LANDMARK FIRE SAFETY PROSECUTION OF FIRE RISK ASSESSOR

[Tom W]

There is the comment about these schemes being commercially viable for big and small companies, this is silly as it doesn't matter the size of your company. If you have one assessor you will pay one price if I have fifty I will pay fifity times what you have to but I should generate 50 times the income.

No, not silly at all Piglet  - you have missed the point completely.

How much do you think a self employed assessor can afford to get through accreditation? £500? £1000? 2000? 50?

Do you not realise that a large well established consultancy will have more financial mobility than Joe Bloggs to afford putting their people through accreditation. Im not saying they pay less per head.

Infact go and have a look at the thread discussing the jailed risk assessor, my point is proven fairly and squarely there.

I know your point but just because a company is larger doesn't mean it has more disposable income. I know alot of one man bands that are very good and they will have to pay 1 lot of fees, a larger company will have to pay say 50 times that fee as they are 50 times bigger. They do have 49 times more the income but the overheads are a lot bigger then the one man band, marketing, admin, accounts, vehical fleet, more insurance etc etc.

Its as much of a stetch for a large company to go through these schemes as a smaller one, I know both sides of the fence.

3rd party accreditation is a nice thing to have but why? Is it just for yourself? Clients don't ask for it, its not compulsory, we have a very good package to prove competence.

I can't really see your point being proven elsewhere! Its a massive cost for a larger company, just because you are bigger it doesn't mean we charge more likewise with being smaller it doesn't mean you get paid less, or if you do, you're not selling it properly.

If we look at the cost of accreditation as being 5% of annual turnover, that may be £500 for the small guy but £15000 for the larger company, its a lot of money to find! 

[Tom W]

There is a 3rd party accreditation for enforcers

Do you mean the IFE one?  If so just look at how many Brigade areas do not have any auditors listed?

exactly so if the government/local authority have decided its not worth it, why does industry think it is? 

[Demontim]

CFOA are currently looking at standards and competencies for IO's in an attempt to compensate for the loss of formally assessed courses at FSC following the introduction of the marvelous IPDS system.

[bungle]

Are CFOA suggesting that IPDS doesn't work and  shutting the stable door as the horse vaults over yonder fence???
Well, I , for one, am deeply shocked!

[Chariot]

I suspect that one or two of those twitchy assessors will be accredited and have certificates to burn

Thats a silly comment

The organisation for which I now conduct FRA employed a fire safety consultantcy whose consultants were accredited and had lots of letters  after their names. Yet the assessment that were carried out in the words of the enforcing officer were not worth the paper on which they were written.

Certificate do not make good fire risk assessors, niether IMHO does accreditation.

Having a level of accountability and prosecution of this nature may help to remove those who worry more about the fee than the safety of relavent persons.

[Tom W]

I suspect that one or two of those twitchy assessors will be accredited and have certificates to burn

Thats a silly comment

The organisation for which I now conduct FRA employed a fire safety consultantcy whose consultants were accredited and had lots of letters  after their names. Yet the assessment that were carried out in the words of the enforcing officer were not worth the paper on which they were written.

Certificate do not make good fire risk assessors, niether IMHO does accreditation.

Having a level of accountability and prosecution of this nature may help to remove those who worry more about the fee than the safety of relavent persons.

This is true, apologies i realise what I hadn't exactly read your statement properly.

[Midland Retty]

I know your point but just because a company is larger doesn't mean it has more disposable income. I know alot of one man bands that are very good and they will have to pay 1 lot of fees, a larger company will have to pay say 50 times that fee as they are 50 times bigger. They do have 49 times more the income but the overheads are a lot bigger then the one man band, marketing, admin, accounts, vehical fleet, more insurance etc etc.  

Strongly disagree I will say again a larger company can be more financially mobile than Joe Bloggs the individual. Im not saying they will pay any less for accreditation because of course it is going to be proportional.

Im merely pointing out that bigger companies can normally take the hit much better than your average self employed person. Bigger firms can call upon funds if they really need / want to, whereas Joe Bloggs will not have that luxury.

[kurnal]

Chariot can you tell us any more? I am interested to know whether the problem was the competence or diligence of the individuals, the policy of the company employing them requiring them to work in a particular way  or the format of the report document.

To me if a competent person applies a good system, eg such as PAS79 then there should be no problems.

If  a company I was working for would not allow me to use my skills properly it would be my head on the block and I would walk away very quickly.

[William 29]

I wonder where we stand when the competency of a fire risk assessor is challenged and indeed the FRA as being suitable and sufficient if it has been audited by an inspecting officer without any third party accreditation apart from the obvious letters after their name and the fact that they may (or may not now!) wear a uniform?

[Tom W]

I know your point but just because a company is larger doesn't mean it has more disposable income. I know alot of one man bands that are very good and they will have to pay 1 lot of fees, a larger company will have to pay say 50 times that fee as they are 50 times bigger. They do have 49 times more the income but the overheads are a lot bigger then the one man band, marketing, admin, accounts, vehical fleet, more insurance etc etc.  

