The Fire Industry Association has made changes to its membership criteria for companies providing fire risk assessment services.

The measures came into force on 1 April and are on an interim basis until membership can be contingent on third party certification.

Any fire risk assessment company must now declare that when at least two UKAS accredited schemes are available (there is currently just one) they will achieve certification with one of them within two years. The FIA says two schemes should be available “to guarantee competition and hopefully keep prices down”.

Companies providing risk assessment services must also demonstrate the competency of individuals they employ. The FIA is accepting membership of one of the four existing registers of fire risk assessors: the Institution of Fire Engineers; the Institute of Fire Safety Managers; the Institute of Fire Prevention Officers; or Warrington Certification Limited.

Membership is also conditional on organisations demonstrating quality systems including:

• a documented procedure to deal with complaints, deficiencies or defects
• a system of quality control and a maintained register of approved risk assessment sub-contractors
• a documented management structure of the organisation
• a controlled list of external documents such as standards and legislation that may be used in carrying out fire risk assessments
• public liability and professional indemnity insurance on an ‘each and every claim’ basis.

When the FIA fire risk assessment council was formed in 2009, there were no relevant third party certification schemes available. In December of that year, the FIA wrote a scheme and passed it on to BAFE for development. That scheme – to be known as SP205 – will be available as a draft for public comment shortly, and, says the FIA, should be finalised for certification bodies to use in approximately 12 months’ time.

Also expected shortly is a draft competency standard for fire risk assessors as individuals, which has been developed by a cross-section of stakeholders under the chairmanship of Iain Cox, chief fire officer of Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service and CFOA’s prevention and protection director.

In the meantime, Warrington Certification has launched certification schemes for individual fire risk assessors, for fire risk assessment companies, and for in-house fire risk assessors. The first company certificated to the scheme was BB7 Fire Safety Engineering.