NEW GUIDE FOR PUBLIC SHOWING SOURCES OF COMPETENT FIRE RISK ASSESSORS

[nearlythere]

So that's all the time then?

[Kelsall]

William

The 'selecting a competent fire risk assessor’ guidance, is all over the place. I had an enforcement officer call me up the other day wanting to know what he was supposed to be promoting as it wasn't clear to him from what he read. How then is the RP supposed to get his head around it? Sign posting is going to be essential for the RP if they are to demand certification. Without demand what incentive is there to be in a scheme? How much demand will need to be created to force out the poor assessor? (Which was the intention behind this process when it was first started)  

The national register of occupational health and safety advisors which has been going a year now has had the reverse affect to that which was intended according to some reports in the health and safety press. The intent was to provide consistent high quality advice to those seeking the services of a professional. That register is one source of providers with some serious promotion by the professional bodies involved. It apparently hasn’t worked; one or two suggested that those not on the register have flourished.

There are now 8 or 9 providers of some form of register many of which appear in the new guidance document, some are recommended as a minimum requirement when selecting a fire risk assessor. Some are given a recommendation from the competence council and all but 2 appear in the table at the end of the guidance. Genuinely not helpful and if the intent was to stop the cowboy assessor what will make that happen? Is it the existing registers? Is it the new registers? Is it this guidance?

My opinion is that what we have will not do the intended. Cowboys will continue as they do today. The certification should be there to protect the RP if it isn’t the norm how can it do that?

I may be wrong, I hope I am. Time will tell

[colin todd]

Will the member for Wirral please answer the question that I have asked many times in this forum. Can he explain to the house why it is he sat through meeting after meeting, involved as he was in the preparation of the guidance, but he now rubbishes that guidance.

Was he :

a) asleep during all of the meetings.

b) writing his shopping list during all of the meetings.

c) instructed by those he represents to agree the document, but all along he hated it so he now vents his feeling here.

d) Other (please specify)

[Kelsall]

NO NEED TO SHOUT!

I am sick to death of telling you Colin! I am entitled to a personal opinion on this forum; it is you that is obsessed with trying to link my posts back to my day job. If you don’t agree with my opinion; that’s fine! But do it with one eye on what you have said on this forum about many a committee and many a standard developed by those committees. They don’t always get it right in your opinion. They can’t get it right all the time, can they?  Too many people to satisfy, too many opinions, and too many compromises to be made! I think that this is the case here; it won’t get to the route of the problem it won’t do what it was intended to do. Not without a massive amount of extra effort by the stakeholders. It’s just an opinion and one you disagree with; we now have a debate. Can you make a better fist of your side of the debate and explain how it will work, how it will achieve the intention and how the cowboys will be removed from the supply chain? Or will we have more of the same? “You are so rubbish you are; don’t listen to him, vested interest, sales, sales, sales! 

[colin todd]

To be honest, Kel, I have no respect for someone who voices one opinion on his day job and then comes here and not only expresses a different opinon here, but rubbishes the opinion that by implication he held a few hours earlier.

You are right, you are entitled to your opinion.  People who bang on about the earth being flat are also entitled to their opinion, but they tend to be people who dont understand the laws of physics and their views are to say the least marginalised by the view of the scientific community. And if one of the dotty flat earth people had sat through meeting after meeting while everyones views were expressed, and the community concluded that the earth was round, but came online a few hours later to say that the Institute of Physics and the rest of the scientific community, including the flat earth guy himself (in his"day job") were talking rubbish and that the earth was flat........Credibility might go out the window.

You stick to your view, or the one that suits you at the time whichever it is, but as the one you express here is so out of keeping with the opinons of the entire profession, including people who matter such as the government, enforcers and all the professional bodies, that, to be honest, it is really of no interest to me.

 “You are so rubbish you are; don’t listen to him, vested interest, sales, sales, sales!  

Yup, thats it sales sales sales, but no one is buying your flat earth theories, it would seem.

[kurnal]

I for one am fed up with reading this - the thread appears to be going nowhere.

Please can we call a halt to the ping pong between two senior and respected members and instead focus on the issues.

From the perspective of the RP I dont see that it makes a great deal of difference whether the Certificaton Body is a commercial or a non profit making organisaton.  All are in it to make a profit, all that is different is how that profit is used. That happens a very long way from the point of service and I think its the certification itself by a UKAS accredited scheme  that is important to the RP.

Fishy made a very relevant point a few posts back that was nearly lost in all the bickering.

He said
"I really don't see the difference whether it's a named individual (who will, presumably, have to have regularly demonstrated to the CB that he/she's working within the strict rules of the relevant scheme as regards all the factors you refer to), or it's a company's name on the certificate.  To be honest, I'd instinctively feel more comfortable having the work done by an individual named and certified by an independent third party on a certificate with a UKAS logo on it, rather than trusting a company to give me someone (unnamed by any third party) whom they think I ought to be able to put my faith in.  

