The discussion on which SETA OHS fire fits under, needs to be reopened. I directly request that QCTO opens a discussion about this, with OHS and fire industry leaders, expets and professionals. It is hard to talk about workplace OHS without talking about fire.
CONTEXT: Articles on this website are generally for training providers who train short courses (skills programs and unit standards), who train OHS related topics, who are private companies, who offer quality, and who are ethical in their dealings.
DATES: Dates matter, please see the date of each article you read. Dates matter because these are often developing situations.
Background knowledge: If you do not understand why a SETA is the place to start, to establish a QCTO skills program, read this article first.
Stakeholders generally expected and looked to HWSETA as the SETA to establish a QCTO fire program. This is because basic fire fighting is a health and safety issue and because HWSETA had fire programs like 252250 and 12484 (although so did some other SETAs). There were meetings between QCTO and SETAs that were not open to the public, and at those meetings it was reportedly decided that fire falls under the local government SETA (LGSETA).
Contacting LGSETA to try establish a QCTO fire skills program: Albert Sekwala (AlbertS@lgseta.org.za) at LGSETA was repeatedly asked by myself and other stakeholders to apply to QCTO to develop a short fire program, since it was decided by QCTO that fire skills programs fall under his SETA and so this fell on his desk. Albert very rarely responded to queries about this, but when he did his responses amount to “there are no funds” and “there is no interest” and also, simply “maybe later”. The last response from Albert on this was about a year ago (early 2024). No progress has been made by his office at all, and there has been no feedback about it from LGSETA since then.
WHICH SETA DOES THE OHS ELEMENT OF FIRE FALL UNDER?
There was some debate around whether this even falls under LGSETA though. This included industry experts pointing out that the kind of fire fighting we are talking about is an OHS issue, it is not about local government fire departments fighting fires.
It is more about what the average worker can do while waiting for the fire department to arrive after calling them, than it is about how fire departments arrive on scene to fight fire on a large scale.
We’re talking about a worker using a fire extinguisher, using a fire hose, using a fire blanket, understanding types of fire, understanding how to mitigate risk, following an evacuation plan, and knowing how to call the fire department. A very very different response to fire than the fire department has.
FIRE GETS PASSED AROUND
Somewhere in all this it was referred to construction SETA (CETA) because structure fire has the word “structure” in it, which means it is about a building being on fire, and therefore, CETA in the same way wildfire / veldfire that falls under FPM SETA. CETA batted this away and it never gained any traction there. Besides. QCTO already said this was a LGSETA thing, so CETA did not want to touch something QCTO said belonged elsewhere.
The OHS element of fire kept coming up during the sessions where industry experts were assisting HWSETA with the development of the 18 QCTO OHS skills program curricula. Fire kept coming up during these sessions because it is hard to talk about workplace OHS without talking about fire.
Fire kept coming up during these OHS sessions because it is hard to talk about workplace OHS without talking about fire.
The industry professionals at those meetings requested that the discussion about fire be re-opened as an HWSETA OHS thing. HWSETAs consultant running these discussions agreed that the discussion could be reopened. There is no evidence this discussion has been reopened internally at any level in government. It certainly has not been opened with the public though.
THE DISCUSSION NEEDS TO BE REOPENED
The discussion on which SETA OHS fire fits under, needs to be reopened. I directly request that QCTO opens a discussion about this, with OHS and fire industry leaders, expets and professionals.
*Update 24th February: I sent this article to the QCTO CEO who responded that the email and article are noted and the matter will be looked into. Will see where this goes. I can say that other emails I sent to the QCTO CEO did result in change and action. Not all, but definitely some.
