Regulating safety in an unsafe world (risk reduction for and with communities)

Safety regulators and the public they serve often have contrasting views on risk perception and the veracity of institutional estimates of risk and harm. Conflict and distrust between these groups is often a result of a lack of public involvement in decision making on safety related matters. Such concerns also emerge from differences in professional training, authority and experience between the groups. Fire services internationally, carryout fire safety assessments on behalf of communities. This assessment role is unusual in that unlike conventional approaches to regulatory safety assessment, fire fighters are direct end-users of their own regulatory assessment and closer to the people they protect. This paper discusses how fire services are beginning to seek closer links with communities by defining clear regulatory frameworks for conventional safety assessments and conceptual frameworks that allow a redefinition of their role towards establishing partnerships with communities to promote sustained safety.