Tell us about Wyvern Risk Management
In 2017, I retired from the Avon Fire and Rescue Service, where I was an area manager, and set the business up with a colleague, initially looking at risk management for both health & safety and fire. But as time went on, we realised that the main focus needed to be pushed towards the fire sector, because that was where our key skills had come from. From 2018, we therefore really honed these skills, and now as a business we look at fire risk assessment in both residential and commercial properties. I also have a couple of other consultants who work alongside me, doing other consultancy work, including emergency planning, evacuation plans, and fire strategies. We also deliver training as well.
What does a typical client look like?
We take from a variety of areas in the sector, but in the last year we’ve seen massive growth in the residential requirement for fire risk assessments, particularly Type 1 assessments of common areas. There’s been a huge shift as conveyancing solicitors are finally recognising they need their clients who want to sell to have a risk assessment carried out on the common areas. Each week we are now inundated with requests for simple Type 1 assessments in residential premises. We still manage a number of commercial, smaller businesses where we work on a bespoke, online, cloud-based system, but the key work at the moment seems to focus on residential.
What challenges do you face as a business in the industry?
I think some of the challenges have been about communication, particularly if I focus on the residential. You’ve got managing agents and estate agents that are looking after lettings who don’t fully understand the challenges of the sector. They seem to think that all these rules changed as of January, not realising that the need for risk assessing has been around since 2005. One of the most frustrating challenges I find as an assessor, is when one looks at the conveyancing process, I’m not sure that the solicitors really take note of what is in that fire risk assessment. I know from client feedback that it’s seen as a ‘tick box’ task. No matter how much narrative you include in the risk assessment for the client, no matter how many items you pick up on the action plan, it doesn’t seem that the conveyancing solicitors are picking up on those areas. I find that a real challenge, because it’d be really easy to create a tick box using PAS 79, but I don’t find that acceptable. That lack of understanding is a huge area and this is now aligning with increasing costs for landlords.
How do you resolve those challenges?
I think it’s about communication. I’ve tried getting hold of conveyancing solicitors to understand exactly what they want and in what format. We’re a third-party accredited business, we took the plunge to be a BAFE-registered company, and so we get audited regularly. One of the key elements of that is about communication with the client, and we will work with the client to provide honest feedback and provide a follow-up service as I don’t think you can just do a risk assessment and park it.
I get clients saying, “I’ve done all the items you had in the action plan. Do you need to come back and sign those off?” Clearly, I don’t own the risk, but it’s trying to communicate that to them so that they fully understand it. I’m not sure companies of my size can crack the nut with the conveyancing solicitors, but industry bodies need to be highlighting some of these areas. Whilst there’s a huge emphasis on high-rise buildings and the intermediate levels of 11 metres and above, there’s a lot of properties at lower levels that require services that are not quite getting it right.
What first interested Wyvern Risk Management in FPA membership?
I worked at the Fire Service College as a tutor back in 2002 to 2006, and before I left, I was aware of colleagues who were starting to work for the FPA, which is also based there. As an organisation,
it provides me a great resource library, with coverage across the whole fire safety sector. Then looking forward, I started to engage with some of the courses that the FPA offers. I knew some of the tutors, I knew their style of teaching and that it would work for me, both online as well as in the classroom. Plus, the classroom was at the college, so I quite enjoyed going back!
And there’s other benefits such as online libraries and the podcast episodes which entitle you to CPD just by walking the dog with your headphones on. It just brings to life so many topics across the industry. Also useful for fire risk assessors is the highlighting of prosecutions in the journal. They appear in the magazine and online, and it’s a great way of finding out incidents that have happened in Scotland, in Bradford, in Sussex – all over the UK. I can start to pull some similarities out and push these out to my clients, so they further understand the need for the full assessment process.
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