Compliance Obligations for Building Managers and Owners

Your emergency planning committee compliance obligations:

• Have at least one member trained appropriately in EPC training
• Meet regularly (at least annually) and record meetings
• Maintain on and offsite records
• Develop the emergency plan
• Identifying events that could eventuate in an emergency situation
• Ensuring that the emergency plan is readily identifiable and available to the
  appropriate persons
• Establishing an emergency control organisation (ECO) to operate in accordance with the emergency plan
• If deemed necessary, establishing a specialist emergency response team (ERT)

Depending on the nature of the particular facility(s), the EPC may be formed either for an individual facility, or group of facilities. However as a facility manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that the EPC has adequate resources to enable the development and implementation of the emergency plan.

 

Fire Safety Advisor

In Queensland, it is a requirement under the Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008 to have a Fire Safety Advisor if you have 30 or more staff and depending on your type of facility.

Compliance obligations include:

• Being the nominated, trained and licensed Fire Safety Advisor for the building and/or tenancy
• Reviewing/ co-ordinating the current building/ tenancies Fire and Evacuation Plan
• Co-ordinating any surveys, training, or document reviews
• Ensuring required training and exercises for the building are undertaken
• Ensuring compliance to legislation and relevant Australian Standards
• Record keeping

The legislation allows having outside consultants, such as EvacServices, act as your Fire Safety Advisor.

The EPC in collaboration with the facility owners, managers and occupiers are required to determine which types of emergencies warrant specific emergency response procedures within the emergency plan.

The EPC, ECO, the management of the facility and nominated staff must participate in the implementation and maintenance of the emergency plan, as appropriate to their role within the organisation.

The emergency plan shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

• Emergency prevention
• Emergency preparedness
• Emergency mitigation
• Activities for preparing for, and prevention of emergencies, such as training, and maintenance
• Overall control and coordination arrangements for emergency response, this must include evacuation strategies for occupants with a disability
• The agreed roles and responsibilities of the emergency control organisation and occupants of the facility in preparation for, during and after an emergency

The emergency plan must include, but not be limited to, the following elements:

• A clear statement of purpose and scope.
• Information on the structure and purpose of the ECO.
• Identification of the facilities to which it applies.
• Descriptions of the fire safety and emergency features of the facility.
• The organisational arrangements for the facility.

The emergency procedures shall address the method of warning and communication to be used during an emergency.

An emergency response procedure is also developed for all facilities addressing the following:

• The responsibilities and duties of the ECO and the actions they are to take during an emergency, including those roles and duties previously outlined.
• The responsibilities of facility occupants and the actions they are to take in an emergency.
• The arrangements for evacuating the facility.
• The arrangements for emergency preparedness and response.
• The current emergency contact details.

 

Mobility Impaired Occupants

The emergency plan and response procedures must also document the procedures for mobility impaired occupants. As part of this process, Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans, or P.E.E.P.s, are required to be filled out for each mobility impaired occupant and kept with the responsible warden and at the emergency control point.

Mobility impaired occupants include both permanently and temporarily impaired occupants.

You can download a template for the P.E.E.P. here.

Evacuation diagrams & signs that provide emergency and evacuation information must be displayed in all facilities, in locations where occupants and visitors are able to view them. The location within the facility and number of evacuation diagrams are determined by the EPC.

In most cases, building management should install diagrams in the common areas of the buildings. Tenants are responsible for ensuring that there are diagrams installed within their tenanted areas. Of course, this may be different at your depending on leasing requirements.

Compliance features:

• The place that corresponds to the place in the building where the diagram is displayed. E.g. ‘You are here’ signage.
• The route from (you are here) to the nearest exit.
• Each exit of the building.
• Any intercommunication devices in the common areas, e.g. Warden Intercommunication Points.
• The location of manual call points or break glass alarms
• The location of any firefighting equipment in the building, e.g. fire extinguishers and hose reels.
• The designated assembly areas for evacuation outside the building.

Although there are specific elements that the diagrams must include, the standards and regulations allow for a degree of design freedom, so you can make the diagrams both visually appealing and equally functional.

It is important that the ECO be appropriate to the facility and to the emergency response procedures as documented in the emergency plan.

The titles of ‘chief warden’, ‘communications officer’, ‘floor warden’ or ‘area warden’ ‘warden’ and ‘assembly area co-ordinator’ should be used when these positions are included in the ECO. Titles for other positions may be determined by the EPC.

The facility management must ensure that wardens at the facility are identifiable in an emergency situation by the use of coloured apparel, such as helmets, caps and vests.

• Chief Warden, deputies and communications officers are identified with a white helmet
• Floor and Area wardens are identified with a yellow helmet
• Wardens are identified with a red helmet
• First Aid officers are identified with a green helmet with a white cross.

Warden responsibilities are set out in the Emergency Plan and communicated to the wardens during training. Further information on warden responsibilities is available here.

Facility Managers should review the wardens at their site at least monthly to ensure that the ECO is appropriate for the facility, and that the lists remain up to date. We recommend using a warden management system, such as EvacConnect, to make this job easy.

All Occupants

• All occupants, including ECO members, must receive training to enable them to act in accordance with the emergency response procedures (annually), and first attack firefighting (every 2 years).
• Some state requirements require occupants receive basic information on how to safely evacuate within 48 hours of first starting on site.

 

Emergency Planning Committee

• At least one member of the EPC must be appropriately trained

 

Emergency Control Organisation

• All members of the ECO must attend training at intervals not greater than six months
• In addition to the ECO training, the Chief Warden must also receive additional training in relation to their duties

Some states require qualified Fire Safety Advisors to provide training in certain workplaces. In most cases, training can be undertaken online through a system such as EvacConnect.

The ECO and occupants shall be supplied with training materials appropriate to each person’s role and level of responsibility as determined by the emergency plan. Training materials must be site specific.

Regular checks of the communication system should be carried out, either at monthly intervals, or as determined by the EPC. Records shall be retained.

The following should apply for all emergency response exercises:

1. Emergency response exercises should be consistent with the identified emergencies in the emergency plan
2. Simple objectives and outcomes for emergency response exercises should be identified
3. Observers should be appointed for all emergency response exercises, the observers
   shall use a checklist to record the details of the emergency response exercise
4. Each emergency response exercise should be prefixed by an announcement that it is an exercise only
5. Debriefing sessions should be held post exercise
6. A report shall be forwarded to the EPC following each emergency response exercise, the report shall include any deficiencies in the evacuation exercise that were identified at the debriefing session

These exercises must be undertaken on an annual basis.