Monitoring News
Every month our Managing Director, Steve Kimber, fills us in on the latest monitoring news.
Below is an archive of the previous months columns.
| May 08 | April 08 | |
| March 08 | February 08 | January 08 |
| December 07 | November 07 | October 07 |
| September 07 | August 07 | July |
| June 07 | May 07 | April 07 |
| March 07 | February 07 | January 07 |
Connections
April 2008
Hello Again,
National Occupational Standards (NOS) for the installation of Fire & Security Systems have been deemed “not fit for purpose” by FSA companies due to the fact that they have been developed in isolation of the wider electro-technical NOS and indeed FSA fire systems companies question the right of Skills for Security Ltd. to develop standards for the fire systems sector for which it has no apparent remit. Furthermore, the lack of relevant standards and the poor sector knowledge and understanding associated with the development of the standards, has also, in the opinion of many FSA members, led to a lack of appropriate qualifications, which has had a detrimental effect on qualification and apprenticeship uptake in the sector for many years.
It is acknowledged, by FSA members, many of whom currently populate the Skills for Security Ltd. Sector Consultation Group, that Skills for Security Ltd. has a significant remit across the many SIA licensed, people services based, sub-sectors of the private security industry and that as a consequence these related sub-sectors such as Security Guarding, Door Supervision, Close Protection, Private Investigation etc. will always dominate its business interests to the disadvantage of fire, emergency and security systems installers who are actually a sub-sector of the electro-technical installation sector, a fact that is endorsed further by the Learning Aims Database, where the current NVQ Levels 2 and 3 in Providing Security, Emergency and Alarm Systems are listed under the sector 05 Construction, Planning and the Built Environment, which is where all other electro-technical and related NOS can be found.
If you hold strong feelings about the control of your industry’s NOS and feel they should be in the control of the electro-technical industry please contact Stefan Hay at stefan.hay@fireandsecurityassociation.co.uk .
On another matter it also appears the men in grey suits at BSi are also looking at changing PD6662 again, as if we haven’t had enough change in our industry already. Some of you may have read the exchanges of correspondence on the matter between Mike Cahalane and others. Again if you have strong views on how and by whom our industry is controlled at BSi, please contact Stefan Hay at the FSA and make your voice heard above all the others.
Finally, having climbed off my soap box, I am really pleased to announce that our continued growth in CCTV connections has exceeded all expectations by growing 83% over the last 12 months, whilst at the same time we have enjoyed a 26% growth in Fire connections and a 16% in Security connections. Thank you for your continued support as we continue to develop our Company by providing new services and facilities at SMS & NMS.
Bye for now,
Steve