 Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Fire Safety Verification Method webinar for building surveyors and building certifiers. We appreciate you all attending this afternoon. This webinar is to provide a bit more education on the Fire Safety Verification Method as we approach towards the adoption date of 1 May. Today's presentation is run sheet. We have myself Alexander Armstrong from the Australian Building Codes Board, just providing an introduction and looking after proceedings. We have Paul England, who is representing the Australian Building Codes Board, providing an introduction to the Fire Safety Verification Method. Jeremy Turner from AIBS is providing a building surveying perspective. Mark Wybrough from AFAC is providing the fire authorities perspective. At the end of the presentation, we will have approximately 15 minutes of questions. We would appreciate if everyone could lodge their questions throughout the course of the webinar as it occurs to them, so that we can appropriately look through the questions and provide the best answers that we can. Now, today we're looking to develop a couple of learning outcomes. Hopefully we reach this for everyone, but it's developing a greater understanding of the Fire Safety Verification Method and building certifiers involvement in it. We're looking to increase the technical understanding of your work in relation to the Fire Safety Verification Method and hopefully increase your confidence when working on projects using the Fire Safety Verification Method as they come up. Now, I'll pass across to Paul England and he will start with his introduction to the Fire Safety Verification Method. Okay, thank you. I'll move straight into the presentation just to give you a broad overview of the verification method. It's included in the NCC Schedule 7. It becomes active on the 1st of May, 2020, and it provides a process for verifying compliance of Fire Safety Performance Solutions with the NCC. You can use other options, but the FSVM does provide a robust basis for the assessment of performance solutions. What is the purpose of the FSVM? Well, it's to ensure the minimum level of safety required by the NCC is met using the concept of equivalence. And this involves defining a similar reference building, complying with the DTS provisions, then checking the level of safety for the proposed building solution is at least greater than or equal to the level of safety provided by the reference building. It's a practical approach pending for quantification and it has been around quite a while, but perhaps hasn't been as used as much or the equivalence approach hasn't been used as much as it perhaps could have been. It goes back to the early 90s with the work of Warnbeck at Victoria University of Technology where they developed a space model Caesar risk and undertook comparative analysis of a large number of buildings and informed code change with it. The code of practice published by the Society of Fire Safety back in 2003 also promoted the equivalence approach and similarly the fire engineering guidelines also have that as one of the means of demonstrating acceptable performance. So it is a tried and tested approach. There have been some comments about are the NCC deemed to satisfy provisions an appropriate benchmark? Well you can say that the deemed to satisfy provisions have been rigorously tested and reviewed. The BCA in its now the NCC was originally derived from state and territory regulations and all those state and territory regulations were reviewed and consolidated to initially develop the BCA 88 and the 90 version was adopted eventually throughout Australia. In 1996 a detailed review of the BCA was undertaken by the Fire Code Reform Centre and that basically pulled all the DTS provisions apart and reassembled them and there were various reports which are still available on the ABCB website which go through detailed analysis of the provisions. The 1996 version was then published and that included qualitative performance requirements. Here is the first performance based BCA. It's been regularly updated since generally based on detailed analysis and public comment. It is open suggestions for improvements on a three-yearly basis and if there are any cases when you're applying the verification method where DTS are not considered to provide an acceptable level of safety the ABCB should be notified and with details what the problem was and a potential solution. When you're actually doing the analysis if you feel the DTS approach isn't quite enough you can always add something into the benchmark or the reference building just to make sure you're satisfied with the level of safety. There are a number of supporting resources that were provided with the verification method. The first one of those is the handbook and that provides detailed guidance on applying the fire safety verification method. It provides information to assist all stakeholders so it's not limited to the fire safety engineer or the building surveyor. It's written in a form that should be approachable to most stakeholders. It also identifies other technical documents such as the IFEC national and international standards where appropriate to refer to when you want to get more involved in the detailed methods of analysis. It defines the expectations for how the fire safety verification method should be applied. It doesn't provide specific methods of analysis or models or input. They should be derived by the fire safety engineering based on the needs of the project and agreed by key stakeholders and obviously the building surveyor in particular is very important in that process. It was issued and it has been issued as a preview and comments for improvement should be fed through to the ABCB. The handbook also references data sheets and these provide data and details of analysis methods that are useful where more appropriate