Webinar: The integration of technology to manage fire safety risk in social housing

With an estimated 43% of social housing residents living with a long-term disability, greater safeguards are needed to ensure social residents are better protected from fire risk. In addition, The Charter for Social Housing Residents: Social Housing White Paper (November 2020) and the Fire Safety Act 2021 set out the intention to make landlords more accountable for residents’ fire safety.

Jason is the Assistant Director for Prevention and Protection with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) and is responsible for the strategic planning and delivery of statutory regulation under the Fire Safety Order and promoting safety education to communities ensuring they are safe whether working, travelling or enjoying the benefits of the two counties.

His role requires him to work across a diverse range of technical and strategic leadership areas in Prevention and Protection. The function comprises of a team of 93 staff and nearly 100 volunteers who collectively are responsible for High Rise Building Inspections and regulation/enforcement of the Fire Safety Order,Fire Engineering, Reducing Vulnerability,Children and Young People, Safeguarding, Fire Investigation and our Primary Authority Scheme.

Jason is the service lead for fire and rescue on several strategic partnership boards (Supporting Families Programme Board, Hampshire PREVENT Board, PREVENT Board Training Sub-Group, Mental Health Partnership Board, Hampshire Community Safety Strategy Board, Hampshire Health and Wellbeing Board). This enables him to work with partners proactively in achieving shared outcomes e.g., embedding the NFCC Memorandum of Understanding with Care Quality Commission in Hampshire and Isle of Wight.

Nick Rutter is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at FireAngel Safety Technology. A graduate of Industrial Design from Coventry University, Nick worked as a Product Designer for Philips in Hong Kong, designing portable audio products, before returning to the UK and developing an interest in domestic fire safety - leading to FireAngel being founded in 2001.

Since this time FireAngel has developed numerous safety industry firsts, deploying over 70 million products, and holding 79 patents. As FireAngel’s range of cutting-edge products and solutions has expanded, it has not only grown to become a leading name in both trade and retail markets, but is also influential within UK Housing and is currently undertaking one of the largest IoT deployments of its kind in to 14,000 social housing properties.

FireAngel remains committed to improving and advancing fire safety and increasing prevention within communities, especially for individuals who are most vulnerable or high risk. During Nick’s session he will discuss the latest connected safety solutions and data analytics, highlighting how utilising these innovations can support Fire & Rescue Services and Social Housing providers to take a data-driven approach to pinpoint, and actively reduce, fire risk in our communities.

Fazilet Hadi is Head of Policy at Disability Rights UK and is a member of the Disability Advisory Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Fazilet has been working with disabled residents to influence the Government’s consultation on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs). In order to ensure that the voice of disabled people was fully represented in the consultation, disabled people attended Government workshops, and a joint meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Disability and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety was held. T important meeting there were contributions from the Minister, Lord Greenhalgh and a disabled Grenfell Tower survivor.

As CEO of the FIA Ian works hard to promote the professional standards of the fire industry through close liaison and lobbying with Government and official bodies as well other key organisations in the industry.

The Fire Industry Association (FIA) recently established a Special Interest Group on the Internet of Things. In a report on how technology is currently viewed in the fire safety sector and its utilisation in the future, Ian Moore commented, “The Internet of Things promises to transform the fire industry and many other industries. With over 20 billion devices connected to the internet in 2020 our members have made it immediately clear the Internet of Things (IoT) and how it relates to the fire industry is of the upmost importance for us all to understand.”