FIRE SAFETY (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Fire Safety Act, or FSA in short, was enacted in 1993. In order for SCDF to keep up to date, it is necessary to amend the FSA to provide for new powers for the SCDF as well as to fine-tune some of the existing provisions. Graduated penalties for Registered Inspectors and the establishment of a Committee to investigate complaints and to recommend penalties

I shall first touch on the proposed changes to the Registered Inspector (RI) scheme. Registered Inspectors are a group of professional architects and engineers registered under the Fire Safety Act. The owner of a newly completed building is required to appoint a Registered Inspector to inspect and test fire safety works in the building. The Registered Inspector has to certify that the fire safety works are completed in accordance with the fire safety plans and the Fire Safety Act before the Commissioner will issue the Fire Safety Certificate for the occupation of the building. While the current Fire Safety Act allows Commissioner SCDF to appoint a committee to assist him in considering applications for registration as Registered Inspectors, it does not provide for the appointment of a committee to assist the Commissioner to investigate into any complaints of misconduct or negligence by a Registered Inspector.

To provide for a more transparent system of investigation, clause 4 of the Bill will create new sections 6A to 6D to give Commissioner SCDF the power to appoint a Committee either on his own accord, or upon receipt of a complaint, to investigate into any complaint against a Registered Inspector. Members of the Inquiry Committee will comprise qualified persons such as professional engineers and architects, and officers from the SCDF. The formation of such a committee will ensure a greater level of professionalism and independence in the investigation process.

The Fire Safety Act currently only allows Commissioner SCDF to de-register a Registered Inspector because of misconduct. There is no other form of punishment. The current law does not provide for graduated penalties commensurate with the gravity of the misconduct. Clause 3 of the Bill amends section 5 of the Fire Safety Act to empower the Commissioner to impose additional forms of penalties, namely, suspension from practice, and written warnings. The new section 6C(7)(d) inserted by clause 4 also empowers the Commissioner to impose a fine of up to $5,000. The Commissioner will only de-register a Registered Inspector if the latter is involved in serious cases of negligence or misconduct such as fraud, misrepresentation or dishonesty.

Power to disapprove plans without a written direction and revoke approvals granted for plans of fire safety works

I will now move on to the system for approving fire safety plans. Currently, a person who wishes to construct a new building has to appoint a Qualified Person (QP), who is a professional engineer or architect, to prepare a fire safety plan. This plan has to be submitted to SCDF for approval.

In the course of checking the plans submitted by the Qualified Person, SCDF has detected errors, such as the lack of endorsement from the QP in the plan submissions, or sprinklers are not specified. Under section 23 of the current Fire Safety Act, Commissioner SCDF cannot reject a plan submitted to him without first issuing a written direction to the Qualified Person to ask him to comply with the fire safety requirements. This has led to instances where some Qualified Persons made careless submissions and relied on the SCDF to point out their mistakes in writing.

Further, under the self-regulation system put in place by SCDF since September 1998, SCDF would approve the fire safety plan prepared by a Qualified Person immediately if the Qualified Person has also filed a written declaration that the plan fulfils the fire safety requirements under the Fire Safety Act. If an approved plan is found not to be complying with the Act in subsequent audit checks, current provisions in the Fire Safety Act do not allow SCDF to revoke it. SCDF can only issue a written direction for the owner of the project to make the necessary amendments to the plan.

Clause 6 will amend section 23 of the Act to allow Commissioner SCDF to reject a submitted plan outright, without having to issue a written direction. This power will be used for cases where there are glaring errors in the submission plans. This will place the onus on the Qualified Persons to ensure that their plans comply with all fire safety requirements. It will also prevent the Qualified Persons from being reliant on SCDF for the written directions.

The proposed amendment to section 23 also empowers Commissioner SCDF to revoke an approval granted earlier if audit check reveals that the Qualified Person has made a false declaration of compliance or provided false information to the Commissioner during the submission of the plan.