relevant information is not available. Whilst the development was going through of the fire safety verification method and there were suggestions that a greater involvement of a risk based approach should be used, it was highlighted that there were limitations with existing data. So these data sheets summarise a good proportion of what's available in relation to risk based assessments and also has references to other sources and these are provided as real guidance for the fire safety engineer, building surveyor and other stakeholders as to what is reasonable if they can't find anything more appropriate. Obviously if you find something more relevant you should use that. The sheets have also been developed in a format that's suitable for easy update. So these can be updated as more relevant and contemporary information becomes available. Okay, I'll now run through some of the highlights of the fire safety verification methods. One of the big things is guidance delimits what I've called BTS wrangling when defining the reference building. Obviously if your reference building is the benchmark if you define something that is not appropriate you're not going to get the right answer and there is potential both ways around for something overly conservative to be proposed but more concerning is that something that presents a lower risk could well cause problems. So for example comparing a multi-storey building with a single dwelling really isn't an appropriate thing to be doing. Okay moving on to another key feature of the verification method that is particularly important and that is defining a minimum set of scenarios that you should consider. Again there's been some comments about this is excessive and that you don't really need to consider all these. The fire safety verification method uses the word consider so it doesn't necessarily mean you've got to do a huge amount of detailed analysis but if you're not going to do the detailed analysis you need to be able to justify why it's not relevant. Also the fire safety verification method doesn't prohibit other scenarios being considered and again this is important. This is a catch all so that the most obvious ones don't get missed but if you're looking at something a little bit different there may well be a need to look at some additional scenarios. Procedural requirements and other features are also can we move on to the next slide thank you thanks. Procedural requirements and other features are I'll just run through some of those. Performance based design briefies mandatory so it should always be done but within the FSVM it's mandatory. Some participants are also mandated a client or a client's representative, architects or designer various specialist consultants can be nominated for special features. The fire brigade involvement is mandatory and again this is very important and the appropriate authority subject to state legislation which is the building surveyor certifier. It is acknowledged that the building surveyor if he's serving a statutory function has limitations on what he can do and I'll cover that in a bit more detail later. The key thing is that holistic approach is adopted. All the variations are all grouped into the performance solution and compared against a reference building so it's a holistic analysis of the whole building which is a very key issue and very important so you catch interactions between all the variations. Tenability criteria are specified if you choose to use ASET or R-SET. This is less critical for comparative analysis so they're relatively rudimentary values but again very useful and can save a lot of unnecessary time debating those things. A key thing is that individual and societal risk should be considered so you're looking at the risk of multiple fatalities as well as just the individual risk. Okay now moving on to the application of the fire safety verification method and we'll start with the design process and the first thing I'll say here is if the building surveyor is undertaking a statutory role they should not provide input to avoid conflicts of interest. The legislation varies from state to state in relation to this but the general principle stated there is worth considering and worth following irrespective of the legislation. I'll run through some things that may well be relevant for the building surveyor to at least comment on but generally they should take a backseat role during the design process. Stakeholder input is important and the design process goes well beyond the NCC and I've used the terminology from some of the Warren Centre reports here in relation to additional drivers and constraints and NCC drivers and constraints. So additional things that you may well be looking at are usability, aesthetics, cost, speed of construction, building flexibility, operational continuity, corporate image, environmental protection, heritage protection, WHS so the legislation and enhanced NCC drivers. So some degree the building surveyor may not be involved in those but they are involved in DDA issues and those sort of things as well. Some of those additional drivers may be relevant to the building surveyor but the majority of the work will focus on the NCC drivers and constraints which are safety, health, immunity, accessibility, sustainability and to some degree protection of other property. With broad stakeholder input a proposed designs developed generally by the fire safety engineer in conjunction with the rest of the design team and then it's necessary to check additional driver compliance. We won't talk about that any further because our focus is NCC and also to check the NCC compliance. So we then look at selection of assessment and verification methods. The first thing is to check NCC compliance with the DTS provisions. This should really be undertaken by the fire safety engineer or a separate consulting building surveyor and then checked by the