WEBINARS COVID-19 – sector impact
should be operating as a key supplier if you’re a fire sector manufacturer’, and letters could be taken to sites for use ‘if challenged’. It was key that companies were ‘practical about this – some are taking advantage, but the police know who’s trying to do the right thing’. The FIA had been ‘lobbying hard’ to ensure the
government was ‘aware it was dealing with a sector that needs to be treated a little bit specially’, and all of the sector associations ‘know each other well and exchange ideas – as always we’re just trying to do the right thing and focus within our remits’. At this time, ‘now more than ever’, the sector was ‘integrating into the whole wider world of fire safety’ and it was important to send ‘key messages out there to get people to put their time to good use’. Time at home ‘makes you think again about
things’, and the FIA was ‘not wasting our efforts on interim changes – we will continue to do online training’. Although it had been ‘pushed into’ these, ‘necessity is the mother of innovation’ and lessons learned ‘will be useful afterwards’. Around 50% of the FIA team were on furlough at the time of the webinar, and the remainder ‘working from home efficiently to support members’. In addition, the association was advising on best
practice for key workers ‘if you have to travel to site or a place of work’ and hosting meetings online, while it had developed a range of online courses on continuous professional development. Checking on staff welfare was essential as ‘humans need to speak to other people’ and ‘can get very easily isolated working from home’. It was also ‘making furloughed staff feel part of what’s going on’ so that when they’re back they’ll ‘be fully aware and hit the ground running’. It was ‘easy to say’ that online courses would not be as good as classroom courses, ‘but we have to do this and in the future it will be useful for international training’, while the ‘huge savings’ in terms of fuel, time and the environment mean it is ‘most certainly
22 JULY/AUGUST 2020
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an option for the future’. Financially, ‘needless to say, people are spending where they can on staff’, but companies ‘have to find ways of dealing with financial issues’. People are paying suppliers and are ‘aware they
have to keep the supply chain going’, and the FIA was taking the time to talk to members ‘to ensure they’re OK’. It had internally adapted to share workloads and ‘keep all lines of contact open’, as well as pushing on with its agenda in working groups and committees. Mr Moore concluded by warning of the future challenges around Brexit, adding that the FIA was ‘continuing to make sure we’re working hard to ensure this is very much in focus’.
ASFP
Speaking from the part of the sector closely aligned with construction, Mr Rowan said that the impact of the pandemic on that industry meant ‘activity had fallen off a cliff – it was both dramatic and unavoidable’. Economically, the markets are ‘well on the way to going a lot further than 2009’, and the financial damage was ‘going to be quite severe’. However, sites open by late May by region were ‘actually quite high’ in number, with 60 to 75% of sites already open, and he said that ‘there was talk in the papers of construction going back to work, but it never actually stopped!’. As a sector, it ‘knew it would have to deal with this and work with this’, though the increased productivity ‘is not a good story’, because ‘when the media talks about construction, it talks about housing, which is not all of construction. Other construction is leading the way’. Safe working on sites required social distancing,
following site operating procedures and sectorial guidance, as well as appropriate use of PPE, with this ‘massive change successfully managed by the fragmented industry’. Construction associations were launching their own guidance for trade, and Mr Rowan highlighted Dame Judith Hackitt’s perspective
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