PartB Forms Partnership with the Finishes and Interiors Sector

PartB is proud to announce a brand new partnership with the Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS).

The FIS has launched a new Fire Engineering Advisory Service for their members – and we will be providing independent engineering support and advice.

With early, structured access to specialist fire engineering advice, our role will be to help FIS’s clients manage increasing regulatory, contractual and professional risk. The aim is to strengthen competence and reduce risk across the sector through collaboration, and PartB is proud to be their fire engineering delivery partner.

The service creates a controlled gateway to competent expertise, enabling members to access sound engineering advice in a structured way to assist with legacy or live design issues – all to ensure they can make informed decisions on their projects.

We’ve always believed collaboration is a major step to improving industry standards, embedding independent, competent fire engineering at the earliest stage. The FIS developed the service in response to mounting pressures on specialist contractors, including the transfer of design responsibility, ambiguity in compliance expectations, inconsistent use of test evidence and challenges surrounding legacy projects. The service operates as a ‘helpline’, offering members:

• A single point of access for fire engineering queries
• Early-stage advice to clarify technical and regulatory risk
• Guidance on responsibility boundaries and decision-making
• A structured route to further assessment where required

PartB brings multidisciplinary fire engineering expertise and specialist materials engineering capability to the service. Beyond individual enquiries, the service will also act as a source of sector-wide intelligence, helping to identify recurring technical challenges and, where appropriate, collaborative approaches to testing and evidence generation.

On the collaboration, Andy Gordon, PartB’s Director of Fire said:

"We are seeing increasing demand across the sector for clear, proportionate fire engineering input at the right time in the decision-making process. Too often, specialist contractors, designers and product suppliers are expected to interpret complex fire requirements without a clear line of sight to the appropriate level of expertise. This service creates a structured route to competent advice, helping members understand risk early and make better-informed decisions, while ensuring that more detailed input is properly scoped and delivered under the right professional frameworks."

Iain McIlwee, Chief Executive of FIS, added:

"Our members are increasingly being drawn into the design process and asked to make complex fire safety decisions without clear boundaries, information or adequate support. This service is about putting structure, clarity into that process - by creating a trusted gateway to competent advice.  In doing this we are helping members manage risk effectively, supporting responsible decision making and at the same time building a stronger evidence base for the whole sector. Through a consolidated approach we hope to avoid repetition and ensure that critical time and resource are not wasted dealing with the same issues across multiple projects.  It also gives us a strong platform to support collective intervention if appropriate."

For more information, visit https://www.thefis.org/about-us/

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