building surveyor serving the statutory function of a building surveyor. Obviously if you satisfy the Dean to satisfy provisions there's no need to go any further in relation to the verification process. But if there are variations you've been looking at a performance solution. The next question is is the FSVM applicable and if it is you may choose to follow that path. We'll move on to the next one. Performance based design brief is critical. We've got the course stakeholders there on the left and you can see the building surveyors doing that list. It's not necessarily a list of priority but from a point of view of input in relation to the NCC. So emergency services are going to play a big role as well. Client owner needs to have input and the architect's building designer. Other stakeholders that should be part of the process are fire safety practitioners, could be emergency management consultants when you're looking at evacuation strategies etc. active fire and passive fire protection system. Services especially consultants and have included consulting building surveyors on that list in case there's a need for additional input relation to regulations that could cause a conflict with the statutory building surveyor. Material suppliers, peer reviewer if it's deemed necessary, tenants representatives, building operators if they're available, builder and insurer. So it can be a very broad list. And the performance based design brief process goes through description of proposed building, defining the reference building, identifying variations from the DTS, identifying relevant performance requirements, identifying relevance scenarios and identifying analysis methods inputs and criteria. This is very similar to normal fire safety engineering practice but it's a nice structured approach to follow and very significant for the building surveyor to be checking this in detail. So the building surveyor certifiers role. Next slide please. They're generally appointed at the early stage of the project, but they need to exercise care of us said before to avoid conflicts of interest. They effectively act as an independent independently on behalf of the community to ensure compliance with building and planning regulations. And that's very important that they maintain that focus. Stay in territory acts and regulations commonly address those sorts of issues. If permitted by the acts and regulations they should provide interpretations in relation to compliance with the DTS provisions and also be looking at identification of relevant performance requirements. So critical role in identifying the compliance pathway. Very important that the building surveyor is satisfied that the appropriate pathways being used so they should have input into which pathways followed. If a performance solution is adopted, the BCA needs to satisfy be satisfied on the assessment method even if it's not the fire safety verification method. And they should provide input in relation to the need for peer review. Okay, going on to the the PBDB process. This is next next slide please. Thank you. Determine if the proposed reference building is appropriate and provides a reasonable benchmark in line with the community expectations. Check the DTS variations. Check the proposed scenarios. Determine the proposed methods of analysis and inputs and criteria are appropriate. And undertake a detailed review of the final performance based design brief document. If they don't have expertise, obviously a peer reviewer can be called into certainty depending on the complexity. Okay, next slide please. Review of analysis and sign off going through this. Essentially, the building survey as well is to go through in detail the detailed analysis and satisfy that the satisfying themselves that the performance solution satisfies the requirement. They also need to review the design document and implementation and maintenance plans to determine if the proposed process is sufficient to be able to determine compliance of the completed building. So the building survey as well goes beyond the design stage and the documentation into implementation. If documentation provides enough detail to determine compliance and accurately reflects the proposed building solution and all the relevant building regulations have been satisfied, then the issue and approval to proceed. And that to some degree is the end of the fire safety verification process. But I'll just quickly flash to the next slide, which shows the building surveyor role carrying on through construction. I've over on time a little bit. So I'll just gloss over this, but just to highlight construction process and determining compliance is very, very critical. And the building surveyor has a rather difficult role in determining when to issue an occupancy permit and that the building is fit to occupy. And it could help enormously if the performance based design brief team is carried on into this stage, particularly the fire safety engineer to assist with checking checking compliance. I'll leave it there. So thank you. Thanks, Paul. And now we'll pass across to Jeremy Turner from ARBS and he'll provide a perspective from the building surveying industry. Thanks very much, Alex. And yeah, I'm national technical manager and policy manager at the ARBS. And I'm also involved in the building codes committee. So I've had a bit of involvement in the early stages of the development of this method. And I guess speaking from that knowledge basis. If we go to the next slide, I'll give you a bit of an overview of what it is that I want to cover today. So initially, I want to talk about what is the fire safety verification method, do a bit of a recap of its status. And where I think that it's likely that we'll see it being used. And that's a bit of speculation there. And what is the assessment process when it is used? And I'm again, probably going to be speculating a fair