Hi Chauhan,
Nothing's black & white until it's tested in court and even then it has a very narrow application. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm assuming that you want this information to reinforce a case for training or using specialists?

If you could tell us a little about what needs doing we might be better able to offer an opinion.

For example; the level of competence required to fire risk assess a newspaper kiosk is worlds apart from the level of competence required to fire risk assess a nuclear power station!

I'm afraid you are going to get fustrated trying to find it in black & white 'cause it's not there. Competency does not come from qualification and body membership alone and indeed can be demonstrated without either.

What is it about the standard of fire risk assessment you are unhappy about?

thank you all - i take it from JW that a formal fire safety qualification of some sort would be necessary to be deemed competent along with the application & experience. At least this is a start to be working with.

I've always (since working in H&S) worked in fairly low-risk mixed use premises - warehouse/office with a small area for workshop/maintenance - and I look for my FRAs to be completed by a member of the IFE. The IFE has a register of Risk Assessors which I take to be a decent indicator of competence.

If I were looking after a facility with higher risks then I might look to 'raise the bar' further but for my lowly needs I'm comfortable that we're in good shape.

I agree with Safety Smurf. Competency quite often runs alongside experience. A qualification does not give you competency

SBH

The old Competency issue again :-)

My problem is that until 18001 actually makes detailed statements about competency and competency mangement the the auditor must be very wary about making statements about lack of competence. The HSE guidance, such as it is, can be sketchy. A I have said many times on this and the previous forum - The HSe guidance for Compeeny Management in Safety Critical etc control systems is th best advice and outline standard I have seen. It also mirrors the advice given for railway signal engineering competence.

If he is making such a statement then he is actually questioning the ability of the organisation to manage competence and the reality is that the issue raised is incorrect - The FRA is evidence of the lack of control and is not an issue itself.

Bb

I have seen 'off the shelf' FRAs on sale, allowing 'reponsible persons' to complete pre-designed flowcharts and checklists. Does that nean that these would be invalid or it a case of horses for courses? ie this would be ok for smaller offices etc?

Must admit I've never used one but from the previous comments I wondered if they were even legal to use?

ChrisBurns wrote

>>I would like to say take no notice of the auditor who questions the competence, however you say you don't know who/what did the assessments so maybe you need to find out who carried them out and look a little deeper into their competence.
<<

Chris if you're referring to my message # 5 (not Chauhan's) the fire arrangements were originally put in place by the engineering manager who knows the factory processes well after 15 years, he trains fire marshalls etc. I review the RA and arrangements with him regularly.

So the auditor is questioning his and my combined competence, or at least saying there is a vulnerability in it if a major fire incident led to a court appearance.

My input since being their consultant has been to review the RA annually or whenever there's an incident etc and advised on keeping the site tidy, controlling flammables, and keeping the documentation and training up to date, only major change was when they introduced the flame-shrink packaging which needs some strict procedures to be followed.

JohnW

Rarley post to the new forum as I dont think it's worth the effort, but on this occasion, I think things will improve when competency in respect of FRA is required to the same extent of surveying for ACM's and carriage of dangerous goods by road (DGSA).

Too much leeway, allowing those with the minimum of experience and spoof merchants to carry out FRA.

In my opinion, too many safety practitioners have the ill infomed opinion that they are capable of carrying out suitable and sufficient FRA in any premises other than the most simple of premises without backing it up with the required education, experience and moxy.

Speaking as MIFireE, CMIOSH, MIChemE etc

Sorry,

Forgot to add;

Speaking as Safety Smurf

Currently holding 3 aces and a pair of kings!

In reply to your question

please explain to me how; when I hire one of the UK's leading accredited asbestos surveying companies to survey my estate they manage to send me a re-inspection report for a building that isn't mine and I've never occupied

Administrative or clerical error, **** happens.

and have failed to notice that the building they should (not) of surveyed was only built in 2007.

I would have thought that you or your agent had made an initial request for the company in question to carry out a survey of the 2007 building. It would be unusual for them to decide to survey a building without an instruction to do so.


and how a leading, accredited UK company that does (amongst other things) H&S audits, ignores my criteria as the client and applies their own subjective opinion on compliance. Despite definitive guidance before hand!