Surely I should trust UKAS to make sure the scheme rules are right?  If so, I really don't think it's helpful or even particularly useful for the industry to muddy the waters for the poor old RPs by saying only 'some' UKAS accredited FRA schemes are OK."

One feature of the  SP205 scheme is that whilst the work of all  lead assessors is looked at,the larger the organisation, in proportion the less the scrutiny of what they do in the field. I say this because only  the square root of the total number of assessors employed are actually subject to desktop assessment of their work during the initial review. If I employ 4 assessors then 50% will be have their work subject to desktop review. If I employ 400 only 5% of them will be. Yet I would suggest that the problems of consistency, quality control, training, currency are much greater with a larger, dispersed organisation such as may arise in our industry, in which a wide geographical coverage  is likley to be delivered by local staff serviced from a HQ many miles away.
This is not a knock at the scheme, I think it a valid point for discussion.

[Tom W]

I think Dorgards are the answer, them and Freedor.

They are great.

[Tom Sutton]

(Page3)
1.   Be satisfied that the fire risk assessor providing this service is competent to do so. We recommend you check that those providing this service have independent registration with, or certification from, a professional or certification body and that they meet the competency criteria established by the Fire Risk Assessment Competency Council (see list below)

How to find a competent fire risk assessor (page 4)
2.   It is important that the person who carries out the fire risk assessment is competent. There are two principal methods by which people can demonstrate their competence;
    • Professional Body Registration schemes
    • Certification by a Certification Body that is UKAS accredited for the activity.
3.   It is also important that the company for whom the fire risk assessor works has adequate management systems in place, even if the fire risk assessor is self-employed. Competence of a company to deliver fire risk assessments can be demonstrated by third party certification of the company by a UKAS accredited Certification Body.
4.   Appendix 1 contains a list of Professional Bodies that operate Registration schemes and Certification Bodies that operate Certification schemes for fire risk assessors and fire risk assessment companies
5.   The Fire Risk Assessment Competency Council recommends the use of fire risk assessment companies, including sole traders, which are third party certificated to appropriate schemes operated by Certification Bodies which have been UKAS accredited to certificate against such schemes.

Para 1 Says use appendix 1 to be satisfied that the fire risk assessor providing this service is competent to do so.
Para 2 reinforces para 1.
Para 3 says it is important to use a company scheme (SP205)
Para 4 adds to 1 and 2.
Para 5 says it recommends the CB listed in appendix 1.

Is the council saying they recommend Certification by a Certification Body that is UKAS accredited (SP205) in favour of the Professional Body Registration schemes?
Because as a RP I would prefer to employ a FR assessor that was Third Party Certificated by being on a register and I would also like to see all the registers UKAS accredited. The ideal situation would be a company scheme and all assessors on a register, but this is extremely unlikely because of cost.

[kurnal]

I think Dorgards are the answer, them and Freedor.

They are great.

I agree Piglet. i use them as paperweights to stop my copy of BS7273-4 blowing off the my desk. All these open doors exacerbate drafts.

[Kelsall]

Thanks Kurnal for reopening the thread and thanks for whoever requested it be reopened. There are very valid points to be raised about this subject and I agree it shouldn’t be taken over by personal opinion of the people posting but should stay on topic. 

For the record however I didn't agree with the decision of the competence council, it was never put to vote and I had in the past put documents forward and suggestions of how the advice should look in the opinion of my employer. It didn't get majority support from the editing team and hence it wasn't included. I still stand by those suggestions and hence we are able to discuss this on the forum.

Fishy does indeed make a good point as does Tom Sutton.

There is official UK policy on conformity assessment and accreditation and this guidance doesn’t actually follow it.

The industry should have a choice of types of scheme, as unfortunately one size doesn’t fit all. Competent person’s schemes are a very good fit for the sole trader and small company. A technical reference is what they need and is what they can get without too much effort.(if they are competent) If we are looking at quality assurance for individuals who possibly work out of home then many won’t want to make the leap to a full quality system. It would help them in the long run but the added requirements for a few assessors aren’t of genuine benefit (in my opinion) because the deliverable has been tested thoroughly. I know it will put people off gaining certification from the many conversations I have had with fire risk assessors who are self employed. If the competent   don’t get certificated the incompetent won’t have to!

Would they be better with a quality system?  Possibly! However they shouldn’t be dangerous in the first instance, they will be up to date and they will be offering risk assessments that should meet the requirements at FRS audit. If the company is larger there are many more parameters that come in to play and as sub contracting is so very prevalent in this business the need for a consistent bench mark is essential. The need for UKAS accreditation is also essential as it adds that additional check, which helps enormously with demonstrated due diligence. 

