Understanding your legal responsibilities regarding fire protection.
Understanding your legal responsibilities regarding fire protection.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
With the introduction of the new legislation there is a duty to ensure that fire safety equipment and services are provided by competent persons. The Government has issued a series of eleven guides covering different business areas to assist Owners, Employers and Responsible Persons to understand their responsibilities.
COMMON TO THE GUIDES IS SECTION 8:
“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. …Third Party quality assurances can offer comfort both as a means of satisfying you that the goods and services you have purchased are fit for purpose, and as a means of demonstrating that you have complied with the law”
It is therefore important to understand what “Third Party” quality assurance schemes offer and how you can ensure the company or person you appoint to carry out fire safety work is competent.
FIRE EXTINGUISHER SUPPLY & MAINTENANCE
BAFE scheme SP101/ST104 is the ONLY Nationally recognised independent ‘Third Party’ Quality Assured Scheme for Companies and Service Technicians undertaking the supply, service and maintenance of portable firefighting equipment.
Companies registered to the scheme are all ISO 9001:2015 approved and both the Company and Service Personnel are subject to on-going independent audit. It also guarantees that;
- The company has correct procedures for quality management.
- Its service personnel are correctly trained.
- The company and its technicians are regularly and independently audited.
- It has a complaints procedure.
FIRE ALARM SYSTEMS
The nationally recognised quality schemes for fire alarm and fixed gaseous extinguishing systems are BAFE SP201, SP202 and SP203. SP203 is a modular scheme that provides for certification of a company for the individual modules that comprise a system:
- Design
- Installation
- Commissioning
- Maintenance
A company may be approved for just one or up to all four modules so it is important to check that your supplier can provide a third party certificate for the type of work you require. This will give similar guarantees to those associated with the extinguisher scheme