Maybe you should have made your criteria more explicit, possibly review your method and mode of communication or possibly they dont speak smurf.

Ah....hadn't thought of that! ;-)

Interesting!

I work in local governmment and we have employed an very experienced fire safety professional after considering the advice about competency requirements for delivering fire risk assessments in PAS79.
You will see in this document, a sort of British Standard, that there are various ways a person could be deemed competent, and this could incluide a mixture of trainimng, qualifactions and experience.

I am concerned that many orgnaistions, including us until 2 years ago, delegate this complex and sometimes techncial task to local managers and only provide them with limited training. You may well have seen that CWS Group were prosecuted for doing just this, after a major fire in one of their stores, and the judge exprressed serious concnerns about the isseu of competcny of risk assessors.

I remain firmly of the view that the government should have done more to formalise, accredit or provide gudiance on competency requirments of fire risk assessors when they published their library of fire risk assessment guides of few years ago. I suspect that they feared critisism as this will increase burdens and costs on businesses. I fear that, after the demise of Fire certificates, that we sdhall ahev to wait until a major catastrophe before the guidelines on competecny of fire risk assessors in PAS79 is widely adopted and applied.

Thanks Chris, that what we have done, a senior officer from West Mids attended the site and did a review/audit of the FRA and a walk round the site asking myself and customer's manager searching questions.

His conclusion was that he thought as a team we were competent to FRA the site, but he made some suggestions to improve the presentation for the 18001 auditor when she returns: including that the FRA should include up-front a site map indicating where all the ignition sources are, fuel sources, combustible stores, oxygen and fresh air sources, and all the other numbered hazards that we assessed, makes sense of course. He also advised keeping better records of all incidents and their investigations and their impact on the FRA.

Also the FRA should document reasoned justifications for some of the hazardous processes that were in use on site, explaining why other safer alternatives had been ruled out.

The Fire Officer will write a letter to my customer with his conclusions.


JohnW

There is currently no agreed definition of competency for fire risk assessors. That's why the Institution of Fire Engineers are currently trying to broker at least the starting point, which is commonality of training (yes, I know...). See exchanges on a LinkedIn forum recently (UK H, S and Fire Networking Group). Am I alone in detecting the unedifying sound of commercial axes getting ground, as well as expression of legit concerns about the antics of clearly non-competent assessors?

To get back to the original question re the activities of an 18001 auditor, in this case there's no accepted auditable standard to start with. So what's different about a fire RA? All of us who are in any way professionally involved in safety may have to account for our actions to a court but I find it a bit rich when an 18001 auditor apparently arrogates the court's rights to themselves (perhaps they should be invited to comment here?).

And for those of you who might think of advocating official registration, think of how poorly that longstanding example of gas safety performs. Corgi, or now gas safe registration seems still to be a minority sport and without checking the stats, I venture that there are more CO poisonings than workplace fire deaths every year. Andas for a food safety comparison: Look no further than Lanarkshire and compare/contrast Wishaw's E Coli outbreak with the Rose Park Nursing Home fire.

As a generalist, I expect to spend most of my declining years jumping through hoops for one register or another. Maybe it's an easier pastime than actually advising clients if my joints remain sufficiently supple...!

No, no one can give you the formal requirements as none exists. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can set themselves up as a fire consultant and many have. Most of them will get away with it unless something goes tragically wrong.

Fortunately there are people like yourself Chauhan who are prepared to dig a bit deeper and look for the experience and/or qualifications that a person has to offer themselves as a competent fire risk assessor.

The fire industry is not helping itself. There are currently several accreditation schemes running, all proclaim to offer the best. The IFE and the Institute of Fire safety Managers both have a register of risk assessors, the BRE has a scheme where you attend a course and pay a fee for an examination, a total of £3200! Warrington Fire Certification in association with RICS offer a UKAS accredited certified fire risk assessor scheme. NEBOSH provide a certificate in fire safety management which many appear to think is sufficient to make them competent as fire risk assessors.

Some of the best consultants I know let the quality of their work speak for themselves and will only sign up to an accredited scheme when/if the industry is regulated and there is a requirement to do so. That does not look like it will happen for some time. Ask the right questions and you will find yourself a decent consultant. Meanwhile long live the cowboys!