The Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) has published a document that aims to define who is a ‘competent person’ in relation to the installation of passive fire safety systems.
According to the Department for Communities and Local Government, a ‘competent person’ is a person or business that has been judged to be sufficiently competent to self-certify that any work undertaken complies with the relevant parts of the Building Regulations of England and Wales, the doument says.
But the ASFP strongly advocates the use of third party certification of contractors for the installation of passive fire protection. It is mandatory for the association’s contractor members to have certification from a certification body which has been accredited by United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).
“This certification requires the third party to verify that installations are satisfactory. This process is undertaken by a mixture of audits of records and randomly selected site visits by the third party, at which workmanship is checked for compliance,” the document reads.
"The ASFP position is that a ‘competent person’ is one who must demonstrate to a third party that they have the expertise, skills and commitment to the professional installation of passive fire protection products."
This, says the ASFP, means someone who either works for a third party certificated installer under the conditions of that scheme, or has demonstrated to a certification body running a UKAS accredited ‘competent persons’ scheme to EN ISO 17024:2003 (Personnel Certification) competence in the installation of passive fire protection.
They might have also worked for a company operating a company based ‘competent person’ scheme certificated against EN 45011 by a certification body accredited by UKAS.
For more information, go to: www.asfp.org.uk.
