Introduction to Fire Safety Management

2.2.2 Organisation
This section of the policy is quite often confused with 
the ‘organising for safety’ element of a safety manage-
ment system. This is due to a large number of similar-
ities between the two.
Introduction to Fire Safety Management
32
Figure 2.3
Health and safety policy document

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The organisation element of a safety policy should 
clearly identify and defi ne the roles and responsibilities 
for all levels of management and operatives within an 
organisation. It may be the fact that different sections of 
the policy, specifi cally fi re, may have differing organisa-
tional structures due to the need to outsource some of 
the competent person duties due to a lack of ‘in-house’ 
expertise.
It is generally acknowledged that the role of safety 
adviser, whether fi re or health and safety, is to provide 
support to managers and staff alike. Those to whom they 
are likely to provide support, advice and guidance are:
➤
Management 
board
➤
Safety 
director
➤
Human 
resources/personnel
➤
Managers and supervisors
➤
Fellow competent persons, i.e. fi 
rst aiders, fi re 
wardens
➤
Safety committee and employee representatives
➤
Employees.
Each of the above groups should have clearly identifi -
able roles and responsibilities allocated to them as part 
of the policy and should be refl ected in job descriptions 
appropriate to the role.
Additional roles and responsibilities will also need to 
be assigned for other key areas such as:
➤
Fire 
wardens/marshals
➤
First aiders/other emergency response team 
members
➤
Safety event (accident/incident) investigators
➤
Occupational health departments
➤
Chairperson of the safety committee
➤
Procurement/purchasing 
department.
With clearly allocated roles and responsibilities those 
employees and groups with specifi c roles and respon-
sibilities will be able to fulfi l their functions effectively. 
Additionally allocating specifi c roles to individuals facili-
tates the monitoring of performance of those individuals 
against the expectations of their role.