Facilities Management Compliance Standards Explained: BAFE, SIA, BICSc, NICEIC and Gas Safe

If you are bidding for one these public sector contracts, compliance with the various facilities management certifications and standards can become very complicated very quickly. This is because the certifications, registrations and standards required for one service are usually completely different for another.

Importantly, often, there are no marks associated with this type of tender submission. It is a pass/fail and is a mandatory requirement. If you do not have them, or if the certification does not cover the specific activity within the tender specification, your tender will fail and be deemed non-compliant.

This is why you need to consider compliance at the very start of the bidding process, no matter whether your organisation provides cleaning services, security and manned guarding support or gas servicing guidance.

Fire: BAFE and NSI Fire Gold

Fire safety contracts often involve the installation, servicing, maintenance and testing of systems including fire alarms, emergency lighting, extinguishers etc. For fire detection and fire alarm systems, one of the certifications bidders will regularly encounter is BAFE SP203-1.

BAFE manages the SP203-1 scheme to provide independent evidence that an organisation is competent to undertake fire detection and fire alarm work. The scheme, which is modular, covers design, installation, commissioning and maintenance. A company can be certificated for one or more of these activities, rather than automatically being approved for everything.

If the specification requires the successful supplier to design, install and maintain fire alarm systems, simply stating that you are BAFE registered is insufficient as the authority will check that your registration covers each of the relevant modules.

It’s the same with NSI Fire Gold because the National Security Inspectorate provides independent certification across fire and security services but its Gold fire schemes combine the technical requirements with an ISO 9001 quality management system.

Public sector contract notices regularly specify BAFE, NSI Gold or an equivalent certification as a minimum just to bid. One recent fire alarm maintenance tender, for example, required BAFE accreditation and NSI Gold, BSIA or equivalent certification for all relevant lots. This meant that bidders had to check exactly what service their certification related to and whether the scope shown on their certificate matched the tender requirements.

Our Fire and Security tender and bid writers regularly support clients with these types of compliance requirements, and more, as part of wider fire safety tender submissions.

Security: SIA and BSIA

Security tenders present a different challenge because there is a key difference between the licensing of individuals and the approval of the organisations themselves.

Anyone carrying out certain licensable security activities must hold the relevant Security Industry Authority (SIA) licence. However, the SIA also operates the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) for the actual security companies themselves.

The ACS is a voluntary quality assurance scheme for private security businesses and is different from an individual SIA licence, although it is usual for buyers to be interested in both.

Depending on the contract, your security personnel may need licences for activities such as:

• security guarding
• door supervision
• public space surveillance/CCTV
• close protection
• key holding
• cash and valuables in transit.

An easy mistake to make is to just say that staff are “SIA licensed” without saying whether the required licence categories they hold cover all the duties they will actually be doing.

The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) is another one that can also feature in procurement requirements but note that BSIA membership is not the same thing as an SIA licence or ACS approval. Membership criteria does vary according to the section of the association but can often include requirements relating to ISO 9001 certification, staff screening and compliance with appropriate British and European standards.

Again, the tender document should dictate the evidence and narrative you provide rather than assumptions based on what has been accepted in previous bids to different authorities. Copy and paste from one bid to another can be fatal.

Security contracts are often particularly sensitive because if successful the firm may be responsible for people, buildings, confidential information and/or valuable assets. Buyers therefore need a very high degree of confidence that the organisation, systems and individuals involved are all appropriately approved, competent and proven and not just certified.

This becomes even more important where security and manned guarding forms part of a wider integrated facilities management contract.

Cleaning: BICSc

Cleaning services don’t operate within the same statutory licensing environment as gas servicing or private security, but buyers do still expect bidders to demonstrate recognised standards of competence and good practices. One of the most established industry bodies within the cleaning sector is the British Institute of Cleaning Science.

BICSc membership and certification provides training, best-practice guidance and standards for the cleaning industry. Its guidance covers a range of areas such as cleaning methods, colour coding, acceptable cleaning outcomes and the skills cleaning operatives must have.

References to BICSc are crucial across a range of tenders. For example, these references within a housing authority cleaning tender can be much more useful than simply inserting a logo or membership certificate.

If your procedures are aligned with BICSc standards, explain where that affects delivery.

For example, you might demonstrate:

• how operatives are trained and assessed
• how colour-coded equipment reduces cross-contamination
• how cleaning outcomes are inspected and audited
• how supervisors manage poor performance
• how cleaning frequencies and productivity levels are determined.

For specialist cleaning situations, for example health and social care, clean rooms or similar, the tender requirements will be much more stringent and demanding. BICSc publishes guidance around cleaning and disinfection quality in healthcare settings, including the importance of chemical controls, PPE and risk assessments to help bidders achieve exemplary standards.

When you are writing a bid for facilities management, the narrative you provide must go beyond simply listing a certification or standard. It is key to understand that the evaluator needs to clearly see what difference your systems, processes and relevant certifications make to their building, employees, residents, patients or other service users, when compared to another bidder.

Ultimately, a cleaning contractor who can clearly and articulate training and industry standards to better inspection outcomes, improved infection control, reduced complaints and consistently high cleanliness levels will always provide a much stronger, compelling response and attract more marks, than one which simply says it is “BICSc compliant”.

