The Risk Management Planning Practice at Royal Back Shire and Fire Rescue Services - Term Paper Example

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 1.0 RISK MANAGEMENT PLANNING: ROYAL BERKSHIRE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE 2 1.1 INTRODUCTION 2 2.0 RISK IDENTIFICATION 3 2.0 ANNUAL SAFETY AUDITING 3 2.2 USE OF ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORTS 3 2.3 CONCLUDING REGULAR WORKPLACE INSPECTIONS 3 2.4 REFERENCES TO THE INJURY AND ILLNESS RECORDS 4 2.5 REFERENCES TO THE CLIENTS AND WORKERS COMPLAINTS 4 3.0 RISK OWNERSHIP 4 4.0 RISK ANALYSIS 4 5.0 OBJECTIVES 5 6.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 6 7.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7 7.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 7 8.0 SAMPLING TECHNIQUES AND SAMPLE SIZE 8 8.1 SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING 8 8.2 SAMPLE TECHNIQUES 9 9.0 INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA 11 10.0 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS 12 11.0 PRE-TESTING 12 12.0 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 12 13.0 METODS OF DATA ANALYSIS 13 14.0 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 13 15.0 TIME SCALE 13 16.0 REFERENCES 13 17.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY 14 1.0. RISK MANAGEMENT PLANNING: ROYAL BERKSHIRE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE 1.1. INTRODUCTION Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service are situated on a 125, 914 hectare land on the London, Hampshire, Oxford shire, Surrey and Wiltshire border. It serves a population of about 800, 000 (rbfrs.co.uk/, 2010). The risk management planning practice was implemented at Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service back in 1999. Fire Crisis rescue in this case is a very important function for any of the organizational health and safety procedures and most importantly for all the fire fighting and prevention companies around the globe. Risk management plan is one of the key elements in the governments and the fire fighting company’s modernization and programs of fire rescue services and activities (Andy, 2004). The word crisis simply means the potential threat to the smooth running of the day to activities which should be curbed before it eventually causes trouble. The term ‘risk’ as defined in the common dictionaries refers to it as, the exposure to pain, injury, harm, loss, liability or other similar unwanted experiences. It has always been human nature to avoid all kinds of risks. In an event of a fire occurrence, what comes to everybody’s mind is the loss of lives, resources and property. Therefore total safety is not always guaranteed. This is what brings us to the possible risks which are always around us. Undesirable ignitions are always least expected physical incidents. Useful decisions of risks associated with fire can only be achieved by correctly analyzing them. Additional techniques of modeling and capabilities from the various fields such as science, decision analysis, management systems safety, and operations’ research make it simple for the structure and framework identification in the decision-making processes using various available technologies. All the governments have always tried or are even trying to curb risks, fire being among them to keep their citizens safer by analyzing the risks as per the set up safety and health measures. These are clearly outlined in the government fire fighting and prevention rules act and are distributed to the public for awareness campaign purposes. Crisis, if not taken care of, do lead to a threat to the general safety of the individuals, industries and the environment. It can also cause death to victims. Therefore a crisis should be properly managed to lessen all the possible damages. 2.0. RISK IDENTIFICATION 2.1. ANNUAL SAFETY AUDITING An independent auditor will be hired to inspect the workplace in the organization to check the health and safety system occupation effectiveness. This is conducted by writing a formal report to the management. 2.2. USE OF ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORTS: A set of procedures will be developed for the purpose of reporting and investigations to identify the common hazard which contributes to the fire accidents. 2.3. CONDUCTING REGULAR WORKPLACE INSPECTIONS: The supervisors and managers will be responsible for inspecting spot-checks to check on the existing hazards. A final report will issued to the management after consulting with the volunteers, employees and the supervisors. 2.4. REFERENCES TO THE INJURY AND ILLNESS RECORDS The records of injury and illness will be preserved to help solve and identify the previous occupational health problems with time. The fire fighting workplaces will also be responsible for providing the agencies responsible for the workers with compensation with statistics and reports on the claims. 2.5. REFERENCES TO THE CLIENTS AND WORKERS COMPLAINTS: Most of the workplace hazards are normally reported to the management by the clients, volunteers or the employees (commonwealth of Australia, 2003). 