Fire Safety Certificate or Temporary Fire Permit for newly completed building

Currently, under section 29 of the Act, the person for whom the fire safety works are carried out is required to apply to the Commissioner for a fire safety certificate. The concept of self-regulation for Qualified Persons under section 23 will be extended to the submission of approval for fire safety certificates under section 29. The amended section 29 of the Act will empower Commissioner SCDF to issue a Fire Safety Certificate (FSC) or a Temporary Fire Permit (TFP) for a completed building based on the certification given by a Registered Inspector. Random checks may be carried out before or after such certificates are issued. The Commissioner will also be empowered under the amended section 29 to similarly revoke the Fire Safety Certificate or the Temporary Fire Permit if he is satisfied that the certification or information given by the Registered Inspector is false or if the applicant fails to comply with his order to carry out rectification in the building.

Provision for powers to order the demolition, removal, closure, alteration or demolition of buildings

Sir, let me now turn to enforcement action to be taken in respect of non-compliance of fire safety requirements under the Act. Clause 8 inserts new sections 30A, 30B and 30C. These sections will confer powers on SCDF to take appropriate action against cases of unauthorised fire safety works. Section 30A empowers Commissioner SCDF to order the demolition or removal of illegal fire safety works in cases of severe non-compliance. He may issue an order for closure of a building or part of it, and enter any building to demolish, remove or alter any works causing the non-compliance. Section 30B provides for the servicing and enforcement of a closure order, while section 30C provides a channel to appeal to the Minister.

The new provisions will enable SCDF to better deal with cases of non-compliance. The power to demolish a building will only be used as a last resort, in situations where the unauthorised fire safety works or the building works actually pose an immediate danger to the occupants of the building. These new provisions are in line with similar provisions in the Building Control Act.

Making Fire Hazard Abatement Notice permanent

The Bill also proposes amendments to facilitate the enforcement of the Fire Safety Act. Currently, under section 13 of the Act, the Commissioner has to issue a Fire Hazard Abatement Notice (FHAN) to the occupier, owner, or employee of a premises to remove the fire hazard each time a fire hazard is detected, for example, blocking of passageway to the fire exit. The FHAN also specifies a timeframe for the removal of the fire hazards. If the FHAN is complied with, then the case is closed. Otherwise, SCDF can either compound the offence, remove or seize any property causing the fire hazard, order the owner or occupier to close the premises for up to 72 hours to remove the fire hazard, or apply to the Magistrate's Court for a Fire Hazard Order.

However, under the current law, there is nothing to stop the owner or occupier from committing a new fire hazard offence after the previous fire hazard has been removed. SCDF needs to re-issue the offender with a fresh FHAN even if the nature of the new fire hazard is similar to the previous act. As a result, SCDF has to closely monitor recalcitrant cases and issue a FHAN each time the same type of offence is committed. This is unproductive. The number of such recalcitrant cases has been on the rise. There were 63 cases in 1999, compared to only 15 cases in 1997 and 12 cases in 1998.

To close this loophole, clause 5 amends section 13 of the Act to empower the Commissioner when issuing a FHAN, to require the offender to take the necessary steps to prevent the re-occurrence of the said fire hazard. With this amendment, SCDF can take immediate action against recalcitrant owners/occupiers.

Conclusion

The proposals that I have presented today are necessary to ensure that the Act remains relevant to our needs. They will enable us to maintain one of the highest fire safety standards in the world.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Kenneth Chen Koon Lap (Hong Kah): Mr Speaker, Sir, first, I declare myself as a practising architect. I support the Bill.

In the past, it has always been a long and tedious process for the professionals to obtain building plan clearance from the Fire Safety Bureau. Usually it takes up to two to three months or maybe even longer. It was due to the differences in the interpretation of grey areas in the Fire Code, resulting in time spent vetting the plans in detail and the to-and-fro discussions between the professionals and the Fire Safety officers. With the introduction of the amendment of section 23, new subsection 23(4),

"Where an application for approval of the plans of fire safety works under subsection (1) is accompanied by a written declaration by the qualified person who prepared the plans declaring that the plans have been prepared in accordance with the Fire Code adopted under section 55, and the provisions of this Act and any regulations made thereunder, the Commissioner may, without checking the plans, approve the plans on the basis of the written declaration by the qualified person.", this results in the time taken to approve the plans to be shortened to less than a week. This dramatic improvement is due to the doing away with the time-wasting and tedious process necessary in the old system of vetting and checking through every plan submitted. I must commend the tremendous effort put in by the Fire Safety Bureau and the Singapore Institute of Architects in working out all the details and safeguards that make this new submission procedure possible.

