In this Order "competent person" means: "A person is to be regarded as competent for the purposes of this article where they have sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable them properly to assist in undertaking the preventive and protective measures". Anyone appointed by the responsible person, for example a company fire warden or fire alarm service engineer, may be directly employed or a sub-contractor but, crucially, must possess the necessary level of competence in order to carry out their duties. Although it does not say it in the RRFSO in practise does a fire warden need to be "certificated" and is the certificate issued by training companies a "Certificate of Attendance" or a "Certificate of Competence" ? As we know there is a big difference between the two !

I agree with Ken that competence has to be based in the area the Warden will operate in. It would be pretty easy to set up an exam for Wardens (and similar) to test knowledge. I'm doing this kind of thing currently and see that the Wardens/Marshals must be familiar with systems in the buildings they operate in as well as the people, etc. At the moment 'competence' is going to be proved by thier actions. I see this as coming out of alarm activation incidents whether they lead to evacuation or not. The last thing is that I see very little benefit from training these groups with the usual, off the shelf, modules. It seems far better to have an in-house approach if you have the resources for it. My point is that an external trainer will provide generic skills and someone, in-house, is going to have to do the rest anyway.