bit there because I think individual practitioners will fairly quickly work out what they need to do with that regard. So starting off with the what is it question, which is the next slide, Alex. We have quite clearly performance code. And so we all understand that we have to be satisfied that performance requirements are achieved. And we can do that by either A or B, as we can see on the screen. So it's either a performance required solution, or it's been dissatisfied or something that at least meets the end of satisfy provision. That's fundamental behind the whole thing. And it's a good place to start. If we then look at part two of a 2.2, we know that conformity with a performance requirement can be established by a range of methods. So we have evidence of suitability, we have a verification method, which doesn't have to be one that's specified or set out in the NCC. We can also use expert judgment, comparison with the team is satisfied. And in fact, any combination of any of the above. Next slide, Alex. A 2.2, being in part A is mandatory. And it includes this sub part three, which I've shown here. And in particular, B tells us that we have to be thorough in our assessment referencing all of the requirements that are applicable. And this is something that I think building surveyors are uniquely placed to do. So what is the verification method, the fire safety verification method? Well, there's a handy definition in the NCC, which tells us that it's basically anything that demonstrates conformity with a performance requirement, which is pretty straightforward. So the fire safety verification method is simply a way to demonstrate conformity. And I've heard people talking about verification methods as an alternative to team satisfy. But that's not quite right. They're actually a demonstration of conformity with the performance requirement, which is actually a better standard and deemed apply. Which in some instances doesn't actually make the performance requirement. But we accept that it does because it's deemed to comply. So you can therefore expect that the verification method will in certain respects provide or any verification method will provide potentially a better standard of compliance than the DTS. And that's only if it's not the same. It should be the same in most respects. So the fire safety verification method only relates to fire. So when we look at a 2.4, we can see straight away that we're dealing with a combination of performance or potentially DTS or both. And so we need to be very careful about identifying what this means. So the building survey's job in this part of the process is to think globally, typically in an environment where everybody is thinking about their little patch, which is quite a challenge. Next, yep, thanks, Alex. At part three of a 2.4, if the fire safety verification method is used, all the relevant relevant fire related deemed to satisfy provisions that would otherwise apply have to be identified. These are then linked back to the fire related performance requirements for each and a check is carried out for any overlaps from other sections. Ventilation as compared to smoke control, for example, but there might be others like energy efficiency and acoustics, which will also impact fire separation or the like. So that process is crucial to understanding the parameters of the reference building, for example. So let's just talk quickly about the circumstances where it might be used. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because it really is crystal ball gazing stuff. And I'm not sure that I'm anywhere near the right answer, but we'll give it a go. By its very nature, the fire safety verification measure method is attractive in that it provides a means of demonstrating compliance with performance, as I mentioned before, and it's a codified process. It's therefore likely to give a bit more certainty than a performance approach would. And it's obviously got potential to provide benefits in respect of the deem to satisfy approach. So I think that you're likely to see a reasonably modest scope of building where this will be used. I don't know that you'd see very many small buildings because the skills of the people who need to be involved in this process are reasonable. And therefore, smaller projects probably won't have sufficient budget to actually justify utilizing those sorts of people. The other end of the spectrum, of course, is the really large projects where you're probably going to get, I suppose, very detailed performance requirements that may or may not follow the fire safety verification method, depending on the circumstances. So probably in that middle range of buildings, and there's an argument that you may in fact see it used for refurbishment of existing buildings or additions and operations to existing buildings, where there may be some viability for employing the people that are necessary to put this together. The other comment I want to make about that is that the the ability to use the verification method in rural or regional areas is probably limited because you might not have access to the sort of people that you need involved in the process. So there's a few considerations there about when it might be used. Another way to look at this, this graph here is a bit of a comparison between the level of sophistication of the practitioners involved in the development of the design and potentially the construction as well. And across the bottom there, you'll see the level of regulatory control. So at the position one, you'll see that there's very low sophistication and very low control, and that's probably typical of unregulated environments where you might have, for example, a refugee camp or something like that, where things just kind of spring up sporadically. In a more sort of developing economy, you're probably going to have very strict controls around who can participate, and