In safeguarding that there is no abuse to the new procedure under the same section, new subsection 23(6) provides that -

"The Commissioner may at any time revoke any approval granted in respect of any plans of fire safety works -

(a) under subsection (2) (a), if he is satisfied that any information given in the application for approval or any document submitted to the Commissioner in respect of the application for approval is false in a material particular, and

(b) under subsection (4), if he is satisfied that the written declaration submitted by the qualified person referred to in that subsection is false."

While I think that this safeguard is necessary, and although the Fire Safety Bureau and the Singapore Institute of Architects have worked very hard in refining the grey area in the Fire Code, there will always be problems arising out of the different interpretation of the Code and not due to the qualified person (QP) intentionally producing false information or trying to violate the Code. Even though the FSB officers have been very cooperative in granting pre-consultation to the professionals, there may still be areas where interpretation of the Fire Code differs. And if this surfaces after the building is completed, it will have serious and irreversible consequences, as it is stated in the new section 30A wherein the Commissioner can order the demolition, removal, etc. of unauthorised fire safety work, if he deems that the building built has not conformed to regulations laid down by the Fire Code. These include cases where the plan has been certified by the QP and accepted by the SCDF during submission stage. So, when the building is completed, an application is made for the Fire Safety Certificate. If the Fire Safety Bureau or SCDF has found that a portion of the building which is built according to the submitted plans cannot be accepted due to the different interpretation of a certain clause in the Fire Code, the Commissioner can under section 30A order the affected part of the building to be demolished or removed. It may sometimes create an impossible situation as it is very difficult to do so in order to comply with the new SCDF requirement, especially if it is a high-rise building.

To illustrate, let me give you an example. If the interpretation of the provision of minimum distance between two staircases differs, as it is subject to other considerations such as provision of external ventilation, provision of fire doors, etc, and if the final decision by the SCDF is that the distance falls short of the requirement, then it will be a very difficult situation for the owner as it may not only be extremely costly to do any rectification at that stage, but it sometimes may not be practical to do so. Although there is a provision for an aggrieved person to make an appeal to the Minister under section 30C, it may be too late to dispute who has the correct interpretation, and usually the FSB or the SCDF will win.

Therefore, it would be most important that we ensure that the Fire Code is so clear and precise that it leaves no room for different interpretation. At this point, I must commend that the SCDF and the Institute of Architects have put in tremendous work in drafting the handbook which addresses most of these grey areas in the Fire Code. But there should be constant review of the Code to ensure that no ambiguity, especially those involving critical areas, is left unresolved.

Finally, I would like to request the Minister to look into an area which is not covered in this Amendment Bill. Under the old system, the developer has to pay a sizeable plan fee for the plans to be processed. It is justified because much time and effort has to be made by the FSB to process all the plans submitted. However, now that the system has been streamlined and no vetting of plans is needed and no administration time is required, I hope that the Minister can consider adjusting the plan fee accordingly. Besides, under the new system, a fee has to be paid for an appeal for waiver is submitted anyway. Therefore, it is only appropriate that the plan fee required under the old system be reviewed.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay (Chua Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the motion. Before I proceed, I would like to declare my interest. I am one of the qualified persons mentioned in the Bill.

Sir, fire safety is one of the important issues for buildings, especially for public buildings, because there is risk of life in the event of a fire. To ensure fire safety work to be properly designed, built and maintained, the Fire Safety professional, the qualified persons, the Registered Inspector and the landlord must do their part to comply with the Fire Safety Act and the related Code of Practice. It is not uncommon for people to violate fire safety regulations. Just during the last Christmas shopping season, the Singapore Civil Defence Force had found that some shopping centres did not comply with the fire safety requirement.

