View the PDF here
Evaluation of the Legal Framework for Building Fire Safety Regulations in Spain
Amaya Osácar, Knauf Insulation, Belgium
Juan B. Echeverria, Universidad de Navarra, Spain
Brian J. Meacham, Meacham Associates, USA
Overview
With respect to safety from technological hazards, the idea that the risk affecting society is significantly influenced by regulation and its effective implementation and enforcement was recognized some decades ago [1]. More recently, similar concerns have been expressed for building fire safety, where it has been noted that the issues defining the appropriateness of the performance may not be function of the code, the design methods, or of the material used, but of the overall performance of the regulatory system and the market working together to deliver the intended goal [2]. The treatment of the risk associated with innovative methods and materials, within the regulatory system, is also signaled as a possible contributing factor affecting the fire safety of buildings.
After the tragic fire at the Grenfell Tower in London, the European Commission observed that “EU Member States remain responsible for setting the level of fire safety in buildings on their territory and to enforce their building regulation” [3]. This points to the importance of building fire safety legislation and regulation assessment in all member states, including Spain.
Regarding the review of the building regulatory system in England following the fire at the Grenfell Tower, Dame Judith Hackitt [4] concluded in part that the complete body of regulations explored and the way of enacting them, is not appropriate and allows shortcuts. Furthermore, assessment of the interaction of components in the building regulatory system, intended to deliver fire safe buildings in England, demonstrates the importance of aligning legal structures, policy objectives, technical safety provisions, and supporting infrastructure [5].
Overall, a comprehensive assessment of the building fire safety regulatory system (regime) requires an in-depth analysis of the legal provisions covering the building sector and of the roles and responsibilities of professionals, building and fire officials, and other actors in the market. An assessment of the data that are available on the fire performance of buildings is needed as part of the process.
Assessing the Situation in Spain
Prior to the Grenfell Tower tragedy and European focus on fire safety legislation, it was recognized that challenges exist in the building fire safety regulatory regime in Spain, and a comprehensive assessment was undertaken [6]. In framing the assessment, attributes of different regulatory regimes were studied, including prescriptive-based, performance-based and systems-based [7,8]. Each regulatory regime involves a way of developing, implementing, and enforcing regulations that is essential to develop and maintain an efficient legal framework. Focusing on performance-based systems, it is suggested that the ideal building regulatory regime should be founded on a sound definition of five fundamental aspects: (a) regulatory goal, (b) building agents, (c) roles, (d) professional prerequisites, and (e) accountability [6].
To evaluate the efficacy of these fundamental aspects for the Spanish building regulatory system, the following more specifically defined requirements were deemed important: (a) a complete statement of the regulatory goal or goals concerning the building is an essential aspect, which, in turn, must be clarified by specific acceptance criteria; (b) clear identification of the agents involved in the process of developing, implementing, or enforcing the regulation (stakeholders); (c) clear definition of the role that each stakeholder plays in the process and their associated accountability; (d) professional prerequisites for any agent to enable them to dutifully perform their role, and (e) all aspects must be complete with crystal-clear statements of the accountability and responsibility of every agent [6].
When applied to the Spanish building regulatory system, the points noted below were identified. While this approach was developed based on an assessment of the Spanish building regulatory system, it is suggested that the approach and outcomes of this assessment not only highlight concerns that should be addressed in Spain but can be useful for those assessing building fire safety regulations in other countries as well.
Outcomes and Recommended Aspects to be Addressed.
- With respect to the regulatory goal of fire safety, the building regulations lack sufficient information to facilitate performance-based solutions to assure the target fire risk levels are achieved. To advance in this direction it is necessary to carry out some adjustments within the current regime with regard to adding performance criteria and better defining a performance-based design approach for fire. More analysis of actual fire risk performance, given the first loss statistics, would also be beneficial.
- With respect to administrative procedures, implementation, and enforcement related to performance-based options, more detail is needed. That is, better definition of roles and responsibility, as well as technical guidelines within the Building Management Law [9] and the Technical Building Code [10], could ease the understanding and adoption of such approach.
- Regarding design for and verification of fire safety, it is important to specify the educational and professional requirements needed to develop and approve performance-based approaches. This aspect is particularly important, since a certain degree of knowledge is required, not only for designers but also for other actors, such as code enforcers (e.g., [11,12]).
- Concerning the need to assure the adherence to the regulatory goals, the definition of the design process and the intervention of different stakeholders are essential within the system.
- With respect to the extent of stakeholders, there are other actors involved in the construction process, which could be considered building agents but are not specifically (e.g., code enforcers, reviewers from professional associations), who should have roles and responsibilities defined with respect to fire safety. Each has a particular role to play, requiring specific knowledge required to carry it out, and thus holds a social accountability for this as part of the fire safety system. These are considered crucial aspects that must be clarified.
- Expansion of engagement with stakeholders is needed. Without an appropriate representation of the diversity of stakeholder interests, key issues can be missed, inadequate regulations can be enacted, or other unfortunate outcomes may occur.
- As long as national guidelines and educational programs are not in place, some international tools and methods could be useful to highlight the implementation of fire regulations, such as the International Fire Safety Standards: Common Principles [13] or the SFPE Guide to Human Behavior in Fire [14], which could be included in the official registry of the Ministry of Development. These guides not only refer to the use of engineering tools or the implementation of the performance-based approach, but also other aspects related to the prescriptive option. Some interesting works addressing the relationship between building activity, space, and occupant characteristics have been done, which could be useful to achieve a desirable flexibility when choosing a prescriptive option; in this sense, the provision of the scientific background of the prescription could also be helpful.
