The third part of the conceptual framework involves the owner and manager with external parties. This includes the fire and emergency services, insurance companies and occupational health and safety regulations that are administered by the state and territory government.
Insurance
Insurance companies do not have a direct role in the management of fire risks in enclosed shopping centres. However, they have an important role in the area of reducing risks to protect their interests. They will advise the managers and owners if there are any fire risks that require attention. Insurance has an important connection to moral hazard as discussed in the area of risk in 2.4.7. This forms part of an important aspect of the conceptual framework.
Fire services
The objective of the fire service is to protect the people and building and contents from the risk of damage by fire (www.mfb.vic.gov.au) The fire service has to serve various types of customers in the geographical area in which it operates. The type of users of the service varies from single houses, apartment blocks, warehouses, offices, and enclosed shopping centres. Do the fire services have adequate equipment to service all the possible users in the area it operates? If the local fire service does not have the equipment, where will the equipment come from? It could be argued that it is only in an emergency that those types of questions are asked as happened in the Myer Hobart fire (Webster 2009). The fire services that cover the specific area in which the enclosed shopping centre is located
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are of the upmost importance to the centre management. Centre management should have a good understanding of how the local fire service operates and how fires would be managed.
Occupational health and safety (O H & S)
The occupational health and safety regulations are an important consideration in all enclosed shopping centres. There are employees at all levels including centre management, tenants, service providers, and building personnel. They are all subject to the occupational health and safety laws in force under state government acts (www.vic.gov.au). The employees, including the centre management, tenants, and service providers are responsible for providing a safe workplace environment. This includes the fire risks in all areas. The following Figure 4.5 shows the interaction between the centre operations and the external stakeholders. The external parties can be any organisation with whom the operations do not have a direct interaction with the centre operations. The insurance company, for example, will interact with both the owner and the manager.
Figure 4.5 External interactions 4.6 Final propositions
The final propositions as detailed in Table 4.2 in relation to the orginal research questions in 1.2.2 in the following way. The research Questions 1, 1(a), 1(b), 1 (c), 1(d) and 1(e) relate to the proposition 1 to 3. Research Question 2 only discussed the relationship with the fire services; however, proposition 4 expanded this to include areas such as occupational health and safety. Research Question 3 was the precursor to proposition 5 for a model. The following propositions are stated below in this conceptual framework.
Owner
Centre Managers (Operations)
Insurance
Fire and Emergency
86 Table 4.2 Final propositions
Propositions Comments on propositions
1. What are the current systems in place for the control of fire risks in enclosed shopping centres?
This is important to give an insight to the fire risks that confront the management of the enclosed shopping centre. Are the systems and processes fully documented and is there a detailed plan for all stakeholders to review? 2. What is the responsibility of the
various stakeholders to reduce fire risk in enclosed shopping
centres?
Following on from the first question, are the various parties fulfilling their role in the management of fire risks? Do all the stakeholders know their responsibilities and are they aware of them?
3. What systems and processes are in place to make sure the
enclosed shopping centre adheres to all Australian Standards in respect to fire safety?
The commercial building sectors that include enclosed shopping centres rely on Australian Standards when mapping their fire risk systems and processes. It is important that there are some checks and balances to make sure this is undertaken by way of fire safety audits in AS 4655-2005.
4. Do external parties such as the local fire service, insurance companies and regulatory bodies such as WorkCare fully
understand the enclosed shopping centre?
It is important that all external parties fully understand the workings of the centre. This is especially important for the bodies noted above. It is important that the local fire service has complete knowledge of how the centre fire risk management systems and processes work.
5. What is the best way of showing how fire risks are to be managed in Australian enclosed shopping centres?
This is the result of the research and study to produce a model in best practice fire risk management in enclosed shopping centres.
4.7 Summary
Information in the conceptual framework shows that fire risk management in enclosed shopping centres is complex. The interacting parties and their obligations make the control of the risks difficult. It is only when there is a major emergency that the evacuation systems can be fully tested to understand any problems. The enclosed shopping centre management undertakes evacuation testing in a controlled environment. However, the only real test is in a genuine emergency, when it said that people may tend to act in a vastly different way to how they normally do as discussed by Owen M, Galea E, and Lawrence P (1996). However, the situation is dependent on other stakeholders to do their part. The major tenants have an important role in fire risk control as this conceptual framework shows. The study at the conceptual framework stage has highlighted the complex interaction involving all stakeholders with fire risk management in enclosed shopping centres. The conceptual framework forms the basis in the research methodology in Chapter 5. The process is to take the information and design the
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appropriate forms of research. This includes major research at the operational level by way of questionnaires and interviews to gain an insight into the processes in place. This also includes interviews with other stakeholders. This includes the construction and external stakeholders such as insurance companies and fire services. The data from the research is analysed in Chapter 6 and, from that, the model is built in Chapter 7. The final Chapter 8 discusses the research findings and conclusions from the model.
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