you're likely to have very prescriptive technical requirements. So you'd have a high degree of regulatory control indicated by the two there. And you don't need a great deal of skill to produce a sort of cookie cutter type outcome, building outcome. But position three I think is where we're probably thinking of the fire safety verification method sits. So we're going to need people with a fair degree of skills and reasonable sophistication and knowledge. But because it's a performance approach, we know we're near as prescriptive about the regulatory side of things. And so you see that that's a little bit lower on that regulatory control scale. And position four, that's sort of Sydney Opera House territory and things like that, where you've got a very, very unique building. The client is likely to drive the level of control or standard of construction, etc., that's going to be achieved. And so regulatory controls are actually fairly meaningless in that sort of environment because, you know, clearly you're going to get an outcome driven by the client. So I think that's just a handy way to sort of think about where this fits in the scheme of things. The other thing to think about here about when it's likely to be used is we understand that there's a number of governments around the country and I'm not suggesting that any of these that are indicated on the screen are included in this, but they're just examples of governments that have pre-qualification requirements. And we believe that there will be a specification within some of the pre-qualification requirements around the country that says that you need to use the fire safety verification method when you're doing fire performance. The interesting thing about mandating that is that in situations where the cost of following the fire safety verification method process exceeds the benefits of construction in doing so, mandating the use of it will effectively mean that you have to use DTS in order to get the most economic building out of that environment. So it will be interesting to see how they actually specify the use of the fire safety verification method if they in fact end up doing that. So I want to look quickly now at the assessment process. This table is a little bit cluttered, but if we start at the top there, you've got the project conception stage. Now the building surveyor is going to have an input at multiple points throughout this process and Paul's already given us a bit of a clue about what that looks like. So clearly in addition to developing a client brief at the beginning of the project, ideally the statutory building surveyor should have input which would set out exactly what the regulatory parameters that apply to that particular project brief are. There may then be a consultant building surveyor who comes in and helps people to understand how to comply with various regulatory parameters, but at least the bare minimum requirements for the type of project that's anticipated will be set out there as early as possible. The performance based design brief is obviously the next step in the process if there's going to be a performance based solution. And at that stage obviously in addition to the brigade's input as a stakeholder, there'll be input from the statutory building surveyor who will have to confirm exactly what the benchmarks for compliance will be, the assessment methods that are acceptable and so on and so forth as indicated by Paul earlier. So that's a very, very important step in the process for the statutory building surveyor. The design team then go off and develop up the preliminary design. Then they undertake the analysis that's been agreed to be performed in the performance based design brief, gather together all of the results and produce the performance based design report. And that obviously then forms part of the design documentation that's ultimately assessed by the statutory building surveyor. And that would be the documentation that's also referred to the fire brigade for comment and things like that throughout the process where that might be required. The next step once we've got past the assessment stage and it's been approved for construction, the construction will occur and there's a responsibility on the builder to undertake construction supervision. And throughout that process there might be some mandatory statutory inspections that are occurring by the building surveyor, the statutory building surveyor. And at the end of that construction process there'll be a process which relates to the approval for occupancy. And that might include mandatory referral to the fire brigade and potentially inspection and commissioning testing and things like that by the fire brigade. But certainly it's going to require an assessment by the statutory building surveyor as well. But that in a nutshell summarises I guess the inputs that are required throughout the process. Now I have another slide here which sets out the technical depth that that sort of reflects. So looking at the very beginning we've got that requirement that I spoke about right at the beginning about A2.2 which says that you know that we have to comply with the performance requirements. We know that the verification method is one of the assessment methods that we can use. We know that A2.2.3 is generally not applicable when we're using the fire safety verification method because it only deals with fire. So therefore A2.4 part three applies which means we have to identify all of the relevant DTS, all of the relevant performance requirements and any others that apply. And then that leads into a very careful consideration and identification of the relevant design scenarios. So that I hope sort of summarises that process a little bit more clearly. We can go to the next slide, Alex. Thank you. So the key I guess points about the assessment process is that there really needs to be very early