1. 2015 FIA AGM
11th November 2015
The Brewery, London

2. Martin Harvey, FIA Chairman
Welcome
Martin Harvey, FIA Chairman
10.05am (Martin Harvey)
Good morning everybody I’d like to welcome you all, to the 9th FIA AGM.
Can I ask that you all turn your mobile devices to silent
and in case we do have an emergency today, please follow the directions of our staff, who will lead you to safety and assembly points.
As it is Remembrance day we will stop and invite you to remain silent at 11.00am for a minute to remember the members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty. We have an alarm clock to remind us.

3. Elections Call for Ballot papers Elect two scrutineers ELECTIONS
This year we are delighted to have received 47 nominations for the vacancies on the Board & Councils, and we have a vote to decide who fills the vacancies on the Export Council.
The first duty of this AGM is therefore to ask “ARE THERE ANY BALLOT PAPERS WHICH NEED TO BE HANDED IN ? LAST CHANCE !”
The second duty is to ask for 2 volunteers to scrutinise the vote counting. “PLEASE CAN WE HAVE TWO VOLUNTEERS”.
(Once volunteers selected.) (If none “I will ask the secretariat (Ian Gurling) to count the votes on your behalf)
Please can the volunteers follow Ian outside to conduct the vote.
Call for Ballot papers
Elect two scrutineers 3

4. Adoption of the Minutes
Matters Arising
PREVIOUS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING : 11th November 2014
You should all have received the minutes of the last AGM and therefore, could I ask Members to consider approving the minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting held on 11th November 2014.
Could I have a proposer and a seconder please?
STOP
All those in favour?
Any against?
(The minutes are approved).
MATTERS ARISING
There were no matters arising. 4

5. John Battersby, Chairman
Finance Committee
John Battersby, Chairman
10.07am REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
The next item concerns the report and accounts for the year ending 31st March 2015 and I will hand over to John Battersby for a short presentation from the Finance Committee.
(Hand over to John Battersby) 5

6. Finance Report 10.07am (John Battersby)
The Finance Committee consists of the Company Secretary, Derek Harrington and two Board members, Roger Agate and myself. Tony Hanley stepped down as Chairman after last year’s AGM to take on responsibility for the FIA’s Training portfolio and Roger joined the finance team.
The Finance Committee would like to thank Tony for all his hard work and effort over the last 8 years. His knowledge, experience and guidance has been invaluable. His term has seen a strengthening of the FIA’s financial position which leaves the association well placed for future developments. Thank you Tony .
The remit of the Finance Committee is to ensure that all financial, HR & business management policies and procedures are in place and are followed.
We receive regular reporting from the CEO, the General Manager and the Finance Manager. We also look at strategic issues and into the future to ensure we provide a stable financial platform for the trade association to function in the long term.
We conduct quarterly reviews on the association’s financial progress and we liaise with our auditors & bankers to report to our Board of Directors and you, the FIA membership. 6

7. FIA 2014/2015 REVENUE‘s 5. Audited Result 1.Budget Sales
£1,830,546
1.Budget Sales
£1,750,141
4. Training up
+£56,025
3. Membership
+£12,457
2. Events
+£9,634
I am now going to take you on a ‘walk through’ of FIA’s finances, commencing with our results for the year ending 31st March 2015.
Our budgeted sales for 2014/15 were set slightly above the 2013/14 result.
Events revenue, which includes the contract as main sponsors of Firex International, was ahead of budget by £9,500.
Revenue from membership subscriptions was 2%, £12,500 ahead of budget.
Training revenue exceeded £1 million for the second time in our history and was 5.8% ahead of budget. In both years, where we have topped the million pound mark, we have seen significant revenue generated by dedicated courses supplied to our larger members.

8. Bad debt provison Training
FIA 2014/2015 COST SPEND
1.Budget Costs
£1,728,761
4. Audited Result
£1,705,789
3. Legal
Software
Route to cert.
Legal
Tax advice
Website
Tech docs redsign
2. Salaries
Rent
Stationary
Post/Telephone
Bad debt provison Training
Research projects
5. £115,423
Surplus posted
for the year
Looking at the costs, the result was 1.3% better than budgeted. There was a mixed bag of savings and overspends but there are three items which make a significant impact on the finances.
We have already seen that training brought in £56,000 more revenue than budgeted and this was further enhanced with £10,000 of cost savings derived from the use of the Hampton offices as a training venue rather than using external hotel venues and the use of internal FIA training staff rather than subcontracted trainers.
At the 2013 AGM we reported that we were allocating 5% of turnover, £87,500, from the 2014/15 budget to be made available for research projects. Each Council has been urged to develop and present proposals to the Board to secure funds from this pot. Inevitably, it has taken some time to build the case for suitable research projects and only £20,000 was spent, leaving £67,500 unspent for the year. Currently, we are again looking to bring appropriate research projects through for approval in time for this financial year and we have now starting to see more of the Councils working on and debating future projects. The Board believe this is a fantastic opportunity and we will hear more about one of these projects later as an example.
The third significant expense item is the new FIA website. Whilst the website was not included in the original budget, we have included approximately half of the cost into the 2014/15 P&L. The rest has been treated as capital expenditure.

