Lote Notes July 2022 — Lote Consulting

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Lote Notes July 2022

July 2022, Vol 003, Issue 03

Lote Notes | Fire Safety and Security in Practice

Welcome to the third Lote Notes newsletter for 2022. Firstly, we would like to acknowledge NAIDOC Week 2022, that is celebrating the proud history of getting up, standing up and showing up and directs this towards working for systemic change to empower Elders and Communities in order to reconcile with Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and heritage. Lote would like to acknowledge the Darug people, Traditional Custodians of the land where we work, Parramatta, and pay respects to their Elders past and present. We offer this respect to all Traditional Custodians of the land across Australia in the spirit of recognition, reconciliation, support, and unity.

Secondly, as we begin a new financial year, in a tenuous and uncertain financial climate, we hope that you seek the opportunity in the crisis and use this time to seek change and to make a positive difference. Finally, there are a raft of new changes within our industry coming into effect from 01 September onwards through the release and adoption of the NCC 2022, some of which will be addressed in this newsletter.

There are a number of topics we have nominated to cover in this edition of the newsletter that will centre upon security and fire safety for childcare facilities or, as the National Construction Code describes them, early childhood centres. The critical role of childcare facilities within our communities warrants extra care and attention to their safety and security. To this end, our fire safety team has provided a summary of the updates to the Building Code of Australia relating to childcare facilities or early childhood centres that will come into effect on 1 September 2022. These changes have been driven by the increasing number of early childhood centres in high-rise buildings as part of mixed-use developments. These new requirements are part of the Deemed-to-Satisfy (DtS) provisions that need to be met for a compliant Class 9b design.

Our security team has examined the various security considerations that are relevant to the operation of childcare facilities including physical security, personnel security, cyber security, and a set of emergency scenarios. The overwhelming message is to adopt a holistic view and manage security using a risk-based approach. Taking a proactive approach to security means to cultivate a culture of security through regular stakeholder workshops that inform recurring security risk assessments, risk control plans, emergency management, response and disaster recovery plans.

As part of our regular cybersecurity column, our focus this quarter is on insider threats - shining a light on this, often overlooked, aspect of cybersecurity. Insiders, whether through malicious intent or unintentionally, are the linchpin that can cause an organisation’s cybersecurity to crumble. Our article provides a range of recommendations that can be deployed to mitigate these risks as well as emphasising the continued importance of cybersecurity awareness training and good cyber hygiene practices.

To round things off our wellness column presents the second and final article on Interthinking that began with our previous newsletter. This article presents a range of ground rules and strategies that can be implemented to make teams work more collaboratively towards innovation, self-regulation and problem solving.

We look forward to receiving your thoughts and feedback.

Best Wishes & Stay Safe
Dr Maher Magrabi

Chief Executive Officer
Lote Consulting | Fire Safety & Security
Making the world safe and secure

Lote's Articles

Security for Childcare Facilties

By Dr Maher Magrabi

Keywords: Childcare, Security, Risk Assessment, Emergency Management Planning, Workshop, Security Risk Management

Childcare Facilities serve a critical role within our communities. By providing their services, these centres enable working parents to attend to their vocational needs, thus functioning as a small but critical component in driving the economy. Childcare centres are founded and run-on trust, where care is at the very heart of their service offering.

Read More Here

Interthinking: Team dynamics

By Dr Maher Magrabi

Keywords: Interthinking, productivity, teamwork, remote work, collaboration, problem-solving

In our previous newsletter, we introduced the concept of ‘Interthinking’ as defined by Littleton & Mercer (2013) in their seminar publication with the same title. We highlighted the importance of ‘Exploratory’ talk as the basis upon which meetings could achieve interthinking and consequently innovation and problem-solving through collaboration.

Read More Here

In The News

Grenfell: four years after the disaster, are our buildings safer?

By Paresh Wankhade

In the four years since the Grenfell Tower fire, which led to the unconscionable deaths of 72 people, one key question remains unanswered. Are our buildings any safer? The short answer is: not yet.

The facts and figures uncovered in the ongoing Grenfell Tower inquiry and other investigations, continue to shock. An initial key finding of the inquiry’s first report in 2019 was that the external cladding that surrounded Grenfell Tower was largely responsible for the fire spreading so quickly.

Read More Here

We've released NCC 2022

By Australian Buildings Codes Board

NCC 2022 is now here! The ABCB has released the first stage of the 2022 edition in ‘Preview’ to get you started before it comes into effect.

Two Stage Preview
Development of the 2022 edition of the NCC was split into two stages.
Today, the ABCB publishes the first stage of NCC 2022. This release is a final version of NCC 2022, covering all three volumes, two new referenced standards and most of the amendments to the NCC.

Read More Here

Only a small fraction of buildings with flammable cladding have been fixed, and owners are feeling the strain

By Trivess Moore, David Oswalkd and Simon Lockrey

Australia has more than 3,400 buildings with flammable cladding. In Victoria alone, at least 71 of these buildings have been classified as “extreme risk” and another 368 as “high risk”. Despite the tragic evidence of the risks of cladding fires, rectification work had been completed on only 11 of these buildings by February 2021.

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Greg lost his home in the Black Summer bushfires. Now he’s building one that’s disaster-proof

The time it takes to make a cup of coffee. That’s how long it took for a flash of flames to travel four kilometres across Lake Conjola on New Year’s Eve 2019 to dump charcoal, embers and debris on the home Greg Webb helped build as a nine-year-old in 1964.

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'Busiest period': Firies issue fire safety warning

Acting Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell is appealing to the public to take extra safety precautions after a spate of recent house fires across

the state.

There have been 12 major house fires across NSW since Sunday. In Liverpool, there have been major house fires in Prestons, Sadlier and Busby in April.

Read More Here

Battery fire at Salt River Project in the US

The Salt River Project, a 10 MW energy storage project that uses lithium-ion batteries, was dealt a blow last week when a fire broke out. Firefighters were alerted to a fire at the facility last Monday. During a press conference on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Chandler Fire Department confirmed that there was a battery on fire in the building.

Read More Here

Hackers used the Log4j flaw to gain access before moving across a company's network, say security researchers

By Danny Palmer

A North Korean hacking and cyber-espionage operation breached the network of an engineering firm linked to military and energy organisations by exploiting a cybersecurity vulnerability in Log4j.

First detailed in December, the vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) allows attackers to remotely execute code and gain access to systems that use Log4j, a widely used Java logging library.

Read More Here

Overview of changes – fire safety

By Australian Buildings Codes Board

Here’s the key changes in fire safety for NCC 2022.

We’re providing a series of articles to give you a snap shot of some changes that may impact your work when NCC 2022 is adopted by states and territories.
Open up the NCC, and we’ll step you through some of the key changes to fire safety for NCC 2022.

Read More Here

To access previous articles please visit our website

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