Feature Competency & Training FIA Guide to the UK Fire Safety Industry
Training and education
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forming the backdrop, Michael
Gregg explores the continual importance of training and education when it
comes to raising the bar on competency and goes on to outline what the
future of fire safety training could look like
THE FIRE Industry Association’s (FIA)
overriding objective is to promote,
improve and perfect fire safety. We
achieve this in a variety of ways, notably
so by offering professional advancement
through education, technical support
and guidance delivered to our members
and the general public.
We promote and shape legislation and
the professional standards of the fire
industry through close liaison with
central Government and official bodies,
as well as other key stakeholders.
March 2020 and the onset of the
pandemic precipitated one of the most
unprecedented periods in recent
memory. Necessarily transitioning our
industry-recognised classroom training
to the online environment – more of
which anon – exacted a significant
benefit for our industry. It enabled
thousands of fire sector professionals to
continue their personal development
and improve their own levels of
competency at a time when being
restricted to the four walls of their own
home was the required norm.
Raising the bar on competency is a
key tenet of everything we’ve done, are
doing and will continue to do. Issued in
2018, Dame Judith Hackitt’s
Independent Review of Building
Regulations and Fire Safety that
followed the Grenfell Tower tragedy
sought to begin setting right years of
systemic negligence that led up to the
devastating deaths of 72 people on that
night in June 2017. In Dame Judith’s
report is a particular focus on the term
‘competency’. What exactly is
‘competency’, though?
We can employ the following
definition: “A competent person must
have sufficient knowledge, experience
and skills needed to meet the
requirements of the job. What’s more, a
competent person must have an
awareness of their own limitations and
will endeavour to seek to update their
knowledge in line with changes in
standards, regulations and legislation.”
Training remains a crucial element for
improving a person’s knowledge and
reinforcing their day-to-day experience
with up-to-date theory. The
requirements remain the same whether
or not there’s a global pandemic in play
because competent professionals are
essential at all times when the focus is
on working with life safety systems.
Online training
The FIA welcomed Dame Judith
Hackitt’s report as, in one form or
another, we’ve been offering industry-leading
training and Continuing
Professional Development (CPD)
sessions for the last few decades. In
2020, and as stated, like many we
necessarily had to change the way in
which we work, adapting to the needs of
the industry and allowing individuals to
continue their training such that they
can raise their own competency levels.
We took immediate action at the
beginning of the lockdown and
continued that action as the pandemic
evolved into periods of lockdown and
isolation. We clearly identified the need
to adapt the delivery methods of our
training in order to cater for the millions
of people working from home.
The first national lockdown
announced on 23 March last year
inevitably led to the cancellation of all of
our classroom courses. It was a decision
taken knowing that we had no online
training capability at that time. Just one
week later, on Monday 30 March at
10.00 am to be exact, we launched our
first online training course. A great
achievement in such a short timescale.
The same was true for our online CPD
sessions. Within two short weeks, we
had a sizeable portfolio of material
written and delivered.
We now run a mixture of online and
classroom-based courses, while always
keeping an eye and an ear on what’s
happening in the world, thereby
ensuring that we remain adaptable.
Some courses were cancelled at the last
60