Speaking at FIRE's Risk Versus Results roadshow at Birmingham City Football Club, Chair Dave Matthews says UK involvement and participation is essential for developing personal protective equipment standards, whatever the outside influences.

Picking up the theme from last month's roadshow at the Gatwick Hilton Hotel, Dave Matthews outlined the variety of European standards for every aspect of kit safety for firefighters. He said that the politics involved in ISO and CEN committees is very complex, highlighting the shocking experience of one standards writer who received death threats from a criminal organisation. This did not deter him from writing the standard to stringent specification, Dave reported.

Disappointingly, he also reported that the US standards committee structure is much more sophisticated than European equivalents, with end users chairing on a rolling three year basis. The UK is facing particular difficulties as engagement cannot be just at BSI level, he emphasised, as this is only to determine the country's position − just one of 30 from EU Member States. Involvement is essential, he stressed, on ISO committees in spite of financial restraints, complicated further by the recent negative publicity on a former chief officer's international travel expenses to attend committee meetings.

 

Follow FIRE's coverage throughout the day on Twitter #FirefighterSafetyRoadshow and at www.fire-magazine.com 

 

Posted November 2nd, 2011 at 1135 by Andrew. Comment by emailing: andrew.lynch@pavpub.com