The Fire and Security Association (FSA) has announced a new membership category for Monitoring Centres covering both Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCS) and Remote Video Receiving Centres (RVRCS).
In addition to the existing membership criteria for the FSA, applicant companies are required to conform to BS 5979:2007 and RVRCS are required to comply with BS 8418 and be inspected and certificated by one of the security industry’s certification bodies NSI or SSAIB.
Head of the FSA, Stefan Hay said: “The FSA and its influence within the sector have grown dramatically, now with some 300 Members across the United Kingdom. Our members have requested the inclusion of Monitoring Centres as a specific group within the FSA to ensure a unified service offering to clients and specifiers. Although by their very nature providers of monitoring services do not undertake electrical or electronic contracting as such, both the FSA Board and ECA Council voted unanimously in favour of this new membership category believing that recruitment of this growth sector into the FSA will help members promote the Association more fully to both businesses and the wider end-user community.”
As they undertake no installation work, Monitoring Centres will not be covered by the FSA / ECA Guarantee or Bond, but in all other respects however, they will become full members of the FSA and benefit from services and benefits including the free technical helpline, technical publications, employee relations service, health and safety advice, contract commercial and legal advice, regional and branch network, lobbying and promotional support and discounted health care scheme to name a few. The membership subscription rate will be calculated from the existing scales but using turnover excluding network charges rather than their full monitoring turnover.
FSA founding member and Chairman Steve Kimber said: “I am delighted that our members are supporting this new category of membership. Monitoring Centres are an integral, crucial and growing part of the Fire and Security Industry, recruitment of them into the FSA will considerably strengthen the influence of our membership proposition to clients.”
About the FSA
Launched by the Electrical Contractors’ Association in January 2007, the FSA operates as a division within the Association’s framework and acts as its ‘policy engine’ for the fire and security systems sector.
