The National Security Inspectorate (NSI) has urged key policy decision makers, legislators, politicians and senior business leaders to adopt third party certification in the fire sector and capitalise on learnings from the police-private sector alarms partnership.
Distributed to over 500,000 leading business executives, policy makers and other relevant individuals, the Parliamentary Review, a non-partisan publication wholly independent of Parliament and Government, combines political commentary with sector specific insight from Secretaries of State, Ministers and MPs. It has several editions, each focusing on an individual policy area with the strategic aim of raising standards by highlighting best practice.
Every year the publication brings together leaders and policy makers across business, industry, education and the public sector to share insight and help organisations confront the challenges of an ever-changing political and economic landscape. It highlights significant developments, opportunities and concerns for business leaders up and down the country.
Co-Chairman of The Parliamentary Review, Lord Pickles, has praised the 2020 publication as one of the most comprehensive yet. As Britain looks ahead, he commented: “It is essential that politicians have a firm understanding of the challenges with which British organisations must contend”.
Writing in the 2020 Fire & Security edition, NSI Chief Executive Richard Jenkins underlines the necessity of a robust approval regime in keeping people safe, with third-party certification bodies such as NSI playing a key part in making that happen. In the security sector a compelling example of certification making a positive difference is its longstanding alignment with the police in terms of monitored intruder alarms. Founded on agreed standards, third-party certification has been delivering substantial benefits for over 30 years, and it continues to do so.
“The ‘police alarms URN model’, if adopted into fire safety, and with particular regard to critical infrastructure, could have significant effect,” comments Richard. “A similar approach can and should be adopted by the fire and rescue service, where even greater benefits could be achieved in terms of saving lives and property, reducing false alarms, and lowering attendant costs.
“Third party certification can help embed standard practices through robust on-going audit and inspection of service providers and their installations, and the infrastructure is ready to deploy in terms of all fire safety disciplines”, he adds. “The world is safer as a result of partnership between the police and private sectors based on a standardised approach underpinned by third party certification.”
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I think almost nobody in the professional fire safety sector, either F&RS or consultancy/manufacturing has been against this for decades. With the last two reviews of ADB being undertaken without a serious life loss for many years, the issue was kicked up the road. We must hope post Grenfell, that with Hackitt and general public opinion pressure, this should finally become mandatory. The so-called ‘golden thread’ concept will be difficult to achieve without such quality and documentation at each stage.