One of my concerns is that the document does not narrow the field sufficiently for the RP it merely adds an additional layer in to a complicated mix. Without simple sign posting of one ‘thing’ the RP will remain confused they won’t ask for the one ‘thing’ and the industry (including the cowboys) won’t need that one ‘thing’. Hence my view that it won’t actually do what it was intended to do and make the cowboy disappear.

Without the demand from those with money and seeking services of fire risk assessors; the need for any certification will be redundant. Piglet makes a very similar point to this on IFSEC Global (posted under his real name)



I fully appreciate that there are many good assessors working without any form of certification and they may resist the call to get certificated, but if it makes commercial sense then they too will follow. The bad risk assessors will not be able to make that leap but without a financial penalty for not making the grade they won’t have to do it anyway; so nothing changes!

[William 29]

One feature of the  SP205 scheme is that whilst the work of all assessors is looked at- a desktop review of two fire risk assessments  produced by each assessor is scrutinised- the larger the organisation the less the scrutiny of what they do in the field. I say this because only a the square root of the total number of assessors employed are actually accompanied on assessments. If I employ 4 assessors then 50% will be accompanied on assessments. If I employ 400 only 5% of them will be. Yet I would suggest that the problems of consistency, quality control, training, currency are much greater with a larger, dispersed organisation such as may arise in our industry, in which a wide geographical coverage  is likley to be delivered by local staff serviced from a HQ many miles away.
This is not a knock at the scheme, I think it a valid point for discussion.

Yes agreed if the company certificated has 400 employees only a small percentage would have a "witnessed audit" under SP205.  However the lead assessor(s) have to complete on site audits of all their assessors in a 12 month period. So you could say there is a reliance on the competency of the lead assessors, but don’t forget under SP205 the company systems, audit procedures and documentation is scrutinised, so I personally don’t have a problem with it.  Also the company can choose as many named assessors as they wish as these will be given a witnessed audit during the next "surveillance visit" by the CB.

Re the costs I think these will come down, they’ll have to if the CB’s want to be competitive or the scheme will just die, at the moment I think the fees (or the ones we have been quoted) are reasonable. We have our first surveillance visit after 6 months of gaining BAFE SP205 and then if all is well every 12 months thereafter.

To add value to the debate and stay away from the arguments above!  I am currently looking at 2 large tenders, one for a national UK chain.  The RP has only asked companies listed as BAFE SP205 certificated from the BAFE web site to tender for the FRAs. On a separate tender the scoring system is very interesting.

The tender scoring is based on 60% price and 40% quality. The lowest price submitted will be awarded the full 60% score.
The quality will be scored against responses to 4 questions, each of the 4 questions are worth 10%  One of the questions asks if the Company is a member of any recognised fire industry associations or certification schemes?

So it could be said that the first RP is giving a very heavy weighting to being part of a company certificated scheme in this case SP205 while the other RP is only given a 10% weighting to it.

As I mentioned above, way too early to make sweeping statements about all this yet, let the dust settle and see what happens.

[colin todd]

Kurnal, are you spreading misinformation again??? The square root of N is NOT for accompanied assessments, it is for a dektop review. So I dont think you are right that people will need to subject the square root of N assessors to witnessed assessment.

Kel, there was no need for a vote on the FRACC final document because there was not a single dissenting voice.

Tam, Yes the FRACC ARE saying that company certification is preferable to professional registers on their own, though the latter may contribute significantly to company assessment.


If any of you are thinking of going for BAFE SP 205, please do not be put off by rubbish and scaremongering about management systems. It is little more than you probably already do, and to the extent you need to do more it is work that will enhance your safeguards in your systems and protect you better from liability. There is not a great deal of cost or effort involved in having proper systems in a compnay, and for a one man company it is simplicity itself. Willie will confirm all of this.

[William 29]

If any of you are thinking of going for BAFE SP 205, please do not be put off by rubbish and scaremongering about management systems. It is little more than you probably already do, and to the extent you need to do more it is work that will enhance your safeguards in your systems and protect you better from liability. There is not a great deal of cost or effort involved in having proper systems in a compnay, and for a one man company it is simplicity itself. Willie will confirm all of this.

agreed, apart from the one man Company bit at the end lol! 

[kurnal]

Kurnal, are you spreading misinformation again??? The square root of N is NOT for accompanied assessments, it is for a dektop review. So I dont think you are right that people will need to subject the square root of N assessors to witnessed assessment.

Thanks Colin you are right to correct me and I will amend my posting. I had misread the BAFE download in my haste.

[colin todd]

My main role in life, next to being a father, is to correct your misinformation Big Al, generated in your plush offices that dominate the skyline of Matlock Shower.

Every time I chide you, I feel like I have kicked the third and youngest of my three cats, who is sweet and loveable but rushes into everything before putting brain in gear and causes consternation.

It highlights the problem with Firenet. People would have believed there was this enormous burden of having lots of assessors accompanied by auditors, when, in fact, all that is involved in the aspect you highlighted is a simple desktop review.