BAFE and FireQual acknowledge the Grenfell Tower Fire on the seventh anniversary of this tragic event. Our ongoing respects go out to all affected people. We as an industry, and the expansive number of responsible persons in charge of building safety, cannot allow this to ever happen again.

In 2023 we began to witness changes coming into force with fire safety legislation, which does begin the process of strengthening areas such as Fire Risk Assessment requirements. BAFE have been involved and actively engaged with the Fire Risk Assessor Competency Verification Project Board (FRA-CVPB). This Board, joint chaired by the Home Office and Fire Sector Federation, has spent a significant amount of time on how to best define competency with Fire Risk Assessors. The BAFE SP205 Fire Risk Assessment Scheme and other UKAS Accredited Third-Party Certification Schemes available will have to meet any new requirements introduced in the near future. This has been an ongoing process following Grenfell to develop safer working practices and as a result safer buildings to be occupied suitably.

Through our ongoing collaboration with UKAS, BAFE are confident that the direction of travel appears to be far more evidence based than ever before. This means that any UKAS Accredited competency scheme that appears on the market will have to meet clear criteria to evidence it is appropriate to demonstrate an organisation and their employed individuals are capable of delivering life safety work. We now await stronger regulation to sit in line with this to set the bar at the high level it should be.

FireQual is prepared with regulated qualifications available to support this requirement for stronger evidence. The knowledge element of any individual working within the fire safety industry is being seen as a growing matter of interest and clearly stressed in competence based documents such as the BSI Flex 8670 and their SKEB rubric (Skills, Knowledge, Experience, and Behaviour).

As always, BAFE are ready for stronger regulation of the fire safety industry. Our Registered Organisations have already demonstrated the correct behaviours by being registered to appropriate BAFE competency Schemes. Our ongoing campaign, “Don’t just specify, verify”, has always championed UKAS Accredited Third-Party Certification, not exclusively BAFE. The first major step is to mandate UKAS Accredited Third-Party Certification, regulate the industry and remove unsafe workers.

BAFE continue to champion competency in the interest of life safety. Our thoughts and respects go out to all affected people on this day, and we will continue to fight for what we believe is the right thing to do.

Dr Justin Maltby-Smith CEng FIET CMgr FCMI

Group Managing Director