.
Although the draft Remediation Bill has yet to emerge, the government has indicated it will legally mandate a FRAEW using PAS 9980 methodology on all remediation projects, in order to “reduce conflicting advice, clarify the work required and help remediation start sooner”.
But some have warned that, given the flaws with PAS 9980, that would be a mistake. Mark London, senior partner at law firm Devonshires, said the government is operating under the delusion that PAS “is a singular thing that everyone can agree on and the outcome will always be the same – that’s not the case”.
On disputes where parties have agreed to use PAS 9980 to define the scope of remediation, a building owner and contractor often produce conflicting assessments for the same building, he said.
In the eyes of the law, PAS 9980 currently plays second fiddle to agreed contractual obligations or other building safety laws. London said statutory status for the standard could create new legal headaches for the courts.
A tolerable risk?
In addition, buildings meeting PAS 9980 standards can remain vulnerable to rapid fire spread. Stephanie Barwise KC, a barrister at Atkin Chambers,argues that using PAS 9980 to identify whether a building needs remediating places too much value on what the assessor considers ‘tolerable’ – a subjective judgment on whether a fire risk is worth the effort of removing – rather than objective safety. “A tolerable risk outcome simply means ‘too expensive to fix, so live with it’,” she said.
London agrees. “The controversy seems to be around the realisation that when buildings are remediated to PAS 9980, they’re not necessarily fixed properly,” he said. “We have to start from the position that PAS 9980 is a way of rubber-stamping buildings that otherwise fail to meet the requirements of the building regulations.”
Barwise, who represented victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in the public inquiry, said that current PAS methodology could accept combustible materials on properties with a stay-put policy; cladding systems that have not been adequately tested for fire performance; and fire spread to multiple floors within half an hour.
Jones is also worried that PAS 9980 places too much of an onus on the competence of fire risk assessors, which he pointed out is an unregulated profession. “This is crystal ball stuff, it’s not based on any science at all” he told Construction News. “Even [with] a properly done form, almost the same sort of [cladding] specification that was on Grenfell could be tolerably allowed.”
Not everyone agrees with Jones’ prognosis. “We now know there are thousands of buildings with potentially unsafe cladding and it’s not viable to knock down every building and start again,” said George Edwardes, technical director at the Fire Protection Association (FPA). “The PAS aims to help identify efficient forms of remediation that will make an unsafe building safe.”
The wider use of PAS 9980 could also increase costs for building owners, some believe. This is because the standard’s conception of risk, based on life safety, differs from that of insurers, which focuses on damage to property.
If a PAS 9980 assessment permitted an existing cladding system that accelerated fire spread across the facade of a building but slowly enough for residents to escape, the cost of remediation may be avoided.
But occupants would likely face inflated insurance premiums and depressed property values. “A fire which spreads to five floors is going to cost significantly more to repair than a fire which is contained to one floor,” Edwardes explained.
The FPA said it is working with insurers on a supplementary version of PAS 9980 in an attempt to address this conundrum.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was contacted for comment.
Statement on PAS 9980 by the BSI
The code of practice for fire risk appraisal and assessment of external wall construction and cladding of existing blocks of flats (PAS 9980) will provide recommendations on how to determine whether or not buildings require a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls (FRAEW); and how to undertake an FRAEW of an existing block of flats.
It covers FRAEWs that are undertaken for the purpose of appraising the risk to occupants from a fire spreading over or within the external walls of the building and the consequence that this can have in terms of means of escape from secondary fires; fire and rescue service access; and making a decision as to whether, in the specific circumstances of the building, remediation or other mitigating measures to address the risk are considered necessary. It can be used where the risk is known, or suspected, to arise from the form of construction used for the external wall build-up, such as the presence of combustible materials.
The outcome of an FRAEW is intended to inform fire risk assessments (FRAs) of multistorey, multi-occupied residential buildings. It applies predominantly to multistorey blocks of flats of any height, but can also be applied to other types of buildings if, from the perspective of general fire strategy and means of escape design, and specifically evacuation strategy, they are similar in nature to a purpose built block of flats, for example student accommodation; sheltered and other specialised housing; and buildings converted into flats.
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Charlotte Banks