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the World Of Hospitality
fire safety
DON’T GAMBLE WITH YOUR FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT!
If you are responsible for a business premises, the law requires that you have a fire risk assessment.
To find competent providers, you need BAFE.
Under the provisions of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person or Duty
Holder for a building is required to make a Fire Risk Assessment to clarify the fire precautions necessary
to ensure the safety of staff, customers and property. At present there are no adequate means to ensure
the competence and reliability of a company commissioned to carry this out. BAFE scheme SP205 has
been developed specifically to address this situation, and will provide reassurance to the Responsible
Person that they are doing everything possible to meet their obligations.
Make sure that your suppliers are registered with BAFE.
WWW.BAFE.ORG.UK
0844 335 0897
[email protected]
BAFE – HELPING YOU TO MEET YOUR
FIRE PROTECTION OBLIGATIONS
Current fire protection legislation across
the UK requires property managers of all
non-residential premises to have adequate
fire protection. It is their responsibility to
ensure that there is an adequate, up to date
fire risk assessment and that all aspects of the
requirements are carried out competently.
This is not only to ensure that customers, staff
and premises are adequately protected, but
also to minimise the risk of costly unwanted
false alarms. The most recent CFOA guidance
for the Reduction of False Alarms and
Unwanted Fire Signals highlights some of the
solutions to this problem, amongst which is
the use of third party certified providers of fire
protection services.
To demonstrate that the responsible person
(duty holder in Scotland) has met their
obligations, many public authorities and
commercial organisations now insist that their
fire protection services are carried out by a
company that has been third party certified.
Many now specify that providers are BAFE
registered. You can find out if your potential
provider is third party certified and BAFE
registered at WWW.BAFE.ORG.UK
BAFE is the independent third party
certification registration body for the fire
protection industry. We develop schemes
for UKAS accredited certification bodies to
assess and approve companies to recognised
standards. There are now more than 1000
companies with over 1250 registrations to
BAFE schemes across the UK. Our aim is to
support property managers to ensure that
they get quality fire protection for their
premises, staff and service users.
In 2012 BAFE launched the first UKAS
accredited scheme for Companies who carry
out Fire Risk Assessments (SP205) which is
a vital part of meeting obligations under
fire legislation. The scheme considers the
competence of the individual assessors
as well as the quality requirements for the
organisation. There are a growing number
of companies registering to the scheme,
throughout the UK.
If you are looking for the supply and
maintenance of portable extinguishers, look
for one of the 356 Companies accredited
to BAFE Schemes SP101/ST104. Companies
are certificated to ISO9001 and all of their
technicians are assessed by BAFE for initial
and ongoing competence. There are currently
more than 1200 BAFE registered technicians,
working for our registered companies.
For installing or maintaining fire alarm systems
Companies should hold BAFE modular SP2031 scheme approval. This scheme includes
design, installation, commissioning and
maintenance of fire detection systems and
also requires that all equipment used is third
party certificated. The SP203 scheme now has
over 800 registered companies. Registration to
this BAFE scheme is often a key requirement
criteria in tenders for the provision of fire
alarms.
Our Emergency Lighting scheme (SP203-4)
sets out the standards and staff competence
criteria to be met. It is modular as with the
fire alarm scheme and is achieving growing
recognition from end users.
There are a range of other BAFE schemes
covering particular sectors of the fire
protection industry and details can be found
on the BAFE website, along with a complete
search facility to find registered companies in
your area.
If you want to be sure you are getting your
fire protection from companies who are
properly and regularly assessed look for
more information at WWW.BAFE.ORG.UK