Fire Protection Accreditation Scheme

The Fire Protection Accreditation Scheme (FPAS) is a voluntary accreditation scheme for the fire protection industry in Australia. It was launched on 1st July 2013 by Fire Protection Association Australia (FPA Australia). It is a formalised process to recognise the appropriate levels of skills and knowledge of fire protection industry practitioners.

The fire protection industry involves many individual occupations linked by one common objective— installing and maintaining equipment and systems to protect life, property and the environment.

However most states and territories in Australia do not have licensing requirements for fire protection industry occupations.

The fire protection industry has, in recent years, been in the spotlight as a result of devastating fire incidents such as the Quakers Hill Nursing Home Fire in NSW, Black Saturday Fires in Victoria, the Childers Backpacker Fire in Queensland and the recent tragic unit fire in Bankstown, Sydney, among others. Despite many jurisdictions referencing the need for ‘competent persons’ in regulation, these events have highlighted varying levels of competency among fire protection industry individuals as well as inadequate supervision, training shortfalls and the need for skills-based accreditation of the fire protection industry workforce. FPA Australia believes there is strong support for ‘tightening up’ the fire protection industry through licensing and accreditation. The desire for increased rigour in this industry led to discussions about the need to plan to develop a national accreditation scheme that is user friendly, transparent and consistent across all state and territories.

The lack of barriers to enter and work in the industry means that, in most states and territories, any individual can undertake fire protection work from design through to ongoing maintenance on fire protection systems and equipment without any experience or education. This situation has contributed to a dangerous level of non- compliance. Leading field-data management company Verified has identified that, of 40,000 buildings surveyed, less than 40 percent achieved compliance to fire protection maintenance standard Australian Standard AS 1851.

This non-compliance relates to life saving measures including fire sprinklers, alarm systems, portable fire extinguishers and fire hydrants. The growing calls to rectify the situation have been underscored by a number of high profile fires around Australia as previously mentioned.
It was with these considerations in mind that in 2012, the FPA Australia Board agreed to initiate work on the development of a suitable framework for accrediting individuals in the fire protection industry nationally, through a voluntary accreditation scheme. The scheme aims to attract industry participants who wish to be independently recognised and promoted as holding the minimum skills, competencies and business requirements to undertake certain activities in the marketplace. The national focus of the Scheme is to ensure uniformity for fire protection practitioners throughout Australia.