- With respect to the role that the code enforcers should play in the performance-based approach design process and the required educational background, international guidelines refer to the role of a peer reviewer (e.g., [15, 16]). The Local Ordinance of Procedures for Urban Planning Licences in Madrid [17] is an example of the progress towards the implementation of the performance-based design in Spain. This local ordinance expresses that performance-based projects are to be monitored by local official enforcers from the earlier stages of the project until the proposal final validation. In the absence of other legal provisions on technical and procedural indications, it indicates the general stages for the evaluation and approval of the project and points out the possible implication of a third reviewer when the official enforcers consider it appropriate.
Conclusions
The analysis concluded that relevant drawbacks exist within the current building regulatory regime in Spain with respect to fire safety provisions. Some of these are derived from the lack of consistency between the different approaches to legislation governing various aspects of the regulatory system, which results in an impact on procedures and responsibilities. Others concern the lack of a clear regulatory goal/mandate for fire safety, incomplete identification of responsibilities and accountability in the system, and inadequate reference to technical guidance. Furthermore, some accountability aspects in case of accidental fires remain unclear. It is important to notice that these problems may not affect solely the fire safety objective, but all the building basic requirements.
Additional details are available in the article:
Osácar, A.; Echeverria Trueba, J.B.; Meacham, B. Evaluation of the Legal Framework for Building Fire Safety Regulations in Spain. Buildings 2021, 11, 51. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11020051
References
[1] Otway, H.; Peltu, M.; Commission of the European Communities Joint Research Centre (EC JRC); International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Regulating Industrial Risks: Science, Hazards and Public Protection; Butterworth & Co. Ltd.: London, UK, 1985.
[2] Meacham, B.J. Accommodating Innovation in Building Regulation: Lessons and Challenges. Build. Res. Inf. 2010, 38, 686–698.
[3] EC. Fire Safety in Buildings Statement [EU Statement]; European Commission: Brussels, Belgium, 2017. Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/bienkowska/announcements/fire-safety-buildings_en (accessed on 2 May 2017).
[4] Hackitt, D.J. Building a Safer Future—Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Interim Report, Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government by Command of Her Majesty, Crown Copyright. England. 2017. Available online: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment
data/file/668747/Independent_Review_of_Building_Regulations_and_Fire_Safety.pdf (accessed on 2 February 2021).
[5] Meacham, B.J.; Stromgren, M.; van Hees, P. A Holistic Framework for Development and Assessment of Risk-Informed Performance-Based Building Regulation. Fire Mater. 2020, 2020, 1–15.
[6] Osácar, A. La Gestión de la Seguridad Contra Incendios en Edificios en España. Propuesta Para un Nuevo Enfoque [The Management of the Fire Safety in Buildings in Spain. Proposal for a New Approach]. Unpublished. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, 2017.
[7] Lundin, J. Safety in Case of Fire- The Effect of Changing Regulations. Ph.D. Thesis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 2005. Available online: http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/24644 (accessed on 2 February 2021).
[8] May, P.J. Accountability and Regulatory Regimes. Regul. Gov. 2007, 1, 8–26.
[9] L 38/1999. Ley 38/1999, del 5 de Noviembre, de Ordenación de la Edificación [Law 38/1999 of Building Management Law]; Boletín Oficial del Estado, Cortes Generales: Madrid, Spain, 1999; Volume 266, pp. 38925–38934.
[10] RD 314/2006. Real Decreto 314/2006, de 17 de Marzo, por el que se Aprueba el Código Técnico de la Edificación [Royal Decree 314/2006, Approving the Technical Building Code]; Ministerio de la Vivienda, Boletín Oficial del Estado: Madrid, Spain, 2006; Volume 74, pp. 11816–11831.
[11] SFPE. SFPE Recommended Minimum Technical Competencies for the Practice of Fire Protection Engineering; Society of Fire Protection Engineers: Gaithersburg, MD, USA, 2018.
[12] Lange, D.; Torero, J.L.; Osorio, A.; Lobel, N.; Maluk, C.; Hidalgo, J.P.; Johnson, P.; Foley, M.; Brinson, A. Identifying the attributes of a profession in the practice and regulation of fire safety engineering. Fire Saf. J. 2021, 121, 10327.
[13] IFSS. International Fire Safety Standards: Common Principles: Safe Buildings Save Lives, 1st ed.; International Fire Safety Standards Coalition: Geneva, Switzerland, 2020; ISBN 978-1-78321-384-9. Available online: https://ifss-coalition.org/ (accessed on 2 February 2021).
[14] SFPE. SFPE Guide to Human Behavior in Fire, 2nd ed.; Society of Fire Protection Engineers: Gaithersburg, MD, USA, 2019; ISBN 978-3-319-94696-2.
[15] NFPA. Guía de Ingeniería SFPE de Protección Contra Incendios Basada en la Eficacia: Análisis y Diseño de Edificios [SFPE Engineering Guide for Performance-Based Fire Protection Design]; National Fire Protection Association: Madrid, Spain, 2000.
[16] SFPE. Guidelines for Peer Review in the Fire Protection Design Process, 2020th ed.; Society of Fire Protection Engineers: Gaithersburg, MD, USA, 2020; ISBN 978-0-925223-10-4.
[17] OMTLU. Ordenanza Municipal, de 23 de Diciembre de 2004, de Tramitación de Licencias Urbanísticas [Local Ordinance of Procedures for Urban Planning Licences]; Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Boletín Oficial de la Comunidad de Madrid: Madrid, Spain, 2005; Volume 280, pp. 99–116.