It is the responsibility of public and commercial property owners to ensure that fire protection is suitable to protect staff, clients and property. It also requires that this is kept up to date following any changes made to the property. The Department for Communities and Local Government publish fire safety guides and these tell you about how you might comply with fire safety law and advise on the requirements for a fire risk assessment in the common areas and identify the general fire precautions you need to have in place. Third party certification ensures that providers meet the requirements of British standards and Building Control Officers can be certain that they are regularly monitored for compliance.
Under the legal provisions that apply in the UK, the Duty Holder or Responsible Person for a building is required to make a Fire Risk assessment to clarify the fire precautions necessary for all business premises including those for multiple occupancy. This includes consideration of means of escape, alarms, emergency lighting, fire doors, extinguishers as well as training needs and duties for fire wardens. The Fire Risk assessment can be carried out by the responsible person if they have the knowledge, or alternatively they may use an external assessor. BAFE scheme Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment SP205 will provide reassurance to the Duty Holder that they are doing everything possible to meet their obligations.
BAFE has launched the scheme for organisations that provide Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment SP205 after a two year period of consultation within the industry. BAFE is the independent registration body for companies that have achieved third party quality certification of their fire protection services. Users and specifiers can gain the reassurance that providers of fire alarms, portable extinguishers and emergency lighting meet UK standards and are regularly audited. Over 1250 companies, across the UK have now achieved BAFE registration and as Government guidelines for fire protection state:
‘Third-party certification schemes for fire protection products and related services are an effective means of providing the fullest possible assurances, offering a level of quality, reliability and safety that non-certificated products may lack. This does not mean goods and services that are not third-party approved are less reliable, but there is no obvious way in which this can be demonstrated.’
Key points of BAFE Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment SP205 Scheme:
- This scheme has been developed by a group of industry experts to help the building ‘responsible person’ meet the requirements for Fire Risk assessments under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.
- Life Safety Fire Risk Assessment SP205 specifies that companies have the required technical and quality management capabilities.
- Risk assessment staff need to meet appropriate standards.
- BAFE has been working closely with the Competency Council to monitor and develop individual Risk Assessor competence criteria.
- UKAS accredited Certification Bodies assess and routinely monitor providers against the scheme criteria.
There are other significant BAFE schemes to offer the Responsible person the reassurance that they are using competent fire protection providers. For installing or maintaining fire alarm systems companies should hold BAFE modular Fire Detection and Alarm Systems
SP203-1 scheme approval. This scheme includes design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection systems and also requires that all equipment used is third party certificated. This is based around compliance with BS5389, which has recently been amended, and ensures that new installations will have BAFE certificates of compliance to provide evidence of quality. The scheme now has over 800 registered companies across the UK and one of the 5 licensed Certification Bodies that deliver the scheme and the annual reviews.
If you are looking for the supply and maintenance of portable extinguishers, look for one of the 350 Companies accredited to BAFE Contract Maintenance of Portable Fire Extinguishers and Registered Fire Extinguisher Service Technicians SP101/ST104 scheme. Companies are certificated to ISO9001 and all of their technicians are assessed by BAFE for initial and ongoing competence.
The demands placed upon the property owner and on specifiers to ensure that fire protection meets the requirements of national legislation can be helped enormously by a decision to use third party certificated providers.
For more information and to find BAFE registered companies in your area, go to: www.bafe.org.uk or contact us at info@bafe.org.uk
BAFE
info@bafe.org.uk
