BAFE SP 205 scheme for fire risk assesment companies: WATCH THIS SPACE

[Tom W]

William, you have confussed me slightly.

You have got quotes from two UKAS schemes, The SP205 is a company scheme you didn't say if the quote you got from Warrington was the person scheme or company scheme.



SP205 - Company accreditation
FRACS - COMPANY accreditation

Can I ask actually what costs you were quoted for each?

Both quotes are for Company schemes for between 1 and 2 lead ("sign off assessors/managers) plus 7 other assessors.

Happy to discuss the quotes if you inbox me but perhaps not on a public forum.

Thanks William.

[colin todd]

William you talk about FRAs being carried out outside the FRACS scheme by a FRACS company. Is it the case that this is possible. Any reputable certifcation scheme surely ensures that all work carried out by the certificated firm falls within the scope of the scheme. Otherwise, a company could get itself badged up and able to advertise its certification status, trade on that basis and then simply tell every client that they can have a cheapo FRA carried out by an incompetent person -outside of the scheme. I am surprised if Warrington would allow that to happen. I dont think it will be possible under the BAFE scheme. Could you please clarify that for us, as it seems very important to me.

I wish old Eli were around to help-whatever happened to him. Has he metamorphised again.

[William 29]

William you talk about FRAs being carried out outside the FRACS scheme by a FRACS company. Is it the case that this is possible. Any reputable certifcation scheme surely ensures that all work carried out by the certificated firm falls within the scope of the scheme. Otherwise, a company could get itself badged up and able to advertise its certification status, trade on that basis and then simply tell every client that they can have a cheapo FRA carried out by an incompetent person -outside of the scheme. I am surprised if Warrington would allow that to happen. I dont think it will be possible under the BAFE scheme. Could you please clarify that for us, as it seems very important to me.

Colin, it is my understanding that you could produce an FRA for a client without a FRACS certificate that would have been completed by a competent person that may not yet have been through the FRACS process.  Surely with the number of consultants you use and when taking on new ones you would have a similar issue?  What FRACS are saying is that it must be clearly stated to the client that the FRA has not been completed by a FRACS accredited assessor, particularly if the Company is marketed as a FRACS accredited Company.

It would not  be my choice to operate to levels of FRAs but they may be a short transition period where this would happen.  Any new consultants coming on board would be informed that they will be required to go through FRACS.  They would need to submit at least 2 FRAs to go through the process that obviously wouldn’t have FRACs accreditation so I don’t see how that could be avoided under FRACS or SP205.  I still haven’t decided on which scheme to go for but I think the £10 charge for the BAFE cert is an unnecessary money spinner.

[kurnal]

I wonder whether the £10 certificate fee is unique to NSI - maybe if more certification bodies come along and offer BAFE SP205 they may offer less or no certificate fees?

I shall hang fire and wait to see what happens.

[colin todd]

Willie,   Are you saying that, to get certification under the Warrington company scheme, all the assessors need to be certificated by Warrington.  Surely this is a massive hidden cost. Then, you also get the problem you highlighted of non-scheme FRAs by a certificated firm.  That sounds awful to me. I am wondering if you have got this right.

The same cannot happen under the BAFE scheme, as the certificated firm is not tied to using a single source of certification or registration for every assessor in order to get certificated. So, to answer your question, when we seek certification under BAFE SP 205 (which we will), there will be no interim problem when we take on someone new, and we will be able to issue a certificate for every FRA.  Indeed, I thought that it was a requirement of the scheme.

Otherwise, it would be like a fire alarm comany saying, "ere guv, do you want a fire alarm system with a BAFE certificate, or -wink wink- we could do you a dodgy one without a certificate.

Oh dear me. I wish Eli were still around to explain all this, as I am at a loss to see how that can be.  Whatever happened to him?  I am sure he could have helped us with this. Maybe that new chap who was asking for assessors for Warrington could help. 

I once got some work done by a company, and he said now do you want a VAT invoice or a non-VAT invoice.  I reported him to HMRC, who took promised to take action, saying that they hated amateurs at doing them out of money-they at least had some respect for the professionals.

