The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has launched a scheme ‘to help ventilation hygiene specialists demonstrate their competence, quality, and standards’.
The Association argues that with building owners and operators becoming more aware of the fire risks posed by poorly cleaned and maintained systems, there has been growing demand for a robust process to verify the quality of cleaning – particularly of grease extract systems used by commercial kitchens. This ‘growing awareness’ has, BESA believes, created a booming market, ‘attracting some non-specialist hygiene providers who don’t necessarily understand their responsibilities, or the importance of delivering clean systems, good advice, and proper post-clean reporting to clients’.
The new ‘Ventilation Hygiene Elite’ scheme is approved and administered by the Association’s independent certification arm, BESCA, based on BESA’s long established best practice standard, TR19. BESCA will audit firms’ work to ensure standards are maintained, and manage a database of post-clean reports, useable as an auditable trail by the member firm, its clients, and insurers. BESCA will also undertake ongoing surveillance of each registrant to ensure compliance.
BESA said: “The amount of surveillance may reduce year-on-year if companies continue to display a high standard of work.”
