In "the good old days" each town used to have a watch committee, and if you saw breaches of fire regs, you just called the fire officer and he sorted it out.

I visited a pub recently where a piano was parked in front of the fire exit. I mentioned it to the landlord, and he said "if the place was on fire, the lads would shift it". I suggested that if the place was full of smoke, they might not be able to find the piano, let alone be in a fit state to shift it.

Although its fine asking people to do risk assessments and write manuals, but it seems the process lacks the common sense "awkward bugger" just wandering round and spotting hazards. When I worked in the theatre we weren't fond of the fire officer's visits, but he did stop us burning the place down more than once.