[colin todd]

The latest news! Several companies have now approached BAFE for agreement to operate the SP 205 scheme.  The formal launch by BAFe is scheduled for 30 May.

[Kelsall]

William

The BAFE SP 205 scheme allows a certificated company to set its own competence standards for the employees and subcontractors who work for them. There is an office check that the certificated company has a system in place for assuring competence of their employees but there is no 'independent’ test that the company’s system works. Therefore Colin is correct an SP 205 company can use anyone as long as their system has been given the OK during the office audit. It borders on self certification in my opinion. It is assumed that the company will use existing registers as an indication of competence but they don’t have to do that. They could have their own system in place and as long as the CB agrees it should do the job of assuring competence then they can use anyone who passes their own assessment and certificate the job. Can someone please tell me how that is different from what happens now? (Apart from the certificate bit)

The FRACS scheme and I believe the IFCC scheme will independently assess the employees for competence against the competence standard requirements. i.e. they will put the company’s system to the test. Should an employee fail it would be ridiculous to not use the assessor, if they were a full time employee. I would suspect subcontractors would not be used if they failed. The company will be given time to address the employees training needs but their work will not be certificated and if the company fails to make the distinction they will be suspended from the scheme. I think that is reasonable.

No one will be found lacking under the BAFE scheme; if they were, I assume certification could not be issued. 

I know that a FRACS certificated company can use any assessor who has been through a 17024 assessment for competence by an accredited CB.

I am a firm believer in quality assurance schemes but they must have enough checks and balances in place to assure quality and that includes competence of employees. I don’t believe that SP 205 has enough checks and balances in place (I have told them so), neither do IFCC; I met with them recently so unless they have changed their mind I think can speak for them on this.

Colin may tell you I know nothing and I have a vested and commercial interest so I would say that, and piglet may tell you my name and who I work for and Kurnal may or may not slap their wrists. But you can read the scheme details for yourself and make up your own mind and so can the RP. 

The RP guidance document is lacking in my opinion; it should guide the RP to the scheme first, in order to check if it is indeed robust enough in their opinion to assure quality and competence. Once the level of assurance has been established they can then rely on the certification. They can of course run their own checks and balances and do not have to rely on third party certification, as there are some very good companies who don’t want and will not get certificated by SP 205 FRACS or the IFCCs offering. That is clear in the RP guidance document.

[Tom W]

SP205 is super smashing great 

[kurnal]

Note to all - please dont let this become a personalised argument once again. There is much to be gained by a full discussion of the merits, strengths and weaknesses of the various schemes on offer.

I have been a supporter of third party accreditaton from the outset and sat, if I recall, alongside you Piglet on the FIA group that put together the first draft of what has become the BAFE SP205. You will probably recall the dilemmas that were much discussed as to how we can put together a scheme that meets the requirements of the Responsible Person and is flexible enough to reflect the range of businesses, from very small to very large.

Whilst we always recognised that the small businesses may run effectively outside a Company scheme such as BAFE SP205 or FRACS,  with personal individual third party accreditiation of all assessors be they employees or associates, the diverse personal accreditation scemes and their widely differing standards does not really work for the Responsible Person.

Larger corporate clients will demand membership of a UKAS accredited scheme and I believe it will become a prerequisite in time. We appear to have three schemes on the table, FRACS, BAFE SP205 and apparently a scheme run by IFC.

Personally, although I claim some ownership of the SP205 I am a natural cynic ( you may have noticed) and I will be watching very closely in the future as to how the UKAS accredited schems are policed and enforced.  I hold a rather prejudiced view that in terms of QA, very often what big companies say and what they do are very different.

Our industry remains a little unusual in that most big companies run on identical lines to most small companies- very few fire risk assessors out there are directly employed. Most big companies (and other providers such as the FPA) rely on a network of associates. Many pay scant regard to the  quality and content of the reports, and the currency and competence of their associates. As they are not employees there is no direct duty to train them. I fear that the organisations who go on to offer the third party certification under the SP 205 will have to be extremely diligent if they are not to have the wool pulled over their eyes in respect of competence of individual assessors. A rigorous system of document control under a QA scheme such as  ISO9001 may help but this is not a mandatory component of SP205.

