Furniture Village
Furniture Village team up with Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Prime Systems in new approach to fire safety
- Improved operational standards
- New approach to compliance in fire safety
- Time saving
Background
Furniture Village opened its first store in 1989 in Abingdon, Oxfordshire and since then it has grown into the UK’s largest independent furniture retailer with 54 stores nationwide. Furniture Village also sells online.
Prime Systems have been working with Furniture Village since 2015 providing their Accident and Incident Reporting system as well as their Compliance Monitoring and Contractor Management systems. This year they decided to add the Fire Risk Assessments module.
Challenge
As a business with multiple locations across England Furniture Village knew that as part of their due diligence they needed to review their fire risk assessments but were also very aware that, with the COVID-19 pandemic at the time and because there had been no material changes to any of their premises, it was going to prove to be a difficult challenge.
Solution
Undeterred, they approached their Primary Authority partners Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service to see if they could support them in a new approach to compliance in fire safety. Furniture Village developed a fire safety workbook which was signed off by HFRS as providing sufficient training to ensure competent persons. With this knowledge the teams had the armoury they needed to undertake a fire risk assessment review on their own premises.
Once this training had been completed Furniture Village then developed a series of controls which were reviewed by HFRS as suitable and sufficient for a fire risk assessment to be completed with any next steps being electronically monitored to ensure compliance.
Once HFRS had approved the controls for the Fire Risk Assessment, Prime were able to add these into the module for the stores to complete. Testing was done by Furniture Village users, and HFRS were given access to review the online process. The system was then launched across the estate.
Impact
“For us as a business to undertake fire risk assessments on 54 premises would have taken over 6 months to complete but using this system with the support of Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service the risk assessments for all of our locations were conducted over a period of just one week.” Sue Browne, Head of Compliance at Furniture Village.
“It was a pleasure to work with Furniture Village and Prime Systems to support them with their fire risk assessments and processes. We are glad to hear that the new system is running smoothly and effectively and hope that other companies adopt a similar collaborative approach to fire safety.” Liam Jackson, Fire Safety Inspector, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.
