CEO EDITORIAL

By Steve Davies

ASFP CEO Steve Davies reflects on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and considers the future

The passing of our Monarch has affected a great number of us. From the pomp and ceremony of the funeral procession and service to the many public signs of grief and respect, it has become clear that our country has changed over the last few weeks.

So why have we seen such a dramatic response from not only UK citizens, but from people all across the world? What has prompted so many of us to show our feelings in this way?

Personally, I believe it is the fact that we have witnessed a change in what we believed to be constant. No matter what your views are on the monarchy, few people would argue that Queen Elizabeth II was a symbol of the UK that could be relied upon to represent our country and its values in a way that was ‘predictable’, ‘honourable’ and simply majestic. Despite her age and recent news items reporting of her need to ’take it easy’, I believe we were not prepared for the inevitable. Put simply, I think in some way we believed this event would never come as it was too difficult to imagine a day when Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor would not be the Monarch, or indeed the Head of State for 15 Commonwealth Realms. This type of seismic change usually leaves us uncertain of what will happen, what we should do next or indeed what the future holds. However, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II triggered a sequence of events derived from history which were executed with utmost precision. A plan existed for this ‘unimaginable’ event, allowing us to move forward and giving us some form of certainty over what comes next.

In comparison, we have seen industries and society have their own ‘unimaginable events’ that change them forever. Events such as Piper Alpha, 9/11, Grenfell Tower and, more recently, the Covid pandemic have all left a legacy that lives on, affecting people, places, industry and economies.

What happens next after these ‘unimaginable events’ is not so clear. We wait upon inquiries, reports and, in most cases, legislation that attempts to guide us to avoid repetition. We do not have a predetermined plan to enact, that has been meticulously prepared and adequately resourced. Instead, we try to react in the best possible way to eliminate the risk of a recurrence.

In a post-Grenfell world, generally, the fire and wider construction sectors have been slow to react; often quoted as ‘waiting for legislation in the form of the Building Safety Act. True, we don’t have the luxury of a predetermined course of action, but we do know what is right and hence should not wait for others to tell us to do the right thing.

Since 1975, the ASFP has been promoting competency and accreditation in the passive fire sector and this continues to this day. We recently launched a new competency framework for the industry which sets out how companies should recruit, train and develop their staff to attain and maintain their competency in terms of the activities they perform. We are urging all involved in the construction sector to get involved to make sure they measure up to what is needed now and into the future.

But what else happened in 2022. Below are some ASFP statistics from the last six months. Accurate as of 15/10/22. Some of which show the differnce between the data we gathered for our last issue in May (which was two weeks into the launch of our new CRM) to now in November (6 months in).

Our registrants are made up of 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Fire Engineer 566 Architect 565 Surveyor 532 Main Contractor 437 Inspection Body 305 Specialist Fire Protection Contractor 274 Mechanical Engineer 253 Structural Engineer 242 Designer 227 We have members from 25

different countries

Including Colombia, Cyprus, Hong Kong, India, Spain, France, Turkey, Taiwan, Vietnam, Switzerland, Romania

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1128

Advisory Notes

Documents downloaded by members and guests in the last six months

532

Best Practice Guides 741

Colour Books 1032

Technical Guidance Documents 140

Other

77

New members have joined ASFP in those six months brining us to a total of 320322 We have over 500

people in our system called Dave or David We have gone from 59 guest registration requests to 2753

ASFP Business Manager Mike Ward outlines the new developments from the second half of 2022 up to the new and exciting times ahead in 2023

So where did 2022 go? Since writing my last piece for Ignite, the ASFP team has continued to develop our new CRM system, the connected website, and shop with more usability and features.

The operations team have been focused on improving our financial systems and procedures, as well as continuous improvement in our training and events. This year we have delivered more classroom training and faceto-face events than the ASFP has ever done before. This is a testament to our young, dynamic team.

At headquarters, the carpark is full more often than not with more and more visitors every week. Please enquire if you need meeting facilities in the heart of England. The British Coatings Federation (BCF) continues to support the ASFP in many facets of our day-to-day operations, human resources, IT provision and support, and social events as part of our collective team-building programme. BCF’s contribution to supporting ASFP should not be underestimated. (Lendlease) as the first of our non-Executive Board members. I can confirm we have continued with our investment in people and talent as described at this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Milford and Marah

Kate Milford and David Marah have been working with us in developing our Competency Pathway for improving skills, knowledge, and ultimately competency in passive fire protection. Kate and David are specialist consultants that have years of experience in developing structured learning curriculums. We look forward to continuing to work with them in 2023 in delivering new training modules and course content.

Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager

We welcome Tariq Malik to the ASFP team as Compliance & QA manager. Tariq’s main role will be to produce and manage the Association’s umbrella member quality mark scheme, Competency Pathway, plus any certification schemes that will add value to ASFP and our members.

People

In our last issue, I introduced Lauren Smith as our new Operations Assistant and Tom Gilbert Tariq will be taking the ASFP on a journey through our ISO 9001 certification application, supporting the production and management of ASFP’s new quality mark for members. We wish Tariq all the very best in this new exciting role at the Association.

Technical Assistant

As I write this, we have just hired our Technical Assistant, Sadiyah Begum. Sadiyah has a BEng Chemical Engineering degree, a Level 3 in Technology Entrepreneurship: Lab to Market and a foundation degree in Combined Engineering, the study of Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering and Electrical Engineering.

This is a new role and is designed to support our technical and regulatory officers from an administrative and operational point of view. However, there is more to this role than support; we aim to further develop our new recruit since the role forms part of our succession planning strategy which will enable us to maintain the Association’s ability to grow and continue to support its members.