Upon BAFE’s acquisition of the FIA (Fire Industry Association) Awarding Organization last year, FireQual has been established and has been diligently working on developing this platform to offer qualifications for individuals working in the fire safety industry.
They are pleased to announce that approval has now been achieved from both Northern Ireland’s (CCEAR) and Scotland’s (SQA Accreditation) regulatory bodies to offer qualifications covering fire safety with the initial offering concentrating on fire detection and alarm system work.
Alarm system work
They will provide further updates on qualifications and approved training centers
This is a momentous stage in the development. In the mission for the betterment of knowledge and skills in the fire safety industry they can now begin to work with approved training centers to offer FireQual qualifications. They will provide further updates on qualifications and approved training centers, as and when these become available.
Not looking to stand still, the next set of qualifications are already being developed in response to Working Group 4 (WG4) covering Fire Risk Assessors, following a comprehensive response to the Grenfell Tower fire and the Fire Sector Federation’s (FSF) Fire Risk Assessor Code of Practice, regulated Fire Risk Assessment qualifications are required to help determine individual understanding and formal knowledge of this critical skill.
Building safety competence
The FSF document (Approved Code of Practice: A National Framework for Fire Risk Assessor Competency - Version 1) states: “Thirty-two areas of core knowledge have been identified as being appropriate for demonstrating the skills, knowledge and behavior necessary to conduct fire risk assessments.” - 5.1 Core Knowledge
These Skills, levels of Knowledge, Experience, and Behavior (also known as SKEB) are also a current key focus of BSI, who are developing the BSI Flex 8670 document (Built environment – Overarching framework for building safety competence of individuals – Specification) in response to events including the Grenfell Tower fire.
This document outlines knowledge to be “Considered an essential building block of competence leading to the development of skills.” - 0.3.3 Skills knowledge and experience
Fire safety management
Following numerous requests and observing the current landscape of fire safety management"
Lewis Ramsay, Chairman – FireQual, commented “Following numerous requests and observing the current landscape of fire safety management, FireQual are pleased to announce the formation of a Fire Risk Assessment qualification development group to establish a strong set of qualifications covering this vital service.”
“Having a core knowledge in understanding the Fire Risk Assessment process is absolutely fundamental. We believe that the FireQual qualifications in development will create a quality benchmark for demonstrating a person holds the right knowledge to begin putting this into practice.”
Prominent industry figures
The Fire Risk Assessment qualifications are currently in development with prominent industry figures providing their input. Further information regarding these qualifications will be announced when available.
Other qualifications are currently in development. Nic Preston, Qualifications Manager - comments “There are many areas of fire safety that currently do not have robust and regulated qualifications for particular skills. This is a key focus of FireQual to establish these to provide a respected avenue for individuals to determine their knowledge and skills.”