input from the statutory building surveyor so that an appropriate performance-based design brief can be developed. And that must include all of the minimum requirements, minimum statutory requirements. There might be additional requirements over and above that that relate to client needs or some other input that's occurred. But certainly there needs to be a very clear communication of what minimum requirements are. And that includes nomination of the acceptance benchmarks. So once that design is then completed, we've got the performance-based design report which accompanies the completed design documentation. And the building surveyor must be very, very careful to make sure that there is overall design compatibility. The biggest risk with any performance approach, particularly something like this where there's people taking a lead in developing elements of the design is that there'll be a mismatch between different elements and that certainly the building surveyor is going to be key in making sure that doesn't happen. And the last thing that I really wanted to emphasise there was that it's very, very important that the statutory building surveyor documents basis for the decision they make in relation to this process. It's certainly going to be something that will be looked at by auditors and it could very well be involved in any litigation that might arise if something goes wrong down the track. So onto my last slide here. If in doubt, ask a building surveyor. I think we as building surveyors are not only going to need to make sure that people understand that we are key in this process, but I'm fairly sure that most of industry will actually identify building surveyors as being key and we will get asked a lot of questions about how to use and apply the fire safety verification method. So clearly it must be, you know, the key piece of advice that we'll need to be giving to people in that situation is that it has to be used in conjunction with all other requirements of the NCC. We can't look at it in isolation and forget about the interplay between ventilation and smoke control or insulation for energy efficiency and fire resistance and things like that. So if a building surveyor receives a design prepared by somebody other than a fire engineer, it's actually not legislated that fire engineers are the only ones who can use this. And although it says so in the fire safety verification method, because it's not supported in legislation, there's no ability of a building surveyor to not accept it on that basis in most jurisdictions. So if we did receive it from somebody other than a fire engineer, obviously the building surveyor would likely be asking lots of questions, possibly more than when they get a design by a fire engineer. The crux of all this, the building surveyor is the keeper of the minimum standard and has a statutory responsibility to the community to ensure the maintenance. And the building surveyor will take a whole of design approach to ensure the elements of the design integrate and achieve minimum compliance requirements. So as I said, if in doubt, ask the building surveyor. Wonderful. Thank you for that, Jeremy. I'll now pass on to Mark Waibara from AFAC, and he's going to provide a bit of a perspective from the fire authorities on the fire safety verification method and their involvement in that process. Thank you, Alex. And thank you to the Australian Building Codes Board for inviting AFAC to participate and contribute to this. As we've heard, the National Construction Code will now have a requirement that the solution provided by the fire safety verification method must now be compared to the same building or a similar building with DTS provisions. That's important for fire services. DTS is tried, trusted and understood performance solutions, even though we're now in our 25th year of having performance solutions in our building codes are still, I suppose, an area of debate and certainly one that needs to expand to gain the economic benefit that has been proposed at the national level. So the verification method must be equal or equal to or safer than the DTS result. Fire services appreciate that that will require additional work and reviewing and competency. But it will enable a more informed holistic safety comparison and therefore a better result for the building's occupants and also firefighters who are responding into those buildings when there's an emergency. It becomes our place of work. Any design using the VM will still have to go through the same approvals process that now exists for any performance solution. It's not an automatic acceptance and it does not have the same acceptance as a code mark, for example. It's a requirement of the FSVM to use all relevant sections and that if any stakeholder has a contrary review or does not approve of the design or process, then this must be documented and attached to the proposal when submitted for approval. At the same time, AFAC is assisting the Australian Building Codes Board and welcomes its review of IFE, you know, a consistent process by which designs are developed and put through the approvals process. And certainly AFAC will be collaborating closely with the ABCB in that review. AFAC is currently reviewing the Fire Brigade Intervention Model, FBIM, and this is scheduled to be ready in time for the adoption of FSVM on the 1st of May this year. The FSVM is supported by all of the AFAC agencies. Although there were comments in relation to some of the data, AFAC believes that good faith being shown by all parties means that any variation or variance in opinion can be sorted out in the fire engineering brief process. The fire services are a key stakeholder, as we've heard, and expect to be involved as per the NCC provisions. And my advice to everyone was get us involved as early as possible so we understand what you're thinking of and you can understand how fire