9. Bad debt provison Training
FIA 2014/2015 COST SPEND
1.Budget Costs
£1,728,761
4. Audited Result
£1,705,789
3. Legal
Software
Route to cert.
Legal
Tax advice
Website
Tech docs redsign
2. Salaries
Rent
Stationary
Post/Telephone
Bad debt provison Training
Special projects
5. £115,423
Surplus posted
for the year
The overall result is a £115,423 surplus, which is 6.3% of turnover.
The tax advice taken over the last couple of years has had a positive impact on the corporation tax payable. Capital allowances meant that our tax payable was reduced to £9,334

10. The work on the FIA website which links directly into our Dynamics CRM system is likely to be accepted under the R&D tax relief scheme.
We will find out if we are successful in January, and we would recommend that members investigate this scheme for their own businesses. The Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Scheme has high rates of relief. From 1 April 2015, the tax relief on allowable R&D costs is 230% - that is, for each £100 of qualifying costs, your company or organisation could have the income, on which Corporation Tax is paid, reduced by an additional £130 on top of the £100 spent. It also includes a payable credit in some circumstances.
To round up my presentation I would like to finish by reporting that Your Board of Directors can confirm that FIA is still in a healthy financial position.
Before there is a proposal for the adoption of the 2014/15 accounts are there any questions of detail ?
(Hand back to Martin Harvey)

11. The following resolution to be proposed as an Ordinary Resolution:
Accounts
The following resolution to be proposed as an Ordinary Resolution:
“That the FIA Reports of the Board and the Statement of Accounts and the Auditors’ Report thereon for the year ended 31 March 2015 be hereby received and adopted”
10.13am (Martin Harvey) REPORT & ACCOUNTS
I should like to ask a member to propose the following as an Ordinary Resolution:
“That the FIA Reports of the Board and the Statement of Accounts and the Auditors’ Report thereon for the year ended 31st March 2015 be hereby received and adopted”.
Could I have a proposer and seconder please?
All those in favour?
Any against?
  (The Resolution is carried).

12. The following resolution to be proposed as an
Auditors
The following resolution to be proposed as an
Ordinary Resolution:
“That Menzies be appointed as auditors of the Association to hold office until the conclusion of the General Meeting at which accounts for the next accounting reference period are laid before Members and that their remuneration shall be fixed at such an amount as shall be agreed between them and the Board”
APPOINTMENT OF AUDITORS
The next item concerns the appointment of our Auditors. I should like a member to propose the following Resolution:
“That Menzies be appointed as Auditors of the Association to hold office until the conclusion of the next General Meeting at which accounts for the next accounting reference period are laid before members and that their remuneration shall be fixed at such an amount, as shall be agreed between them and the Board”.
Could I have a proposer and a seconder please?
All those in favour?
Any against?
(The Resolution is carried).
  (The Resolution is carried).

13. Martin Harvey, FIA Chairman
Review of 2015
Martin Harvey, FIA Chairman
10.14am
Now it is time for me to present the 2015 Review

14. We have had a change of personnel within the secretariat, and we are delighted to introduce three new members to the Team,
Ian Moore joined in September as our new CEO taking over the reigns from Graham Ellicott many of you will know Ian who has spent over 25 years in the fire and security sector. Ian is part of the presentation team this morning and is around all day so I hope you will get a chance to meet him.
Kevin Stearns joined in October as our Compliance Manager helping new members reach the membership criteria benchmark of third party certification and Will Lloyd joins us in January as the third Technical Manager. Both Kevin and Will are also here with us today, so if you have the chance please say hello .

15. Training remains an important part of the trade association offering
Training remains an important part of the trade association offering. The number of courses held in 2014/15 were 7 % down on the previous year, however, we squeezed in 8% more delegates than the previous year.
Services Directive should see and increase in our industries move to a more professional work force with this standard requiring everyone involved to be able to demonstrate skills, knowledge and competency. We at the FIA are ready to accept this challenge and will be providing suitable accredited training courses.

16. Membership recruitment remains high, but this year we have seen a much higher number of leavers. We do conduct exit interviews with all leavers and this indicates that we are starting to see the effects of moving out of recession. There is a move towards acquisition and we have started to see mergers between our members.
We are also seeing the companies that diversified from security into fire, returning back to their core skills and ditching the new fire element of their business.
One other question for members shortly you will be seeing a survey monkey where the secretariat of the association will be asking members to confirm their details can I please ask that you complete this as we try to keep our records up to date .

17. Looking at the spread of members, having recently added FIRESA and Fire Engineering to our ranks, we still see that FD&A and Portables membership as a percentage of a bigger pot, has grown. Three years ago, at the 2012 AGM we reported that FD&A represented 76% of membership whilst portables represented 38%. Further investigation shows this is due to more members offering more services.
These % also possibly reflects the size of the UK market in these areas., at this point I would also like to point out that these graphics have been taken from the recently published annual report . I do hope that you have seen it if not it is available on the FIA web site and my thanks go to Becky and the team for producing this new look .

18. Each year we conduct a membership survey and whilst satisfaction remain generally high this has dipped in the last year. Losing three members of staff and finding it difficult to replace them has meant that we were unable to deliver some of the services at the usual standard whilst recruiting. CPD days in the North and help with compliancy consultation were two area’s affected, however, with the new team members coming on line, normal service should resume shortly.

19. The survey also checks which services the members rank as the most important.

20. Our training is almost defacto standard for the FD&A sector and we train more portables technicians than the other providers put together.
Clearly staff training is a very tangible benefit for members but the association offers other equally important benefits

21. Such as providing a safe and stable platform, our association allows the sector to work together to discuss and resolve industry issues and publish best practice guidance.

22. 15 new guidance documents were publish and 15 existing documents were revised in the past 12 months.