3.0. RISK OWNERSHIP The responsibility of fire mitigation and safety measure will be taken care for by the fire fighting company after identifying the potential hazard areas. The necessary structures will be put into place to curb any possibilities of fire occurrence. 4.0. RISK ANALYSIS Risk assessment projects will be put into place for the purpose of this project in order to help identify the risks of fire within the buildings and surrounding environs and also to assists the communities in the fire fighting and mitigation programs and through the public communications and awareness. This is referred as the analysis phase. The projects entails the use of several environmental areas by applying the data analysis, simulation, advanced remote sensing planning, risk assessment, modeling and planning (Brian, 2007). The main purpose of conducting the risk assessments is to establish the consequences of the scenarios. The scenarios may include the contents, construction materials, room dimension details, air combustion sources, door position and numbers, characteristics of the occupant’s locations and the room dimension details. Probability methods will as well be applied in the risk assessment activities (Richard, 2010). This analysis point as a whole can as well contain assessment of the risks possibilities and impact possibilities. Standard risk management process information will be will be agreed upon and made available to the stakeholders with the same interest. All the potential incidents will be taken care of in all the organizational bodies and organs. 5.0. OBJECTIVES To identify the applications of the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service risk management plans. To test and acknowledge effectiveness of the risk management plans of Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Services. To conduct an investigation on the various Risk management plans at Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service. To minimize the injuries, loss, road traffic collisions, damages from fire and other hazards. To carry on with a continuous effectiveness, partnerships, consultations and ongoing improvements. To improve the individual, business and public safety by reducing risks by enforcing fire safety legislation and conducting education awareness. To offer employment opportunities to every one and also conduct activities in a suitable environment. To use risk management and planning to provide flexible emergency response. 6.0. LITERATURE REVIEW Risk management planning can be referred to as the overall methodology(s) combining both the quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. It normally covers the whole analysis i.e. 1. Goal definitions 2. Measures of risks determinations 3. Hazard risks identifications 4. Risks tolerability’s and evaluations 5. Risks reduction measures definitions 6. Result’s implementation into practice such as monitoring. This is the area where disaster preparations and responses take place, such as the evacuation purposes and the support of the fire disaster victims in a fire eventuality. Risk analysis is a fraction of the risk management process and still it can be subdivided into three stages depending on the available labor resources and the analysis details, i.e. 1. Quantitative methods 2. Semi quantitative methods and 3. Quantitative methods These three levels can be applied at the time of risk analysis application. The quantitative methods are normally used to determine the relevant scenarios to first start with (Hakan, 2009). Management planning of risks is an ongoing process carried out by the volunteers, organizations and even the community at large to contain or control the possible fire hazards so as to avoid the impacts of the tragedies which may arise as a result of fire hazards. A successful risk management planning can be achieved by carrying out careful integration emergency plans at all management and no-management levels, because all these activities are relevant to all the levels (Moore 2006). Risk management planning has to be all-inclusive to all the stakeholders and all the hazards and the stages involved should be part of the risks. Future disasters not withstanding, should be put into consideration, be forecasted and preventive measures be established to curb an eventuality of a disaster occurrence within and around the organization and the community at large (Cote, 2007). Utilizing practical risks management standards like identification and analyzing of the risks analysis and its impact on resources and priority allocations will also be conducted. This will also be done by accommodating everyone by the show of open and broad relationship to all the organizational members to encourage joint effort and effective communication among the participants. A coordination of a professional plan will be carried out to encourage the unconvinced parties to embrace change within the organization take the science and knowledgeable approach such as the relevant skill, education, constant training and improvement. 7.0. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7.1. RESEARCH DESIGN In order to better understand the real issues on the ground and to apply the necessary measures to help prevent the emergence of fire hazards, by applying various types of research approaches, we shall employ a case study research design. The research design can be broken into three expansive classes depending on the research study being conducted. The three main categories are field research, observational research, and experimental research and all of them vary in terms of two characteristics which are very important, namely internal and external validity. In this case, we will apply the field and observational research which falls on the external validity characteristics. This will pave way for the individual subjects under this particular study to be examined. This in turn will aid the individuals in question under this particular study to be looked into. This will also help in terms of the available resources by investigating the raw materials and finances that can be mobilized to help cater for the both local and national emergency situations and circumstances. The ways and means, and how and where of financial distribution and allocation of the available resources will also be discussed and implemented accordingly. Alternatively, human contribution on the resources will also be included in the study so as to have a complete picture of its existence in the system and also to determine its role in terms of quality commitments in response to national emergency situations. Qualitative research approaches will be adopted whereby semi-structured questionnaires will be administered to the subjects under study. Observation will be also be used to assess on, evaluate and analyze the readily available resources. This will conducted using observation check lists. Already Existing data will also be important to applied in this case since it will also be used to add up on the data being currently recorded (Matthews 2009). 8.0. SAMPLING TECHNIQUES AND SAMPLE SIZE 8.1. SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING: Purposive sampling technique will be utilized to arrive at the individual subjects. Simple random sampling will be employed to arrive at a representative sample. To obtain a representative sample, the method of sample determination will be employed. That is, to determine the sample size for the entire population. n= [z2pq/d2] where; n- The desired sample size. z- Standard normal deviate at the required confidence interval (95 probability error equal to 1.96) p- The proportion of occurrence of the phenomenon (0.5 for unknown) q- The proportion of non-occurrence is (l-p) = 0.5 d- The level of statistical significance (0.05 for 95 percent level of significance) n= [(1.92)2(0.5) (0.5) / (0.05)2]1 The below formula is used in determining sample size when the population is less than In the case where the overall population is less than 10, 000, the below formula will be used to determine the sample size. 10,000 NF=n/1+ (n/N) Where NF is desired sample when population is less than 10,000 n is sample when the entire population is more than 10,000 N is the anticipated population of the region being studied. 8.2. SAMPLING TECHNIQUES: Below are a summary of the classification of the different approaches of choosing samples. The three types of sampling: 1. Purposive sampling: it is applied in the case where whoever is selecting the sample has to represent the sample as well, depending on the purpose or opinion. He/she has to be the representation subject in this case. 2. Probability sampling: in this case, each of the samples has to bear the same probability to be chosen. 3. No rule sampling: the samples are taken without applying any rules. There is no selection unfairness as the sample representative is homogeneous in the population. The probability type of sampling is also always effective in the sense that when an appropriate technique is chosen, all the samples will be represented and all the sampling errors can be estimated. Below are the different types of sapling probabilities: a) Stratified sampling b) Systematic sampling c) Random sampling with and without replacement d) Cluster sampling EST. An example of sampling: We will select a sample. From a small tow with an estimation of 300 000 occupants, and then we select 100 people to hear their opinion on how to prevent and fire breakout. We target mainly the people tending to their businesses and the people we find at home. We seek their opinions o behalf of the entire population as each of the interviewed elements represents either of the entire population. To begin the calculation of all the people interviewed, the sample are divided by the size of the population. Thus, 100/300 000 = 3.33, and thus the outcome poll records a 33% of the entire population. The people interviewed on how each of the sample elements represents them will then be calculated. The other quotient is taken; the number of the population element is divided by the number of the element samples. Thus: 300 000/100 = 3000, this means, the each of the people interviewed represents the 3000 people of the town. The above concepts which have been used have the below formal definition: a) Sampling factor: this is the quotient size of size and sample of the entire population, which is n/N. The population percentage represented in the sample is achieved after multiplying the quotient by a hundred (100) b) Elevation factor: this quotient represents the size between the sample and population size, N/n. the number of existing elements in the population are represented by each of the element sample in this case (Paula & Justo, 2001). 