Feature Alarm and Detection Systems FIA Guide to the UK Fire Safety Industry
FIA Fire Detection and
Alarm Council
The Fire Industry Association’s (FIA) Fire Detection and Alarm Council represents
manufacturers and suppliers of fire detection and alarm equipment and is made up
of 15 elected members representing small, medium-sized and larger companies.
Neil Budd reports on its recent work
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IT’S A legal requirement for all those in
charge of non-domestic/commercial
properties to – where appropriate –
equip such buildings with suitable fire
detectors and fire alarms. Extending
those legal requirements still further, it’s
also their responsibility to ensure any
such systems installed are maintained in
the appropriate fashion. In this way, the
systems on site will be ready and able to
activate should a fire develop.
For their part, ‘Responsible Persons’
or duty holders must demonstrate that
they’ve acted with due diligence when it
comes to sourcing a competent provider
for this type of work.
In terms of the manufacturers and
suppliers of fire detection and alarm
equipment, it’s very much the remit of
the FIA’s Fire Detection and Alarm
Council to represent the collective views
of this sector of the industry, including
by way of negotiation and discussion
with central Government and, indeed,
other external bodies.
In parallel with representing
members’ interests, the Fire Detection
and Alarm Council monitors and
influences the development of relevant
standards, legislation and regulations
and also commissions research projects,
as well as providing specific guidance for
product-related marketing,
communications and training issues.
Working Groups
The Fire Detection and Alarm Council
oversees the activities of several key
Working Groups, each of which focuses
on a specific area of the industry. For
instance, Working Group 2 concentrates
on fire alarm communications. This
Working Group provides industry input
into the development and updating of
related UK (ie British Standards),
European (ie European Norm) and
international (ie International Standards
Organisation) product standards.
The Working Group also produces
fact files and guidance documents for
the fire detection and alarm industry.
Indeed, its members have recently
produced a guidance document on
connecting fire detection and alarm
systems to an Alarm Receiving Centre
via a security alarm.
Members are now working on further
documents, among them guidance on IP
connectivity and remote services and
also on next generation networks, the
latter including information on the
Public Switched Telephone Network
(PSTN) phase-out scheduled to happen
in the lead-up to 2025.
PSTN has been the backbone of the
UK’s phone network for decades now,