The Building Safety Act 2022 and the subsequent amendments to Building Regulations 2023 put in place for both individuals and organisations to prove competence, writes SSAIB.

Any person conducting works or design must have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours (SKEB’s) to do so, and organisations must be capable to conduct works in accordance with all relevant requirements.

We would all profess to be organisationally competent and meet the above usual statement of individual competence, but is that really the case within the Fire and Security (FESS) systems sector?

The sector at best could be described as a house of assumed competence with a mixture of associations, institutes, independent training providers, academia, approval boards and inspectorate’s all claiming they were the best judge of competence, and therefore others have got it wrong.

A common standard of competence

What was missing was a common standard of competence.

We understand Standards in the FESS sector, we work to them and gain approval against them.

This work had already been started by the FESS employer group over ten years ago who as part of the Government Trailblazer programme in England looking into the product of the apprenticeship scheme, making it fit for purpose, and in doing so had set a standard for a technician in our sector in terms of Skills, Knowledge, experience and behaviours (SKEB).

In a sector that had no such standard, this also set the standard for all Technicians in the sector.

I am careful to use the word Technician as Fire Engineer is shortly to become a protected title and we have very few of those so be careful, in this new world, what you put on ID cards – words matter.

Following Dame Judith Hackett’s initial comments, the review of competence within the built environment had started and the Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) – working group 2 – Installers, prioritised six pilot sectors, Fire in HRB’s being one.

I was invited to join it. Its work confirmed the sector had a wide range of differing qualifications and definitions of competence.

The lack of a competence framework and clear routes to becoming competent.

It lacked a third-party card scheme to support proof of competence and had no requirement for continuous professional development (CPD).

It also confirmed that cards held were Health and Safety cards needed to get on to a construction site so did not apply to the whole of the built environment.

On the positive side, it had a highly successful new FESS apprenticeship standard in the SKEB format for a technician as its outcome.

Following the initial work, I took over the Chair of this committee.

We created the routes to competence map, adopted the FESS standard as the starting point, crossmatching it to BSI Flex 8670.

Defined an Operative level below and a management level above, including a management technical auditor standard.

Working with the Electrotechnical Certification Scheme (ECS) we updated and created competency cards to support the route to competence with ECS providing the scheme governance.

We identified what was missing e.g. Design, supervision, etc. and this was published in the Working group 2 competence framework – installer pilots report – (phase one) 17 May 2022.

As the Building Safety Regulator committee structure evolved, WG2 – Fire HRB’s moved into the Installers Super group, moving from the pilot to the implementation stage.

FESS standard

The FESS standard covered Fire and Security Combined, so the super sector formally recognised this combination, and I became the FESS Sector lead with a remit to implement the competency framework.

I have created the FESS UK Employers Forum which consists of the chairs and vice chairs of all four devolved nations to maintain a common UK standard and work together to create standards for designers, supervisors etc. as well as closely with the ECS to make sure that FESS developments are supported by the ECS competency card structure.

The lessons learnt and the work done by the Fess England Employers group in producing the FESS technician standard made this task easier.

The FESS standard had already been used to create a UK wide common apprenticeship scheme which respected individual devolved nation requirements, with their employer group cross-matching their schemes against the FESS standard.

So that is what is going on in the background and as employers you need to take an interest in your devolved nation employer group, we are the FESS sector voice to government.

How do you prove your competence in the built environment?

First you must decide on the card type you need to have for your job. Descriptions of all the ECS competency cards can be found on the ECS FESS card type page on the ECS website.

The FESS Systems operative card is for people working in the FESS industry as a specialist installer or maintainer of FESS systems for typically two years.

It is a multiple online test, and you must also hold the ECS Health and Safety test pass. There are exemptions to the operative test, and these listed on the ECS website together with providers.

The technician card experienced worker route to all the cards has been developed and is in place and can be achieved in either fire or security (intrusion, VSS and Access control systems combined).

The assessment follows the same process as the apprenticeship assessment. It is split into those specialising in just maintenance, installation, commissioning or installation and commissioning. These are cross-hatch gold cards, or a full gold technician card covering all these specialisms.

These are assessed via the experienced worker route assessment and there are two bodies offering this, EAL and BPEC via their assessment centres.

These are typically for those with five years’ experience in the sector and consists of creating and evidence portfolio, a professional discussion and a practical assessment covering the requirements of the type of technician card you need.

Again, there are exemptions to the knowledge part of the assessment which are listed on the ECS website together with assessment centres.

There are two further cards to cover FESS technical managers and technical auditors, the details of these are on the ECS website, which allow the technician to progress into a management role. With Designer and Supervisor being developed for the future.

Getting the correct competency card is only part of the way forward. You need to look at your HR structures matching them to the FESS standards with all individuals holding ECS FESS cards.

It is no longer acceptable to prove organisational competence only it must go down to the individual level as well. This is BSI Flex 8670. This will impact the criteria of associations, institutes, approval bodies and the inspectorates.

You need to keep the SKEB’s up to date so that the cards can be renewed. E.g. The CITB website offers free ecourses in Fire awareness, which everyone should be encouraged to do. (questions are included in the ECS H&S test)

Finally, you need get involved in Raising the Bar in the FESS sector, if you wait to be asked for the cards you will already have lost the initiative, and your business will suffer as the procurement process asks for proof of organisational and individual competence.

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