Thats my personal view based on my current level of knowledge and if its twaddle no doubt someone will correct me.

[Tom W]

I hope you are not giving away identity Kurnal 

[Tom Sutton]

Whilst we always recognised that the small businesses may run effectively outside a Company scheme such as BAFE SP205 or FRACS,  with personal individual third party accreditiation of all assessors be they employees or associates, the diverse personal accreditation scemes and their widely differing standards does not really work for the Responsible Person.

Absolutely Kurnal that's the area we will improve things for the RP we may soon have the "Competency Criteria for Fire Risk Assessors" and hopefully have a common standard for all registration schemes.

[William 29]

Willie,   Are you saying that, to get certification under the Warrington company scheme, all the assessors need to be certificated by Warrington.  Surely this is a massive hidden cost. Then, you also get the problem you highlighted of non-scheme FRAs by a certificated firm.  That sounds awful to me. I am wondering if you have got this right.

The same cannot happen under the BAFE scheme, as the certificated firm is not tied to using a single source of certification or registration for every assessor in order to get certificated. So, to answer your question, when we seek certification under BAFE SP 205 (which we will), there will be no interim problem when we take on someone new, and we will be able to issue a certificate for every FRA.  Indeed, I thought that it was a requirement of the scheme.

Otherwise, it would be like a fire alarm comany saying, "ere guv, do you want a fire alarm system with a BAFE certificate, or -wink wink- we could do you a dodgy one without a certificate.

Oh dear me. I wish Eli were still around to explain all this, as I am at a loss to see how that can be.  Whatever happened to him?  I am sure he could have helped us with this. Maybe that new chap who was asking for assessors for Warrington could help. 

I once got some work done by a company, and he said now do you want a VAT invoice or a non-VAT invoice.  I reported him to HMRC, who took promised to take action, saying that they hated amateurs at doing them out of money-they at least had some respect for the professionals.

I am afraid you have lost me here Colin and you'll have to explain what you mean?  Put simply I understand under FRACS the Company goes through the accreditation process detailing the consultants they wish to be included in the process.  These consultants are each assessed by submitting FRAs and sitting an exam.  The lead assessor/manager goes through a more rigorous process.
My point was what happens to consultants taken on after they have been through FRACS or SP205.  From what you are saying under SP205 you as the company could self certify any new consultants??  I think this is all getting quite confusing and I thought I had a good angle on both schemes having spoken to both parties at length and had quotes……….perhaps not? 
 

[colin todd]

Willie, new consultants will need to satisfy the criteria that the compnay sets, and will be picked up during surveillance.  There will be greater attention to the person who signs off the FRAs. 

Tam, you are behind the times maybe. The competence criteria was published in December, if it is that document to which you refer.

Kurnal, while what you say about many practices that use only "associates", which is often a euphimism for someone dragged off the streets and not properly examined or monitored, could I please dissociate our practice from this. Our guys are on PAYE, and their CPD is controlled and monitored as is the quality of their work. WE once employed a guy who had previously worked for a very large purveyor of FRAS who used associates.  He found it less worrying to work for us, because as an "associate", he said that all that was checked was the typing, but there were not technical checks that he was doing the job properly or that the policies and approach he adopted were in the least consistent with the other "associates".

Thomas, you forgot to add the accolade brilliantly written and well supported by an excellent Part 2, which sets out requirements for the certification bodies, so that any old CB cannot set themselves up as capable.

[Tom Sutton]

I did have the final document on file, unfortunately I hadn't deleted the previous draft document which confused me.(very easy to do these days ) However is there a link to the brilliantly written and excellent Part 2, I have tried to find it on the net but to no avail for the moment.

[Kelsall]

Thomas, you forgot to add the accolade brilliantly written and well supported by an excellent Part 2, which sets out requirements for the certification bodies, so that any old CB cannot set themselves up as capable.

I don’t think that LPCB are running with SP 205. (But I will check) WCL and IFCC are not running with it.

So why are the 3 main fire certification companies not interested in it?

At the end of the day certification is always a bit of a ‘rubber stamp’ exercise. However it does give a measure of assurance to the RP and there is some come back if it does go wrong.

The RP just needs to work out which stamp bounces the least; just like the CBs have.