services think about your proposal. The extent of the fire services involvement will be decided once the proposal is reviewed. Fire services understand that the use of the verification method is not mandatory and there are other paths, methodologies and approaches to show compliance with the NCC performance provisions. And regardless of the methodology used, fire services are still expecting to be a key stakeholder and can contribute to all of us making safer buildings. Currently, the fire services around Australia and New Zealand are also reviewing their approach to their regulatory role. What is the future for fire services in this space? And as a result of the FSBM as well as fulfilling some of the recommendations out of the sugar we report, this will include focusing on service delivery and a more nationally consistent approach given by fire services to the industry. However, due to the different regulatory frameworks, legislative frameworks that we operate under, state and territory fire services understand that there will understandably be some differences. I mentioned before competence, certainly the work that's being done by the Warren Centre in professionalising fire safety engineering project that fire and rescue in New South Wales is involved in as well as AFAC is a key to improving competence across the industry and that includes fire services as well. Lastly, one of the one of the main selling points for fire services in the VM was the inclusion for the first time, I think, of fire services as an occupant of the building. And that's being taken into account as in terms of some of the scenarios like unexpected catastrophic fire. It's okay for all the occupants to get out, but firefighters who go into rendering incidents safe also need to protect us and have some confidence in the structural integrity of the building. So that's it from me. Thank you. Thanks, Gerard. Thanks, Mark. Look, we will move on to our question time now. We've got about 15 minutes to answer a few questions. So we'll work through as many as we can in that time. The first question I'll open up to the panel. But I think I've got a response from Jeremy first. And has anyone seen the new fire safety verification method actually used? Now, it wouldn't have been used under its actual form as the FSVM, given that that isn't adopted to one may. But I think that general questions more is this process being used or anyone's been seen using a similar process to develop a fire performance solution. Thanks, Alex. Look, you're quite right because it's not officially adopted until the first of May. It's perhaps not officially being used. But as the building code doesn't currently currently restrict you know, the approach that's used when you're dealing with a performance application, there's nothing to stop you from actually using it if you want to. I'm not aware of anybody having done that at this stage, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that that has heard if it has. Mark or Paul, do you have anything further to add? Paul here. I'd just say that I've used the general procedures just as Jeremy was highlighting. You can't use it as the verification method at the moment. But I have used the the general process with a few modifications in relation to a project. Unfortunately, it's not one that's freely available. But it was an interesting exercise to undertake and particularly the scenarios forcing you to actually look at certain issues really tended to make quite quite a difference. Having said that, the the comparison method and the broad method of comparison has been around for, as I said in my presentation about 30 years. And if you look at some of the classic analysis that were undertaken by BHP on 140 William Street and Beck and Co out of VUT, there's plenty of examples of very, very complicated projects and some simpler ones. But all I can say is from my personal experience, applying a draft of this method, it works and it worked well. Thanks, Paul. I think I'll move on to the next question and Paul, this one's directed at yourself again. Is it my role as a certified building surveyor to decide which scenarios need to be considered similar to the way which which we decide performance requirements need to be considered or will the fire engineer propose the scenarios which are to be considered and then I agree or disagree? Yeah, I'm not sure was that to me, Alex. I'm happy to. Yeah, all right. Look, it's it's hard to say. I think, I don't know, Paul, have you got a comment on that? I'll come back to it. OK. This is a tricky area and the answer is without knowing what state the questions come from. Impacts on the answer because the requirements are slightly different in each state. I think common sense should prevail and that the fire safety engineer should go through the process. And my my reading of IPEG and various other in the NCC is that they go through the process and they should identify and it doesn't happen always, but they should identify the variations from the team to satisfy relevant performance requirements and other performance requirements and document that. And theoretically, that should be submitted to a building surveyor. And then I guess it depends on the legislation and the way a building surveyor operates. Everybody's got their own way of operating under these circumstances. I would say the building surveyor shouldn't take a pen and say, well, if you put an exit sign there, you're complying. If you move that door to there, you're complying with your deem to satisfy, etc, etc. But I think it is reasonable to say you've missed a deem to satisfy noncompliance because of that that distance is X meters wrong and Y meters and then. Shut up and leave it for the building surveyor to address. And the same with performance requirements to ask I would have thought that this should have applied. Well, yeah, why haven't you included it? So my personal view is that that sort of dialogue is reasonable. But you'd have to look at the legislation and how comfortable the building surveyor feels. 