Brian Neat EngTech GIFireE
NFRAR IFSM

Career narrative

Thirty years in the fire service.
The last twenty-two in fire safety.

I joined Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service as a firefighter in 1991, moving into fire safety in 1999 on promotion to Sub Officer — starting with Fire Precautions Act inspection work. Promoted to Station Officer in 2001, my fire safety career from that point was a single continuous line through every legislative change that followed: the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, then the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The rank-to-role process subsequently took me to ADO and then Group Manager — through the fire safety policy unit and then a geographical fire safety office with responsibility for the inspection programme and quality assurance across four satellite offices.

At Service Headquarters I identified that Hampshire FRS was not discharging its statutory enforcement duty under the FSO. I wrote a business paper to senior management making that case, and was given the mandate to resolve it. Over the following six months I created and led one of the earliest dedicated fire safety enforcement and prosecution teams in the country — a team of four, built from scratch. That involved becoming PACE trained, developing legally compliant prosecution bundles, liaising with Council legal teams and specialist fire safety barristers, participating in PACE interviews, and acting as quality assurance for contemporaneous notes, photographic evidence and case files. The work resulted in successful prosecutions under the FSO.

On the question of A31 authority: the original process required an inspecting officer to escalate to a principal officer — someone with no fire safety background, who had not attended site — to sign Enforcement and Prohibition Notices. The corporate risk was significant: senior managers were closing businesses down, or authorising officers to do so, without any direct knowledge of what they were signing. I wrote a paper to Hampshire FRS senior management identifying that risk and making the case that A31 signatory authority should rest at Group Manager level, held by someone with fire safety expertise and site knowledge. That paper was approved. I subsequently held that authority as a Group Manager. The authority I held was the authority I had argued needed to exist at the right level — with the right knowledge behind it.

As Group Manager for Southampton I held operational delivery responsibility alongside fire safety support and A31 signatory authority. A temporary promotion to Area Manager followed, in which I led nationally on the development of an alternative to the Primary Authority Scheme — working through negotiations between fire and rescue services and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Those negotiations ultimately led to the introduction of the Primary Authority Scheme.

I subsequently served as Programme Support Officer for CFOA's Integrated Data and Research programme — supporting the move towards evidence-based decision making across fire and rescue services. That role included attendance at the Federation of European Union Fire Officers as a CFOA representative, and an attempt to establish an international network for sharing fire safety and operational data. The ambition was to support enforcement and operational decisions based on evidence rather than convention.

I also contributed to the development of the fire safety audit form and risk rating methodology, working nationally through CFOA representatives and in liaison with DCLG. The aim was a genuinely risk-based inspection programme built on FSEC foundations. In practice, most fire and rescue services developed their own approaches. The sector never quite got there collectively. But the thinking — that enforcement effort should be proportionate to actual risk — runs through everything SimplyNeat produces.

My final role was as Group Manager for East Hampshire, carrying both operational and fire safety responsibility with A31 signatory authority, before retiring in 2021. I established SimplyNeat Fire Solutions Ltd following retirement. I understand how enforcement decisions are made, the framework officers work within, and what separates a report that holds up under scrutiny from one that doesn't. I also understand the other side of that relationship: the duty on those exercising regulatory power to support business, not obstruct it. Proportionate, pragmatic advice that genuinely helps the Responsible Person understand and manage their obligations — that is what SimplyNeat delivers.