Fire Risk Assessors

[Mushy]

Hi

Can I ask those of you that carry out FRA's if the credit crunch has affected your business, I realise it shouldn't do as FRA is a legal requirement under the RRO, but are businesses etc now waiting to be collared by the Fire Authority as opposed to contacting you voluntarily

Also as an aside,  is purely doing FRA's a disadvantage?  if you are also providing/maintaining extinguishers etc you could also get your foot in the doors and carry out their FRA as well

When I was in the job,  the Fire Prevention Department carried out the premises inspection and the extinguisher/alarm company did their job....both did seperate work....are you finding that now the Fire Authority no longer carry out these inspections the extinguisher companies such as Chubb are now doing it instead?

[Tom W]

Its not affecting us, we are also taking 3.8% off each invoice to reflect the credit crunch

If all companies did this there wouldn't be a problem

[AnthonyB]

We are fine, but that's because of our area of operation involving large management companies who can recover costs through service charges - if we did the smaller business market we would see some downturn, just as I predict that the number of unserviced extinguishers in SME's may rise as conditions bite.

We don't rely on FRAs instead covering all aspects of health, safety & environmental assessment and training issues - as one areas has a downturn, another picks up - commercial Energy Performance certificates is a growth area at the moment.

Selling the stuff you are assessing does run the risk of assessing in more of your products which is why we supply/install on request only rather than push it as a sideline - we don't want to be seen to having a conflict of interest