Posted By Phil D As the newly appointed safety manager at work, I was expected to conduct the fire risk assessment. I told my employer that I was more than happy to assist, but would not actually conduct it as I have little experience in fire risk assessing buildings of this size and complexity. A fireman friend of mine is going to now assist me. My point is this, I am more than prepared to say that something is beyond my knowledge(for now) and would never take offence when asked if I am competent do do something. It amazes me that some safety persons out there, and I am talking about the ones I have met, and some of the posts I have read in this forum, are so quick to take offence when asked if they are competent. Surely if someone asks if you are competent, they are just trying to protect you, and those you are responsible for. After all, your decisions may affect other's lives. Just my opinion.

Posted By Jim Walker Again I agree. How do you gain competence in anything unless you tackle something new. This forum has helped me fill more gaps in my knowledge than the thousands of pounds worth of training courses I've attended. Some of the nay sayers just seem to be on an ego trip.

Posted By Raymond Rapp Phil Agree entirely with your actions and sentiments. It does highlight a broader problem, which tends to affect the general h&s practitioner role. With so many different hazards and specific legislation, it appears to me that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to manage all aspects of h&s work. Evidence can be seen by the number of queries on this forum by practitioners. The term 'competent' has been debated at much length on this forum and I do not intend a re-hash. However, if we are honest, then I suspect that most practitioners have dealt with issues that they are not really too familar with. Obviously with some research and applied common sense most issues can be dealt with reasonably compentently. Fine, until something goes badly wrong! Just a thought. Ray

Posted By Phil D And one that I appreciate Alan. As I do all the posts in this thread. Thanks to all

Posted By MetalMan I do think that part of being a Health and Safety professional is having the intelligence and capability to reasearch, examine,take qualified advice,follow guidance and best practices, and then make a honest self appraisal as to whether you think you understand what you need to do and how you are going to do it.Simply looking at something and saying "well i've never done it before so obviously I'm not competent so I'll give up and call someone in to do it" baffles me! If most of us did that every time we came up against an area we were not too familiar with we'd have nothing to do all day and a lot of explaining to do to the boss!! I thought part of being a professional was ensuring your CPD. How can you claim CPD and lifelong learning if you're afraid to have a go in case things go wrong.As others have said before how can you claim to be experienced if you don't have a go yourself and learn?, if you follow official guidance and advice how can you go wrong? If the whole Fire risk assessment is so difficult how come they are now expecting Joe public to do his own, surely if it was that complicated they would not decided on that course of actions and would have left it to the Fire professionals!

Posted By Simon Walsh Grad IOSH Well for companies that employee safety professionals they will try and comply with the guidance. But some companies do not bother with such tedious issues! Would these people know what action to take to ensure an inner room situation complies with appropriate guidance, or whether a high risk factories travel distance was excessive?

Posted By MetalMan No they wouldn't, but they could find out if they wanted to, not difficult. The guidelines and advice are all out there if you look for them. It's not rocket science and it's not beyond anyone, even if some would like the rest of us to believe it is. Like I said in my last post, if it is so dificult to accomplish correctly why shift the responsibility from the Fire professionals to the Business owner to carry it out?

Posted By Phil D Well on the new regulations course I just came back from, the opinion was this, when the proposal was sent to I think, 2000 odd business to give their feedback, only 10 percent bothered to reply with comment. The opinion of the course providor was that if more had actually read it, and realised the implications of some of the new procedures, for example the daily checks, then the regulations would never be coming out in the form they are about to. I work in a warehouse the size of 3 football pitches, with approximately 30 fire escapes/doors, and a tonne of fire fighting equipment, daily checks? No chance. But this could go on all day, feel free to continue, but I'm sticking to my original post.

Posted By MetalMan Simon, They should be suitable and sufficient considering I followed official guidlines and advice, not too difficult to be honest. You obviously have a problem with non Fire professionals carrying these out, why?

Posted By Simon Walsh Grad IOSH It does not bother me in the slightest if the fire risk assessment is undertaken by a "non fire professional". I simply believe that the assessment should be undertaken by someone who has a level of knowledge to be able to adequately assess the level of risk. Regulation 7(5) MHSWR 1999 says: A person shall be regarded as competent for the purposes of paragraphs (1) and (8) where he has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable him properly to assist in undertaking the measures referred to in paragraph (1). Not wishing to get into an argument this is my view, you have yours and each to their own.

Posted By MetalMan Phil D, Actually I work in a large manufacturing factory employing 200 people. We have a range of issues from bulk LPG/Chemicals/Molten metal/ fire extinguishers/fixed sprinkler systems/water deluge systems etc the list goes on, hardly an office environment. I'm sorry you have chosen to misunderstand my post, which in effect was trying to encourage you to attempt the job yourself following a suitable research and training period, not a you have percieved it as having a go.What I was trying to put across was that there are a lot of people involved in the Fire profession who view anyone other than themselves completing a Fire risk assessment as competition. A close relative of mine who is in the Fire service told me the other day of a coversation they heard at work the other day where the words Fire risk assessment and "Goldmine" where mentioned, work it out for yourself.

Posted By Phil D Metalman, please don't think I have misunderstood nor have I taken offence. I just simply disagree with your view. But then I can't decide on who to go and see over Christmas, Luton, or Arsenal. Regards Phil

Posted By MetalMan Phil, I'm sorry, I give up. I just thought that seeing as you are Safety Manager of such a large site you would feel able to research and learn and apply the knowledge, FRA's are no different to any other risk assessment, sure the content is different but the basics are the same.I guess if you are not just comfortable doing it then you have to go your own way.

Posted By MetalMan Bill, my point exactly, if you have experience of RA this should not be too much of a leap. What's worrying is the amount of request for FRA forms on this site when the order came in on the 1st of Oct.