Sir, in a free market economy like Singapore, businessmen try to save cost and professionals try to be competitive, and lower their professional fees. Both the business cost and the professional fee could only be lowered to an extent, where minimum standards of the safety specifications are still achievable, below which they will all breach the Fire Safety Act and will be punishable under the Act. The Act must therefore be crafted in a way with sufficient deterrent measures which are effective enough to deter any person from violating the Fire Safety Regulations. These amendments spell out the type of punishment and disciplinary action against the Registered Inspector, qualified person and the landlord.

In the case of the Registered Inspector, the newly added punishment for written warning, short-term suspension and the imposed $5,000 penalty by the Commissioner of Civil Defence Force are commendable. The penalties imposed range from low to high to deal with the different degrees of severity in breaching the fire safety requirements. We do not need to wait for an error or violation to be so great that a person should be punishable under the Professional Engineers Act or the Architects Act with a fine of up to $50,000 and to be struck off from the register. With this new measure, the incorporation of a minor penalty, the Registered Inspector has to be careful, regardless of the size and nature of the work. By doing so, the RI has to be more thorough in his work and he will exercise care, even though it is a small job and with a small fee of only a few hundred dollars.

I would like to ask the Minister, when a person is penalised under this particular minor punishment by the Commissioner of Civil Defence Force, is the person also subjected to the disciplinary action under the Professional Engineers Act and the Architects Act.

The amended section 6A(7) states that in the absence of the Chairman of an Inquiry Committee, the Commissioner will appoint an acting Chairman. Section 6B(3) states that all the members of the Inquiry Committee must be present in order to constitute a quorum of the Inquiry Committee. I would like to ask whether there is any conflict between these two clauses. The amendment focuses on the issue of investigation of complaint against the RI and whether he is guilty under the Act. However, the Act is silent on the complainant. Should the complainant also be subject to some form of punishment if he makes a frivolous complaint against a RI without any reasonable ground? This will prevent people from taking advantage of the Act to go against any RI.

The new section 23(4) is the implementation of the self-declaration for fire safety work by a qualified person. The Commissioner will approve the submission plan immediately without checking. This is a positive measure to speed up application work and could save a lot of money for the landlord who is desperate for time to carry out construction or renovation work. This measure places trust on the qualified person and also puts a very heavy responsibility on him. This is because the qualified person designs the work based on the code of practice. This kind of code will not be exhaustive in the coverage of all aspects of the work involved. Sometimes, it is subject to interpretation when there should be a grey area. In the older system, the qualified person will wait for approval. Otherwise, it is amended in accordance with a list of approved conditions. Under the new rules, if the grey area should be spotted and declared as non-compliance, the risk will be that they have to face additional costs, loss of use and also the possibility of withdrawal of the Fire Safety Certificate after the completion of fire safety works.

Under the Bill, the Commissioner will go after the qualified person but, in actual fact, the cost and the loss of use of the premises are normally borne by the landlord. The latter may resist and delay the rectification work and cause the qualified person to commit the offence under subsection (9). Could the Minister explain how the Bill will deal with these situations, as I have explained, so that no party involved could obstruct the measures taken in order to comply with the specific notice issued by the Commissioner?

In the case of demolition and removal order under section 30, it will be served to the landlord or the tenant if the building had already been issued with a temporary fire certificate. However, the order is actually served to the qualified person if the fire safety works are in progress. For the latter, in my view, the landlord and the tenant should also be served with a similar order because they are likely to be the party causing obstruction to the action in compliance with the demolition and removal order.

In section 30B, it is mentioned that a premises could be issued with a closure order and the order could be lifted later. There is no mention about why a closure order is issued and on what grounds the order will be lifted. Could the Minister explain the rationale behind the closure order in section 30B?

Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: I thank the Members for supporting the Bill.

Mr Chen is concerned about the grey areas of interpretation after the building work is done. I am sure FSB in working together with the various professional bodies will make sure that such problems do not regularly happen and that the Fire Safety Code is regularly reviewed to make sure that grey areas are clarified. As far as the Code is concerned, we can make it as explicit as possible but we cannot cover all eventualities. But with the process of dialogue which has been going on for a long time between the various professional bodies and SCDF, I think this process of consultation will continue to work well to improve the Fire Safety Code.

