State administration

 

Mosov S.P., Chubina T.D.

IMPROVEMENT OF STATE ADMINISTRATION IN THE FIELD OF FIRE SAFETY IN UKRAINE: CONCEPTION OF  

ACCEPTED RISK

 

Improvement of state administration in the field of fire safety (hereinafter – SF) at modern stage of economic development in our country can be provided by use of conceptual approach directed to combination of set of measures associated with prevention and liquidation or mitigation of SF hazards as well as consequences of emergencies caused by fires independently on a category of reasons of their origin. The development and practical use of such approach will not, obviously, solve all problems of complete and simultaneous elimination or mitigation of hazards, which is practically impossible taking into account the limitation of human knowledge, technologies and mainly of time and resources. The consideration of said limitation is directed to ranging of hazards and distinguishing of the combination of top-priority and complex SF hazards.

This task can be solved based on the conception of accepted risk. The main idea of the conception consists in determination and use of accepted risk as possible compromise, more often forced one, between three parties: state bodies authorized to make decisions in fire safety matters; population which quite often just evaluates the scope and seriousness of risks existing in one or another region of the country and thus not always satisfied by actions of said state bodies; economic entities which objects or activity create potential or actual threat to fire safety condition for environment and, according to the experience, sometimes having significant capabilities for their government relations.

It is desirable to take the conception of accepted risk as the grounds at modern stage of economic development not only for improvement of state policy in fire safety but for improvement of state policy with regard to protection of population and territories of Ukraine from any emergencies which can be done within the scope of the United State System of Civil Defense available in Ukraine.

Together with legal, administrative and methodological instrumentation the improvement of state administration in the field of fire safety in Ukraine appropriate economical mechanisms are of great relevance. The importance of said mechanisms in solving problems of fire safety consists not only in calculation or predicting precise fire losses. It is more important to implement real mechanisms of stimulation of practical activity with regard to prevention of emergencies due to fires and attraction of required investments.

The improvement of mechanisms of government regulation in fire safety under new conditions of  market economy and transfer of significant amount of capital assets into property of non-state structures should be achieved by the following directions: implementation of economic levers promoting accomplishment of protective measures, strengthening responsibility and interest of heads of potentially hazardous objects in mitigation of risks of emergencies due to fires; development of a set of tax benefits, soft loans, state investments as well as severe sanctions for enterprises (institutions, organizations) infringing requirements of fire safety; development of mechanisms for reimbursement to population of fire losses from special funds and by transparent insurance.

The State should always be reliable guarantor for statutory responsibility  of establishments operating with hazardous production facilities, to set criteria for determination of financial security of  civil responsibility for damage caused by emergency resulting from fire; to provide implementation of scientifically grounded approaches to assessment of fire losses with attraction of independent expert organizations; to develop  legislative and regulatory framework for achievement of supervisory functions and securing of personal responsibility of heads of enterprises (institutions, organizations) and executive authorities in the field of fire safety.

At that, the following should be considered as the main indices of evaluation in the field of state administration of fare safety: frequency of fires; losses; expenses for measures in prevention and liquidation of emergencies resulting from fires as well as prevented loss.