What’s in a name

In January this year, the ECA launched the new face of its Fire and Security Steering Group, which is now known as the Fire and Security Association. I caught up with chair Steve Kimber to find out how the group will be stepping up its activities to further represent the interests of ECA members in the fire and security sectors.

How are you?

I’m good, thanks. I think the conference call code that I was given when the interview was set up must have been the wrong one though. I just ended up becoming part of a weekly Christian prayer discussion, which was rather confusing!

So, what’s with the name change?

The Fire and Security Steering Group (FSSG), as it had been for ten years, was integrated into the ECA’s Technology Development Committee (TDC), so the head of department was Giuliano Digilio, and the technical secretary was Mike Turner. As such, the FSSG was a steering group to TDC on fire and security matters and, it’s fair to say, it tended to look inwardly back into the ECA and TDC in particular.

The FSA is projecting itself not only to existing ECA members, but also externally to the fire and security industry professionals at large, and also to external bodies.

How is the FSA structured?

The FSA is a standing committee in its own right. It has a position on the ECA’s Member Requirements and Policy Panel (MRPP) and council, and it will call on the services of other standing committees within the ECA. It operates within the framework of the ECA, and you cannot become an FSA specialist unless you are an ECA member.

I’m the current chair of the standing committee, which includes both members and observers. Unusually for the ECA, the FSA also has a mission statement and terms of reference, and it will have an election process. Beneath this, there are two working groups; one for fire, which is chaired by Terry Kinch and the other for security, chaired by Chris Lewis. Terry used to be the chair of the FFSG.

What is your history within the industry?

I’ve been in the industry for 32 years now. I moved across from Christie Intruder Alarms, where I was general manager, in 1983 to start up a company called Southern Monitoring Services in Portsmouth. Eventually, we expanded and started up Northern Monitoring Services in Cheshire. So, those two companies are my babies. We have a turnover of £15 million, with 225 employees. Once the companies had been established, I moved back to Christie’s as managing director. Now we have two other alarm companies in the group as well, plus we’re on an acquisition campaign as we speak.

Why do you feel that existing bodies are not able to serve the needs of the sector?

During my 15 years as a member of the British Security Industry Association I formed an opinion that there were insufficient human and financial resources to successfully support in excess of a dozen sector committees. As a specialist FSA member, the ECA has only one sector, the electrotechnical industry, and it is supported by enormous human and financial resources. The FSA delivers on all the givens associated with a trade association function such as lobbying, guidance, developing standards and research for both fire and security. In addition, the benefit schemes for membership are second to none. Plus there is the ECA warranty and bond scheme and TrustMark as well as a trading relationship with other ECA members who are not within the FSA. That’s value for money.

Our mission statement is supporting the profession to safeguard the client

What else is new for 2007?

We’re restructuring at the moment. I’m also going for a recruitment campaign, and I’m very encouraged by the support that the FSA has received from the fire and security profession in general. Our ranks are swelling as we speak and we already have in excess of 130 specialists and about £600 million of turnover for this sector.

One of the main things the FSA is concentrating on this year, apart from promotional and technical goals, is turning what is always spoken about as an industry into a profession. There’s going to be a very heavy concentration on training, meeting with the education and training committee within the ECA for the development of standards, which we’ll be setting to national qualifications. In essence, the concept is one of nurturing companies through an evolutionary development, and the continued advancement of companies through coaching and mentoring. We’ll be representing the interests of ECA members by working with UCAS, the government and training organisations. Our mission statement is supporting the profession to safeguard the client.

How has new legislation affected the FSA?

If one looks at both the fire and the security industries, there are two main areas of legislation. With security professionals, there’s the licensing of CCTV monitoring operators by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), which has already taken place. Also on the horizon, potentially, is the licensing of security consultants. We’re looking forward to engaging positively with the SIA against a backdrop of 30 years of voluntary regulations, which have been extremely successful to date.

On the other side, with the fire professionals, we’ve got the RRO, which will, in the fullness of time, have an impact on many ECA members. What’s interesting, as we’re looking at the FSA membership, is that most of the certification to BAFE SP 203 has been achieved by security companies who do fire systems. I think this is because they are used to the voluntary regulation aspect of things, so the FSA will be looking to do presentations to ECA members on the SP 203 scheme and give them the option to join the FSA. Nothing’s compulsory of course.

Is it necessary to have certification in fire detection installation work?

Not at this precise moment in time and, in any case, the ECA has its A3 certification for fire work. However, wind the clock on a couple of years and I think that, from a specifier’s point of view, the person who is responsible for their risk assessment on site is going to want to cover all the bases to make sure they have accredited firms who can be recognised in maintaining and monitoring their systems as well. Monitoring centres form part of this equation as they are registered fire centres as well, and the ability to get fire response to a remote signalling system rests on getting a unique reference number from the fire brigade. To do that, one is going to have to be third party certificated. I think it’s going to be a couple of years before that really starts to bite.

But in the security industry, they’ve really woken up and smelt the coffee and there’s a lot of people going through certification at the moment.

Have there been any problems with implementation of the RRO?

We have seen various fire brigades go off at a bit of a tangent, which caused difficulties for monitoring centres. Ridiculously, there was a requirement which dictated that a third party monitoring centre needed to ensure that the system was installed to a given standard. My company, for example, monitors systems for about 1600 security and fire professionals over the UK, but I’m certainly not going to drive all the way to Inverness to make sure that a fire system which has been connected to me meets the relevant standard, and there’s no contractual arrangement between the monitoring centre and the client. The actual arrangement is with the installation and maintenance company. That’s been quite a difficult thing to get over to the fire brigade, although the police thoroughly understand that business model.

What sort of pioneering technology have you seen within the industry recently?

Most of the more recent changes relate to the movement towards IP signalling in the security marketplace, as well as CCTV monitoring for visual confirmation of systems. However, our largest growth market for new companies starting to use monitoring centres is within the fire industry, and by far the biggest growth with regards to new connections is in the fire sector.