9.0. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA Survey research will be conducted to assess the reliability and validity of the selected research instruments. Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service restricts the scope of the study to the community it is serving. It will cover male and female, young and old subjects. 10.0. RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS Data will be obtained by use of self administered structured and semi-structured questionnaires. These will have questions on demographic characteristics and socio-economic information. Telephone and online interviews will also be used hand with call back cards to collect information on subjects that are not easy to access. Observation check lists will also be administered to collect data on through observation while the existing data will be used to add up more information on the data being collected. 11.0. PRE-TESTING Pilot respondents will be randomly selected and questionnaires distributed to respondents in order to test validity and reliability of the questionnaire for accuracy and precision. This will be achieved by conducting a pilot study in regions with similar characteristics to the actual areas under the study. A total of 30 questionnaires will be used for the pre-test. Using the information from the respondents, the questions will be restrained and others altered in order to get the desired information. The respondents will also be selected randomly for the pre-test. 12.0. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES Data will be collected by use of questionnaires that will be administered to the subjects to respond to. This will be carried out with the help of trained research assistants. Still, interviews will be carried out to the fire emergency officials. Observation will be also be used to collect data on the available resources. This will be done using observation check lists. Already Existing data will also be of importance as it will be used to add up on the already recorded data. 13.0. METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS Data obtained from fieldwork including questionnaires and interviews information will be entered in a computer spreadsheet. SPSS will used in analyzing quantitative data to generate frequencies, means, standard deviation and computation of inferential statistics. 14.0. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS Research permit will be sought from the relevant fire and rescue emergency authorities. Mutual agreement and corporation of the subjects will be sought by explaining the purpose of the study. Confidentiality will be maintained by ensuring no received information from the subjects under study is disclosed to unauthorized persons exempt to the team implementing the study. Only the required data will be collected and used for the purpose of the study (Matthews 2009). 15.0. TIME SCALE A three months study time frame will be conducted for this entire project. It will be started on 1st October 2010 and end on 30st December 2010. 16.0. REFERENCES: 1. Andy. G. 2004 Integrated Risk Management planning: The National Document, FBU National IRMP Department, Folium Group Ltd, Birmingham. Available at URL: http://www.fbu.org.uk/workplace/irmp/irmpdoc/irmp_front_section.pdf 2. http://www.rbfrs.co.uk/, about us 2010, [online]. Available at URL: http://www.rbfrs.co.uk/aboutus.asp 3. Commonwealth of Australia, 2003, Running the risk: Risk Management Tool for Volunteer Involving Organizations, Volunteer Australia Inc. Available at URL: http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/files/QE2KB6ET03/Risk%20Identification%20Toolkit.pdf 4. Brian. C. 2007, Community Fire Risk Assessment and Mitigation, SAR, International. Available at URL: http://www.spectir.com/assets/Text%20Files/SRA%20Community%20Fire%20Risk%20Assessment.pdf 5. Richard .W. & Bukowski, P.E. 2010, Fire Risk Hazard as the Basis of building Fire safety performance evaluation, NIST Building and Fire research Laboratory, Gaithersberg, USA. Available at URL: http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/866/CIB_W14/paper9.pdf 6. Hakan .F. 2008, Uncertainty and Risk Analysis in Fire Safety Engineering, Lund University, Sweden. Available at URL: http://130.235.7.155/publikationsdb/docs/1016.pdf 7. Paula, L.B., and Justo, P.A 2001 Population and sample, Sampling Techniques, Management Mathematics for European Schools. Available at: http://optimierung.mathematik.uni-kl.de/mamaeusch/veroeffentlichungen/ver_texte/sampling_en.pdf 17.0. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Cote, E. A. 2007 Organizing for Fire and Rescue Services, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, New York. 2. Loffler, J. 2009 Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Springer, New York. 3. Matthews, G. 2009 Disaster management in British libraries: project report with guidelines for library managers, British Library, Michigan. 4. Moor, T., 2006. Tolley’s handbook of disaster and emergency management, Butterworth-Heinemann. Rio de Janeiro. Read More