Building Compliance Management
Installed Fire and Life Safety Measures

Introduction
As a property owner or manager, it is your legal responsibility to ensure you provide a safe & healthy working environment for your staff and visitors. At a high level, the term “essential safety measures” refers to your building’s fire and life safety systems.

Legislation
The State Governments have outlined specific essential safety measures legislation requirements which, if not met, can result in heavy fines. Essential safety measures legislation is designed to ensure that every essential safety measure continues to perform (through maintenance) at the same level of operation that existed at time of commissioning and issue of the occupancy permit.

Maintenance
Maintenance involves periodic checks and inspections in accordance with relevant Australian Standards, and proper documentation and records of annual reports. Maintenance is generally described as the routine recurring work required to keep a property in such condition that it may be continuously used, at its original or designed capacity and efficiency for its intended purpose.

Maintenance can include tests, measurements, adjustments, and parts replacement, performed specifically to prevent faults from occurring.

The benefits of proper maintenance of essential safety measures include, lowering site risk, consistent operating conditions for staff and visitors, equipment life and lower operating costs.

Compliance Management
As the recognised leader in Essential Safety measures compliance management, AESC can give you the confidence and peace of mind you need to be certain that you are meeting your statutory obligations, and not at risk of fines or other penalties.

Our Process
To ensure your building complies with all essential safety measures, AESC will work with you during our three processes:

Stage 1
Comprehensive Essential Safety Measures Audit & Report

Stage 2
Resolution of Outstanding Issues Identified in the Audit Report

Stage 3
Ongoing Management and Annual Certification of ESM Compliance

These three stages will be explained in more detail below.

Stage 1

Essential Safety Measures Audit & Report Manual

The first step to understanding how we can best help you minimise your risk exposure, is to review your current situation. One of our accredited auditors will come out to see you and conduct a comprehensive, robust (non destructive) onsite audit

You will then be given a detailed report, identifying:

• A comprehensive list of all ESM items at your site
• Any exposure to ESM non-compliance, along with specific reasons why the items are non-compliant… and effective solutions to fix them
• A complete list of contractors used for maintenance and repairs of ESM equipment (with your assistance)

If we find that your site is compliant in all areas, AESC will issue you a Compliance Form / Statement – a requirement of both State Legislation, and your local council (who enforce the legislation)

On the other hand, if there are areas where your building is non-compliant with ESM, then you’ll receive a status report detailing the exact situation of all outstanding ESM items, along with a suggested course of action to make each item compliant
Failure to ensure every aspect of your building is ESM compliant can result in severe penalties (including having your building closed by Council, and ongoing heavy fines). With AESC working along side you to rectify any non-compliance issues and help assist you with the compliance management and process, there should be no reason for this to eventuate.
In fact, for greater peace of mind and even further reduced risk, AESC Auditors can (upon your request) report on any general OH & S risk observed during the audit

As part of the auditing process, you will also get an ESM Manual for your site - for quick & easy reference for you and your staff.

Stage 2

Achieive compliance through the resolution of outstanding issues identified in the Audit Report

With the audit and report completed, Stage 2 focuses on the resolution of any outstanding items identified during the previous step.

Here are some of the actions we may take on your behalf during Stage 2:

• Provide recommendations of suitable “Quality-Assured contractors” who are equipped to provide efficient and timely resolutions to your outstanding ESM items. These contractors will ensure the work is carried out in accordance with the required local Legislative and Australian standards.
• Seek competitive quotes for your organisation from these “Quality-Assured contractors”, to provide you with the most cost-effective solution (without compromising the quality of the work)
• Manage all of your ESM items efficiently and effectively via a site-specific database
• Closely manage the status of the issues, to ensure your building will qualify for compliance certification as soon as all issues are resolved. This means that nothing will be overlooked, and the certification can be granted at the earliest possible time.
• Analyse your existing contractor arrangements & services, and provide advice on possible opportunities to reduce costs through rationalisation.

Stage 3

Implementation of the Ongoing Control and Annual Certification of ESM Compliance

At the commencement of Stage 3, working with you and your contractors, all outstanding non-compliance issues should have been successfully resolved. AESC will then provide you with access to a WEB based management reporting system, designed and managed by AESC to maintain compliance at your site, this will give you ongoing Compliance control and annual certification. This enables you to always have the ability to meet your current Legislation requirements.

With this program, you will get:

• AESC Compliance Management System implementation – allowing you to maintain ongoing compliance and manage your annual ESM certification
• A customised site-specific database (created and maintained by AESC) - containing all ESM items and contractors required to maintain these services for your sites
• Quarterly site inspections –not only are these required for your business to meet applicable Legislative requirements, they also allow us to monitor non-compliant issues and report to your representative on the status of these issues
• Monitoring of ESM maintenance & testing regimes of the servicing contractors - to ensure that an effective system is in place, and to identify issues as early as possible
• Collated annual certification documentation from all contractors - and an auditable document trail for these documents
• Quarterly reports to your nominated representative –ensuring you are frequently updated with the status of your ESM situation. If you prefer, we can publish these reports on the internet for your retrieval at any time.
• Ongoing annual certification for compliant sites
• Detailed reports by request – for any general OH&S risks observed during the quarterly inspections
• A valuable client reminder service – receive notifications of any non-compliant items remaining un-actioned after a reasonable period