18 that sort of way. Thanks, Paul. We'll move on to the next question, which is can you define input? I'm sorry, Jeremy, I think that's a bit more to add. I apologize. Yeah, thanks. Look, yeah. Sorry about that. Certainly, I think that there are some very, very important considerations around that part of the process. And the statutory building surveyor really needs to be very careful to limit the advice they give to what the regulations, which regulations, which technical requirements, etc. Apply to the situation as soon as they start to, as Paul said, express things about where things should be or how to address design problems. I think that crosses a line into the consulting space and that does create particular difficulties for the process. So certainly the integrity of that process is very, very important and you need to be very, very careful as a practitioner to make sure that you don't step into that design role. And certainly throughout the process in the design stage, you can provide technical design, sorry, technical compliance advice without crossing into that role. And I think that's possibly, you know, the crux of where that question was going. But yeah, hopefully that answers it. Thanks, Jeremy. Look, on to our next question. It is, can you define input? And this one is in regards to the performance design brief and stakeholders. Look, I think I might put it across to the panel, but I might kick off to see if Mark has any ideas from sort of a fact perspective, what they would see for as appropriate input during that performance best design brief. Thanks for that. I suppose it depends on the scope of the building, the scenarios against its being progressed. For us, input from a fire service point of view is sharing information with one another. Based on the way that fire services think about design and enact their regulatory responsibilities to make safe buildings. But also what is the relevant information that's coming into the design that we need to know about that we can provide advice on? Thanks, Mark. On Jeremy, I think it's a bit further to add, so I'll pass across to him. Yeah, it looks certainly, I think, input from a building surveyers point of view in a statutory role is definitely going to be about what are the acceptable benchmarks of compliance, what are the acceptable assessment methods, what sort of evidence of suitability and things like that are required. In respect of the design scenarios, that's a really interesting one because I think, as Paul said, there's probably an expectation that the fire safety engineer will actually define what they believe is appropriate in respect to those scenarios. But I think it's really important that the building surveyor has a very careful look at that. So one of the inputs will be an opinion about whether or not appropriate design scenarios have been selected. That's certainly going to come from the analysis that the building surveyor has done about which particular provisions are applicable to the project under consideration. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Jeremy. Look, and I'll move on to what I think will be the last question of the day. Apologies for people who we haven't gotten to. And this question is, is the reference building considered to be a hypothetical building? I think I'll pass this one across to Paul. Well, theoretically, it's a deemed to satisfy solution that complies with the NCC. So it should be buildable and it should be able to be built and comply with the NCC. But it's hypothetical in the sense that it's not necessarily going to be built. So I mean, there are two sides to it, but but it's I guess that again, this comes back to the guidance on defining the reference building. And the key thing is not not to play around with it so that you're making it easier to achieve a level of compliance. So, you know, sort of I'll just reduce this ceiling level here, and I'll do that here. It really should be sensibly close. And I didn't go into it in too much detail on the DTS wrangling slide, but it should have the same general size, volume, number of occupants, same distance from the fire brigade. So the response time should be similar unless you change in the alarm or something like that or a detection system. So it should be reasonably similar to to the performance solution. And it should be selected to comply with the DTS provisions in a reasonable way and not necessarily strip back to the bare minimum. And in fact, the the handbook does specifically say if there are a number of options for complying with the NCC, you should look at applying engineering judgment to pick a reasonable one, not not not the minimum one. Thanks. And so that brings our webinar today to a close. Thank you for everyone attending. I'd just like to remind everyone that we have more resources for about the fire safety verification method available from the ABCB website. We have the two that Paul mentioned. There's also an FAQ document as well as a YouTube video of our webinar, which we hosted in the middle of the last year that you can watch and will also be putting some more out in the coming months as we move closer to the one may implementation date for the fire safety verification method. And another quick note from us is we have a survey that will come up following this webinar straight away. We would really appreciate it if you could click that link and quickly fill out the survey for us. It's helping us to gather some more information on our education resources so that we can provide better material to you practitioners. And that's it from us. Thank you. And we really appreciate everyone attending. Thank you to Jeremy, Mark and Paul for taking their time today to present to you and help you. Thank you.