FIA Announces New Fire Risk Assessment Membership Criteria
One of the FIA Fire Risk Assessment Council’s major objectives has been to ensure that members adopt good and ethical practices when carrying out Fire Risk Assessments. This is beneficial to the public looking for a Fire Risk Assessor as well as the FIA FRA members, who will be associated with high standards.
The FIA FRA Membership Register was originally based on members signing a declaration to abide by a Code of Practice. The Association aims to eventually base FRA membership criteria on Third Party Certification (TPC), which is the current practice for members from Portable Extinguisher and Fire Detection and Alarm companies.
The FIA FRA Council has proposed that member companies must be able to demonstrate that those who carry out Fire Risk Assessments are competent. This is already a requirement of the Code of Practice to which the companies are signatory.
It is also proposed that in the interim certain quality management measures be adopted by member companies. These are not of an arduous nature nor as extensive as the requirements already imposed on member companies who carry out fire extinguisher maintenance, for example (who are required to have in place a full BS EN ISO 9001 quality management system).
The FIA understands that some members need help to achieve Third Party Certification. Any company wishing to be an FIA FRA member from 1st April 2011 has to provide various pieces of evidence. There are three main blocks:
Firstly, they must declare that when at least two UKAS schemes are available, they will register with one of them within two years.
Secondly, regarding individuals’ competence; the FIA wants proof of competence for everyone within a member company that provides fire risk assessments as a service. The Association has accepted the four assessment methods that currently exist in the market; Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE), Institute of Fire Safety Managers (IFSM), Institute of Fire Prevention Officers (IFPO), and WCL. All these have a Fire Risk Assessment Register and an application process which includes assessing an individual before they are accepted onto the register.
Finally, the FIA is interested in company competence; based on the principle that any individual providing a fire risk assessment service is trading (even a one-man-band is a sole trader). The end-user needs the reassurance that they are contracting a competent supplier, so the FIA has asked for evidence for the following:
· A documented procedure to deal with complaints, deficiencies or defects to show that your company makes a commitment to its customers; that you record any complaints and include a time frame for how you will deal with them.
· A register of approved sub-contractors, subject to periodic review. If a company sub-contracts any FRA work out then the Association needs to see a procedure for quality control (ensuring competency) of the sub contractors.
· A documented management structure of the organisation, which could be an organisation diagram, but it must separately identify sub-contractors and employees.
· A controlled document list of any ‘external’ documents, such as Standards or legislation in electronic or hard copy that may be used to undertake the service provision of fire risk assessments. Evidence of the procedure in which these documents are kept up-to-date will also be required.
· A Management Review process; time should be taken, at least once a year, to review the business and look at ‘continual improvement’. An agenda for such meetings as well as evidence of any actions taken would be sufficient for Third Party certification schemes.
· Public Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance, on an each and every claim basis.
When the FIA FRA Council was formed in 2009, there were no Fire Risk Assessment Third Party Certification schemes available. Warrington Certification Ltd Scheme (WCL) has since launched various FRA schemes including the ‘Personnel Scheme’ for individuals and the ‘Internal Scheme,’ which is for Fire Risk Assessors within organisations such as Tesco’s, as these individuals will only ever complete fire risk assessments on the same types of buildings rather than any type of premises
WCL has now launched its ‘Company Scheme’, which has one member to date - BB7 - who is also an FIA member. WCLs need four companies before they can apply to be accredited by The United Kingdom Accreditation Service.
In December 2009, before the FIA was aware that WCL was developing a Company Scheme, the Association’s FRA Council wrote a company scheme and passed it to BAFE. Since then, BAFE has started work on a scheme to be delivered by UKAS registered Certification Bodies. Their ‘company’ scheme is going to be called SP205 and the first draft will be released for public comment at Easter.
Once the public comment stage is complete and any necessary changes are made, it will be released for Certification Bodies to start using. The Certification Bodies will need four companies to be registered before they can gain UKAS accreditation, as with the WCL Scheme. The FIA expect this to be on the market in approximately twelve months.
When two UKAS accredited company schemes are available to FIA members, the Association will change the membership criteria again. From that date, FIA members will have two years to gain Third Party Certification. The Association would like two schemes to be available to guarantee competition and hopefully keep prices down.
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