FRACS is one of the highest level of third party accreditations available in the industry and GWL’s Steve Williams and Mike Glenister, the company’s joint fire consultants and directors, have recently been awarded with the certification.
All FRACS` certified fire risk assessors are listed on Warrington Certification’s register of competent fire risk assessors, which is used as a valuable reference for those ‘responsible person/duty holders’, who need to commission fire risk assessments.
Gent tailored a training programme to cover the key parts of its CPD courses and delivered the unique in-house sessions at the head office of GWL. Approximately 15 hours of training presentations were provided by Gent’s representative, with additional ad hoc telephone support.
Gent’s CPD seminars cover all aspects of fire detection including legislation, building regulations, standards, and voice alarm. The programme of CPD seminars for designers, installers and end users have themselves gained several relevant external accreditations, and been officially certified by the Construction CPD Certification Service.
The two GWL representatives have more than 55 years combined experience of working in the fire industry. The whole FRACS accreditation process took them more than 12 months to complete, and involved the personalised Gent training on a series of key subjects, a final written exam and a rigorous three hour interview with assessors.
FRACS provides a standardised and nationally recognised certificate of competence. Those fire risk assessors who have completed the comprehensive technical evaluation successfully and achieve certification are considered ‘competent’ to produce risk assessments that are ‘suitable and sufficient’ for the purposes of the relevant UK fire safety legislation.
Hertfordshire based GWL, specialise in carrying out Life Safety Fire Risk Assessments, fire training, fire emergency plans, fire evacuation drills and giving general technical advice to businesses across the UK. Mike Glenister has more than 30 years of experience within fire safety, having started his career an engineering apprentice, and Steve Williams’ 26 year career has seen him work for a number of the UK’s leading fire protection companies before going into partnership to form GWL.
Steve Williams, fire consultant and director, GWL said: “We used all of the knowledge that we had gained from the Gent CPD sessions towards getting the FRACS accreditation. We started the business 12 years ago and, having explored a number of third party accreditations, we felt FRACS offered the highest standard of certification as it is recognised by the educational body UKAS.
“The Gent sessions were instrumental in helping us to get the accreditation, we had to invest a lot of time and hard work and we are delighted that we have been now been awarded with this high level of competency.”
GWL directors were awarded the accreditation late last year and the company has since received a host of new business enquiries as a result, as well as widespread approval from the businesses they work with.
Neil Towers, business manager, Gent by Honeywell, said: “We would like to congratulate GWL on this fantastic achievement and we are very proud to have offered them educational guidance and support throughout the process. Being a FRACS certificated assessor provides a powerful demonstration that a responsible person or duty holder has exercised due diligence in the selection and appointment of a competent fire risk assessor.”
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