Proposals for compulsory certification of fire risk assessors

[Midland Retty]

However, you are totally incorrect about UKAS- they actually spend a lot of time looking at how a CB conducts its business.

Fair comment Colin, my apologies. Any potential conflicts of interest should therefore be picked up by UKAS I pressume?

[kurnal]

Bobbins I am not anti the FRACS scheme and hope to be convinced that the "firewalls" are robust and resilient. Believe me I would be delighted to see evidence of this.  But I feel very strongly that nobody can be gamekeeper and poacher at the same time. Or if you are you dont wear your poaching jacket when you are checking the covers.

I would feel happier and more convinced if when I did a search on Companies House for Fracs and the new company behind Warrington I could see two different companies with at least some different directors on the boards even if some are shared.  But I have looked hard and long using the company number quoted on the website and as far as I can see there is just one company and one set of directors. I cannot see how if this is the case anyone can suggest that there is true independence between the two functions.  Please tell me I am wrong or am looking in the wrong place.

Otherwise I fear the firewalls could turn out to be  a case of the Kings new suit of clothes.
But I do hope someone can prove me wrong or convince me otherwise because the Industry needs a UKAS accedited scheme and at the moment theres only one on the table.

[Bobbins]

Kurnal you are wrong; I don't know all the details but I believe WCL has a separate management structure and I think Sir Ken is the chair.

Kurnal you are right too; a UKAS system is what we need and the sooner all registers move to a UKAS model the leveler the playing field will become.

I know you are not against any particular register Kurnal but I do think your suspicions are unfounded with FRACS. You say yourself we need UKAS accredited schemes but the only one in place isn’t acceptable. Once the FIA scheme is up and running it will need certification bodies to operate it, Warrington is likely to be one of the cert bodies to offer it as they are a fire cert body as are BRE/LPCB would you say that these two can’t run the FIA scheme because they have fire expertise?

However we will still be faced with the cowboys, as has been said many times those who take responsibility and go for third party approvals are not the problem. It is the little knowledge, lot of flannel guys that are a danger to life. There must be thousands of poor risk assessments out there with little chance of being audited until after a fire, and as we know that can be too late. 

Sleeping accommodation in my opinion should be mandatory to appoint a competent person for the first risk assessment. I appreciate it will be a burden but look at the stats each year sleeping accommodation is the biggest fire death statistic. Ok most are in one single dwelling but the potential for multiple deaths in separate dwellings is obvious, I know this may be controversial but I think in HMOs the individual properties should be included in the risk assessment.  I recommend this to all the RPs I speak with, it takes some selling but interacting with the residents gets everyone involved in fire safety not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. 

[kurnal]

Bobbins
Please can we be sure? I have credit and companies house search software and using the company number displayed in accordance with the Law  on their  website I am lead to think otherwise?

[Clevelandfire 3]

Ok I'll throw this into the mix then.

How about an awarding body is set up to provide accreditation consisting of ex risk assessors, enforcers and consultants. Note i use the word "ex" because to sit on this body the members would have to give up their current roles or business connection and purely become adjudicators to get over poacher come game keeper problem. 'Dont be daft' I hear you all cry a succesful risk assessor isn't going to give up a well paid job to sit on some panel. Accepted you would need to pay them an attractive salary to sway them from their existing roles but is that such a big hill to climb?. I dont think so.  The body would natually have to be UKAS registered and the panel recruited from genuine sources with wide ranging knowledge and experience. Or am I being daft?

[kurnal]

You may not be too wide of the mark there C3 - I agree that the certification body should use dedicated and professional staff in the course of its business and I think that just like OFSTED inspectors in schools their new role may in itself give them sufficient exposure to the job to maintain their currency.

They should not rely on Retty of Midland Retty Fire Safety Ltd doing a day or two here  and there as an "adjudicator" to assess the work of Kurnal fire safety, and then going back to his day job knowing all about the other businesses that compete with them, that is half of the concern that have at present.

The other half of my concern is that Midland Retty Fire Safety Ltd  may themselves become a certification body whilst still trading as a fire risk assessor. This would give them direct access to all competitors staff and clients. Look at the marketing opportunity that offers. "We are the people who certify all other companies - we are obviously the most competent of all to carry out fire risk assessments because we assess all other companies. You dont need to go elsewhere- we are the one stop shop".

All I am asking is whether this has been considered in respect of the only UKAS scheme that is available at present. I would have expected the Company providing the accreditation to be a completely seperate entity from the company providing fire risk assessments. The Law requires all businesses to display certain information on their websites. I have looked at the information displayed on their website and as far as I can tell, using creditsafe I see a single company and a single board behind both sides of their services.

I hope to be told by someone who knows for sure that I am wrong. And in the unlikely event of me being right, am I the only person who would see this as a potential concern?

[Midland Retty]

Yes I would see this as a potential concern, for the reasons you have already stated.

C3 I do think there is some mileage in what you are saying, but as you point out if you pay peanuts you get monkies. Would there be enough income to sustain a panel of expert adjudicators?  Plus you could still have a situation where one of the adjudicators passes confidential info onto their chums in the industry. So its still not guaranteed to be truly independent , but should in theory be much better than any current system.

[kurnal]

Received this email and had a long chat with Simon this afternoon

"Dear Alan

My attention has been drawn to the thread you started on the fire net forum. Please accept my apologies for emailing you directly but you do have your email address on your forum identity and I don’t have access to post this response directly on the site.

Please posts the following as I feel it is very important to have the true facts regarding WCL published on the forum and not have any more speculation about the independence of WCL; any concerns you may have should be taken up directly with UKAS.