As regards the plan fees, I would like to assure the Member that we are not reaping all the benefits of cost savings and not returning some of the savings to the parties concerned. Even before the self-regulation system was implemented, it has always been the responsibility of the qualified persons to ensure that the plans comply fully with the fire safety requirements. The self-regulation system only entrusted the qualified persons to take greater care in preparing their plans and ensure that the fire safety reqirements are fully complied with. But with the self-regulation system, the FSB's efforts are now directed at providing consultation to the public and conducting detailed audit checks on the plans that were submitted. Plan fees were already revised and adjusted in September 1998 when the self-regulation system was implemented to better reflect the actual resources used by the FSB. Compared to the previous plan fees structure, I am told that the FSB's assessment is that there is an average cost reduction of about 23% for an application. So it is quite a substantial reduction in view of the new system.

As regards Prof. Low's questions, I will deal with them specifically. Firstly, with regard to whether the Registered Inspector will be subject to disciplinary action by its own professional body, it is really up to the respective professional body to decide whether the Registered Inspector has breached or contravened any of the board's own regulations or provisions under the Professional Engineers Act or the Architects Act.

As regards the conflict about appointing an acting Chairman and that section 6B(3) requires that all members of the Inquiry Committee must be present, I have been advised by the Attorney-General that there is no conflict between these two clauses. The acting Chairman, if so appointed, will act in the capacity of Chairman for the Inquiry. Together with the rest of the members of the Inquiry Committee, they will still fulfill the requirement that all members of the Inquiry Committee must be present to constitute the quorum. I would like to assure him and Members of the House that the same people who have been appointed to sit in the Inquiry Committee will investigate the case from the beginning to the end. The Commissioner would not exercise his powers to substitute the Chairman, if that is what he is concerned about, or any other member, if the Inquiry Committee has commenced its proceedings.

Prof. Low also asked whether the complainant who makes frivolous complaints against a Registered Inspector without any reasonable ground should be punished. There is no provision in the current Bill for any action to be taken against any person who makes false complaints against a Registered Inspector. Even under the present law, no such provision is in place and the Attorney-General's Chambers has told me that this is also the case for the Professional Engineers Act and the Architects Act. The check really lies with the SCDF where the Commissioner must exercise his discretion in screening the complaints to ensure that they are not frivolous or that they are not without basis and the SCDF is prepared to re-look into the issue if there is any evidence of abuse.

Prof. Low also talked about the grey areas he spotted and the additional cost involved, and he also alluded to the point that the landlord normally may want to resist or delay the rectification work causing the QP to commit the offence under section 7(b). I would like to explain that section 7(b) itself is not amended. But under section 23(7)(b) - maybe he is referring to section 23(7)(b) instead - the order to rectify non-compliance is issued to the owner and therefore it is in the owner's interest to carry out the rectification work.

There are a couple of points on the demolition order or removal order under section 30, which is being served on the landlord if the building has already been issued with a temporary fire certificate. Prof. Low says that the order is served only to a qualified person if the fire safety works are in progress and in the case of a completed building, he thinks the landlord or tenant should also be served with the order because he is likely to be the party causing the obstruction to the actions. Let me assure him that, for cases where the fire safety works are in progress, the order can be served to either the owner or qualified person. And in practice, the SCDF serves the order on both the owner and the qualified person.

Prof. Low's last point is on section 30B where he mentioned that the premises could be issued with a closure order and the order could be lifted later and that there is no mention at all why a closure order is issued and on what grounds the order would be lifted. He wanted to know the rationale behind the closure order in section 30B. The closure order would only be issued in a scenario where the owner refuses to comply with the order by the SCDF to rectify any non-compliance in the fire safety works and the situation is such that the non-compliance will pose an imminent danger to the occupants of the building. With the closure of the building, the Commissioner may then take action to carry out the rectification works and the closure order would be lifted when the necessary rectification works have been completed and the building meets the fire safety requirements.

I think I have answered all the questions raised by the two Members.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Wong Kan Seng].

Bill considered in Committee.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Clause 1 -

The Chairman: The citation year "1999" will be changed to "2000", as indicated in the Order Paper Supplement.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 9 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.