http://www.chad.co.uk/ne...nsfield_hotels_1_3570739 Seems he did it for £150 and a few pints, no qualifications and seems he mainly sold extinguishers, a partly read the Official guidance on sleeping accommodation. Just to put some argument on this, where does it say in the fire safety order qualifications are needed?? Deffo an appeal is in order I think

Qual's may not be needed but competency is; seems to me that the judge felt he had niether the qualifications or compenecy to carry out the RA's.

If the owner conducted the FRA himself and followed the sleeping accommodation guidance book as was the point the fire safety order was set out for in the 1st place, he would also not be deemed competent. It only mentions that the FRA to be 'suitable and sufficient' and not for the person doing the FRA to be competent. Obviously as mentioned Article 18 state persons assisting should be competent, I suppose the fact he freely admitted to only reading a part of the Guidance was not a good move and doubt if he should use the same defence team again...Oops In regards to appeal, I was thinking about the 8 month sentence and would try and have that reduced?? Just trying to play devils advocate here

Competent = Has to drink in same Pub, has to do it cheap (and a few pints chucked in), has to sell extinguishers for a living and finally only needs to read a few pages of the official guidance on fire safety to the premises concerned...

Competence (or competency) is the ability of an individual to perform a job properly. (Wikipedia)

In answer to your earlier question, Chris, competence is a combination of Training, Knowledge and experience.... (According to the A.C.W.A.H.T)....

Knowing one's limitations... Maybe your experience and knowledge would determine that?

Just to clear up the competency issue: 1) Nowhere in the RRO does not state that he person completing the FRA needs to be competent, however the FRA does need to be suitable & sufficient. 2) I accept that Article 18 states: 18.—(1) The responsible person must, subject to paragraphs (6) and (7), appoint one or more competent persons to assist him in undertaking the PREVENTIVE & PROTECTIVE MEASURES (my capitals). 3) However, look at the definition of PREVENTIVE & PROTECTIVE MEASURES as in Article 2 and it states: “preventive and protective measures” means the measures which have been identified by the responsible person IN CONSEQUENCE of a risk assessment as the general fire precautions he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on him by or under this Order; Therefore, Article 18 applies to those who are assisting measures as identified from the FRA - ie AFTER the FRA has been completed. Therefore this Article does not apply to the assessor, but does apply to alarm engineers, chippies fitting fire doors, trainers etc. So to sum up, the risk assessor does not need to be competent, but his/her FRA must be suitable and sufficient. Don't argue with me as I never wrote this legislation. It's not dissimilar to saying the Jet pilot doesn't have to be competent as long as he takes off, flies and then lands safely!! * As far as any prosecution goes, any person carrying out a FRA can be treated as the Responsible Person - Article 5(4)(b) refers. As a result, s/he can be prosecuted for failing to complete a S&S FRA as required by Article 9(1).

I'd go for the definition of competence given in the guidance to the Management regs: Knows the job Knows their own limitations Knows where to go for advice when they don't know the answer, John

They were not jailed because they got it wrong, nor for not being "not qualified". They were jailed because: "The Judge said that the time had come to send out a message to those who conduct Fire Risk Assessments and to hoteliers who are prepared to put profit before safety" Doubtless they are already out on appeal.

There you go, Chris. There's another answer to your question.

Unless you don't need to know then you wouldn't need to ask would you?

Only a fool steps outside his/her spare of expert knowledge and even then measure twice and cut once. If you think you know it all what are you doing in the world of health and safety. Zimmy