 

Kind regards Simon

 

The independence of certification companies is maintained through a management council, who oversee all activities of that certification body. The WCL management council of key stake holders is a voluntary group of independent industry experts which include representatives from; ASPF, DHF. CFOA, IFPO RICS, RISC Authority, CPA, PFPF, BSI, BRC, BWF, it is chaired by Sir Ken Knight. This management council is truly independent of WCLs owners; the decisions it makes are made independently of the EXOVA group and can not be overruled. UKAS approve the make up of this council and thoroughly check its independence from the EXOVA group, including firewall protection which prevents information from being transferred from WCL to the Exova group.

In terms of FRACS as a certification scheme, it too has an independent technical panel which is a working group for the overall management group, and again this has representatives from key sector groups, including CFOA, Building control, insurers and RPs. The influence of this group on the decision making for the scheme is looked at by UKAS, and the influence this committee needed to have on the FRACS scheme was key to obtaining accreditation for this BS EN ISO/IEC 17024 competence scheme.

For those who don’t understand certification and certification bodies it can be confusing; often assumptions are made that are completely wrong.

WCL is owned by Exova but that only applies to financial contributions to the parent company. The Exova board of directors has absolutely no say in how WCL is run or operates and they are not on the management council of WCL. This system applies to all UKAS approved certification bodies but not to non accredited bodies, hence non accredited approvals carry much less weight than approvals from a body with UKAS accreditation.
 
UKAS accreditation is as independent as it is possible to get; hence the difficulty in gaining accreditation and maintaining such accreditation. WCL works very hard to produce schemes of ‘real value’ for the industry and for fire safety. WCL has an outstanding reputation within the fire safety industry and we take any allegations of impropriety very seriously, any expressions on forums are public statements and as such need to be accurate. You are correct that WCL is owned by Exova but that link is very much subject to UKAS inspection and therefore the management of WCL is not compromised by this ownership.

Simon Ince"

I was also given to understand that FRACS is soon to be given its own web hosting, which was one of the issues leading to my concerns of independence.

Seems reasonable to me- any other views?

[Midland Retty]

Yep - it does seem reasonable. It banishes some of the scepticism I had. As Simon said himself "For those who don’t understand certification and certification bodies it can be confusing; often assumptions are made that are completely wrong."
It would seem that the UKAS route then is the only way to guarantee true independence and security for assessors. This topic has thrashed out some really useful points.

[Bobbins]

I think the industry involvement in certification bodies is very reassuring and to have Sir Ken involved suggests very strongly to me that it is as Simon says (sorry) “independent as it can be”. It is very hard to get anyone from CFOA to commit to anything they don’t back fully.

The date for CLG feedback following its review has been set for the 14th of December and I dare say it will provoke much debate on this site once the findings are made public.

I think a few key stakeholders are going to be very put out by the findings and then again it could be a weak assessment that appeases all; who knows with this government?

I dare say they will toss the ball in to industries court and let them fight it out amongst their selves, or in other words a ‘cop out’ which will take years to sort out; can you imagine it a room full of big hitters all trying to get a piece of the action for themselves. It would be just like the G 20 summit except a certain Scotsman would actually have some influence unlike Mr Brown.

[colin todd]

This is a matter that should correctly be resolved by the profession and not by the amateurs in the civil service. It is already well in hand. The best thing Government and their civil service chums could do is keep out of things they dont understand, and be ready to lend support to industry-developed schemes. I suspect, to be fair, that they realise this in any case.

[kurnal]

Why do we fire risk assessors  accept the flack? Incompetence reigns even in highly regulated sectors.

I have just received the following comments from an approved building inspector for a 6 storey multi occupied office with basement in London I have been asked to work on.

"A Grade A category LD2 fire alarm and detection system to BS5839 part 6 2004 is required"  ....... Any smoke detectors within the proximity of a kitchen should be an ionisation type detector not an optical detector........ the power supply to the A grade system should conform with BS54 - 3 with an idependent circuit run from the consumer unit"

This building inspector is one of the Big Nationals and has over 20 letters after his name. BY heck!

[Tom Sutton]

This is a matter that should correctly be resolved by the profession and not by the amateurs in the civil service. It is already well in hand. The best thing Government and their civil service chums could do is keep out of things they dont understand, and be ready to lend support to industry-developed schemes. I suspect, to be fair, that they realise this in any case.

I suspect many would agree with you but why the secrecy we know a little about the government idea but other than BAFE is involved I no nothing what the industry is proposing.

[kurnal]

Theres no secrecy Tom its just at very early stages as far as the FIA scheme is concerned.

Two meetings have been held with BAFE and we have compared the existing BAFE schemes such as SP203, discussed strengths and weanesses and areas of relevance to the Fire Risk Assessment Industry, taken on board  a few comments from others including many of those expressed in this thread and come up with an idea for the bare bones of the scheme. The FIA is attending a meeting of many interested parties with the Government on 14 Dec where the General Manager and CT will represent our views.

There will be no surprises if I tell you that the basis of the scheme is for member companies to use competent staff listed on an approved register run by others and the company to have systems in place for quality management systems and supervision. Companies will be subject to audits - both  of work carried out and probably of work being carried out.

[Tom Sutton]

Thanks Kurnal that’s the kind of information those not in the loop will appreciate and I noticed Bobbins mentioned 14 Dec therefore I assume it’s the same meeting you referred to. I am also glad CT will be there to give them stick.

Don’t forget the minions