Sedgemoor Fire Prevention Ltd

NEWS
New Fire Safety Law Independent Third Party Certification With the introduction of the new legislation there is a requirement for fire safety equipment and services to be provided by competent persons. The Government has issued a series of eleven guides aimed at specific business areas to help employers and owners 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 and can provide you with a certificate of conformity. Fire Extinguisher Supply & Maintenance The only nationally recognised ‘Independent Third Party Quality Scheme’ for companies undertaking the supply, installation and ongoing maintenance of portable fire fighting equipment is BAFE SP101/ST104. This ensures that companies registered to this scheme are ISO9001-2000 approved and that both the company and service personnel are subject to ongoing independent audits of their activities. It also guarantees that:-
	• The company has correct procedures for quality management • It’s 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 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 detailed above. By using a BAFE registered company you are discharging your legal duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 by employing a COMPETENT contractor