Strongly disagree I will say again a larger company can be more financially mobile than Joe Bloggs the individual. Im not saying they will pay any less for accreditation because of course it is going to be proportional.

Im merely pointing out that bigger companies can normally take the hit much better than your average self employed person. Bigger firms can call upon funds if they really need / want to, whereas Joe Bloggs will not have that luxury.

We will have to disagree then, am I right in thinking you don't work for a "big" company? Where are you making this judgement? Are you talking about taking out loans? So again you are talking about taking out the same amount of percentage of loan as a smaller company accept this time you have a lot more peoples income to protect so you have a lot more risk.

A one man band could do it on an overdraft facility, a big company is taking a big risk.

A large company has massive overheads to be able to be that big, office space etc! People who work from home, wife does the accounts, then they have a bigger percentage of disposable income

[Jim Creak]

They call this an arms length risk assessment, they do in Essex anyway.......having spent many hours talking about fire safety I am of the opinion that the profession is full of opinion....just that......some opinions are based on a deep knowledge base and some on a very shallow base, some are based on knowledge and practical experience bringing another dimension, some opinions are rigid some are more flexible.......my opinion is that they are all valid it has to be for the courts to decide....that is what they are there for......with words like suitable , sufficient and significant. I have probably read with interest something like 500 Fire risk assessments this year and while I obviously have questions by and large they are suitable and sufficient for the management of fire safety and definately satisfy the requirements of the RRO. The debate about accreditation is about money not bad risk assessments.....if it were bad risk assessments we would of had more prosecutions....now for facts.....just one since 1992 when risk assessments were introduced.

Risk assessment is a management discipline it is not rocket science......The maintenance of building components, fire safety arrangement and fire safety management systems are all policy, procedure and practice disciplines......Audit and Review are taught on the most basic management courses.....In my opinion the task at hand is to get ordinary business managers to own the responsibility and get involved. Maybe if we cut the scientific mystery out of it the process of good fire safety management would be embraced by more people.

[Demontim]

William29 why do you think CFOA are looking at it? There have already been a number of instances where legal challenges have been made loosely questioning the Bona Fides of the IO and indeed their inability to follow their own national guidance.

[Chariot]

Chariot can you tell us any more? I am interested to know whether the problem was the competence or diligence of the individuals, the policy of the company employing them requiring them to work in a particular way  or the format of the report document.

To me if a competent person applies a good system, eg such as PAS79 then there should be no problems.

If  a company I was working for would not allow me to use my skills properly it would be my head on the block and I would walk away very quickly.

The document used was fine and would be suitable for use following the guidance and methodoligy of PAS79.

The policy of the company at that time was pay someone to do our FRA's and they will be responsible, they now know better.

As for competence of these assessors they may have been competent to carry out fire risk assessments for some premises but they were definately not competent to carry them out on ours, as for diligence I am not convinced that some of the premises risk assessed where actually visited co-incidently nor was the enforcing officer when he conducted an audit and found that the assessor had recomended intumescent seals for the letterboxes for each individual flat when there were no letter boxes, there were no recommendations in regards to the wooden communal letter boxes stuffed with mail and free newspaper adjacent to the only exit from the building, which happened to be what was set alight.

I could list many more problems with these assessments some were possibly just typo's, unfortunately most would not be considered the sort of mistakes that would be made by those who were competent.

[Midland Retty]

We will have to disagree then, am I right in thinking you don't work for a "big" company? Where are you making this judgement?

Agree to disagree it is then.My judgement comes from personal experience (I've worked for bigger companies and have also 'gone it alone') It is also based on discussions I have with risk assessors from all kinds backgrounds in the industry on a regular basis. But anyway we digress. Back to the main argument.

There seems to be mixed concensus with regard to accreditation.Some say its good, others say it is bad.

So what I'd like to know is where does this leave the RP? How on earth do they know how to pick a decent, pukka, competent Risk Assessor or Consultant ?

Ive never said third party accrediation is a good thing, it doesn't really mean that an accredited person is better than a non accredited person or that it offers any form of guarantee (although it should).

But why is it then I would select a a Gas Safe Engineer or NIC EIC Electrician to work on my gas / electrics and not just Joe Bloggs the handy man, down the road who has been recommended to me?

[Jim Creak]

The difference is that the corgi schemes etc are for joe bloggs consumer not business.....the ordinary man in the street has to appear to be protected by government because they vote? Business people are fair game and are required to pick up the tab....Over the last 20 years I have heard stories from other people that have had terrible plumbers and electricians but all the companies were registered but on balance over the same period I have had excellent craftsmen . ....why because the penny finally dropped about 20 years ago I started asking the right questions like can you give me some people I could call that have used you before? Is there somewhere I can go to see the work you have done? In fact when they get down our road they never seem to leave as they get recommended from one house to the next. I am still of the opinion this is about money, if you want it cheap...businessman or consumer you get what you pay for.