You can read more about our experience with cleaning tenders by reading our guide on how to win cleaning contracts through tendering.

Electrical: NICEIC and NAPIT

Electrical tenders, including maintenance and installation contracts, will normally emphasise the competence of both the contractor and the individual electricians who will deliver the work and two certification that frequently appear in just about every tender are NICEIC and NAPIT.

NICEIC’s Approved Contractor Scheme assesses against the requirements of BS 7671 and covers areas which include commercial, industrial and domestic electrical installations and inspection and testing work. Businesses have to demonstrate, amongst other things, that they have suitably qualified supervisors, applicable equipment and testing arrangements, relevant technical documentation and can supply examples of compliant work.

NAPIT is a similar competency and certification scheme within the building services sector, and council tender specifications could stipulate NICEIC, NAPIT or even another recognised equivalent, so bidders need to read the wording in the tender specification very carefully. Do not assume that a buyer is asking for one particular certification where the tender actually allows an equivalent certification. Our bid writers at Executive Compass can help you understand what exactly is being asked of you in the tender document.

Equally, do not assume that holding one certification automatically demonstrates competence for every element of a wider M&E contract. The scope of the work may include fixed wiring, emergency lighting, electrical testing, building management systems, generators, lifts, heating systems or other specialist services, and different elements could require different qualifications, registrations or subcontractors.

This is particularly relevant to integrated mechanical and electrical tenders, where compliance can include several different technical disciplines. In the tender response, therefore, make sure you clearly identify which certification relates to which service and who will be responsible for delivering it and why.

Gas: Gas Safe Register

Gas is perhaps the strongest example of why potential bidders need to understand the difference between an industry certification and a legal requirement.

Firms who do gas work within the scope of the relevant regulations must be appropriately registered with the Gas Safe Register, and the individual engineers carrying out the work must also be competent and registered for the types of appliances and work they carry out.

In a gas servicing tender for a Housing Association, simply attaching the organisation’s Gas Safe certificate may therefore be only the starting point.

A buyer may also ask for evidence of:

• individual engineer registration
• relevant appliance categories
• qualifications and ongoing competency
• procedures for checking registration before deployment
• supervision and auditing
• management of subcontractors
• record keeping and certification.

This will be especially important on housing contracts where a provider may be responsible for servicing thousands of Housing Association properties and maintaining statutory compliance across a large portfolio.

Our experience of gas servicing tenders is that buyers will often test much more than whether the bidder has Gas Safe registration. They also need confidence that the bidder has systems capable of making sure every service, repair, appointment and certification requirement is completed correctly and within the required timescale and what the process behind it is. Remember, certification demonstrates eligibility and competence, but the quality response still needs to explain how that competence will be managed throughout the contract.

How to Present Certification Evidence in a Tender Response

Having the correct facilities management compliance standards in place does not automatically mean they have been presented as effectively as they could have been in the tender.

It is crucial that your first step is to identify whether each requirement is pass/fail or scored. If it is pass/fail, check the certification body, scheme, expiry date, scope and company name against the requirements in the tender documents. Do this early, rather than discovering a problem on the day of submission.

If a certification is relevant to a scored quality question, go further.

Rather than writing:

“We are NICEIC Approved Contractors.”

explain why that matters to the buyer.

For example, the certification might provide independent verification of competence, support safe systems of work, require regular assessment and reduce the risk of non-compliant electrical work.

The same applies to BAFE, SIA ACS, BICSc or any other certification.

A strong response should connect certification to process, to evidence, to benefit.

You should also:

1. Check the scope. Make sure the certification covers the actual work being procured.
2. Check expiry dates. A certificate which expires before contract award or commencement may raise questions.
3. Use the buyer’s terminology. If the tender specifies BAFE SP203-1, reference the full scheme rather than simply saying “BAFE”.
4. Explain equivalents carefully. Where an alternative certification is permitted, demonstrate explicitly why it meets the same required standard.
5. Address subcontractors. If part of the service will be subcontracted, explain how you will verify and monitor their qualifications and certifications too.
6. Keep supporting evidence consistent. The information in certificates, Selection Questionnaire responses and quality answers should all agree.

Most importantly, never rely on the evaluator to work out why a certification makes your service better or safer. The certificate proves you hold the standard. Your response must explain how you use it and remember, you are in a competition!

This is particularly important in facilities management procurement because individual contracts can bring together several separate disciplines (and lots of different firms, FM contracts are hotly contested). A total FM submission could include cleaning, security and manned guarding, fire systems, electrical maintenance and gas servicing within the same procurement exercise. Each service will have its own mandatory requirements, but the buyer will also want confidence that the entire contract will be managed appropriately and consistently.

That is where effective bid management becomes just as important as the technical content itself.

Facilities Management Tender Support

Before deciding to bid, you should establish exactly which standards are mandatory, whether your certificates cover the relevant services and whether any subcontractors or supply-chain partners also meet the requirements within the tender specification.

Only after those checks have been completed should the focus move to demonstrating how those standards translate into safe, compliant and high-quality contract service delivery.

Executive Compass has worked on hundreds of PQQ, SQ and tender submissions across both hard and soft facilities management services, and our bid writers have supported our clients in securing more than £1 billion of FM contracts.

If you are preparing for an upcoming opportunity, visit our Facilities Management Tender Writers page to find out how our team can support your next tender submission.