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Promoting the improvement of construction project quality in the field of fire safety and designating one person responsible for the development and compliance with fire safety requirements, the Cabinet of Ministers, in its meeting on August 22, approved amendments to the regulations on the assessment of competence of construction specialists and supervision of independent practice. With these amendments, a new area of specialization in fire safety is introduced - a fire safety construction specialist. Simultaneously, the amendments specify the duties of the competence assessment institution and construction specialists, promoting the use of the state language by construction specialists according to their profession and position.

The introduction of the sphere of activity of a fire safety construction specialist is intended to enhance the fire safety of structures, ensuring that competent construction specialists define and verify fire safety solutions directly in this area. This creates the opportunity to design and construct more complex structures in terms of fire safety, while reducing the number of cases where unresolved fire safety issues delay the commissioning of structures. The amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers regulations were prepared to implement a new area of specialization in fire safety - a fire safety construction specialist by December 1, 2023, as specified in the informative report "On the State Fire and Rescue Service's Fire Safety Supervision in the Construction Sector" by the Ministry of Economics.

With the amendments, the duties of a fire safety construction specialist are defined - to develop fire safety solutions for the construction object and prepare a report on fire safety measures. The fire safety construction specialist will be responsible for all fire safety solutions in the construction project, defining them in the fire safety report and, during the development of the construction project, monitoring and verifying the implementation of the specified fire safety requirements in other parts of the project. Specifically, the fire safety construction specialist will define what fire safety requirements must be observed by the developers of construction project parts and, after the development of the project parts, will check whether the defined fire safety requirements have been met.

A transitional period for the training and initiation of activities of fire safety construction specialists in construction design is set until December 31, 2026. Until this time, the current procedure is maintained - these functions are performed by construction specialists in the specified areas of practice and design indicated in the architect's practice and design certificate, which, in accordance with the regulatory framework, develop fire safety solutions and fire safety reports. After this deadline, in construction projects starting from January 1, 2027, only a fire safety construction specialist will be entitled to develop fire safety reports in the cases specified in the normative acts. The regulations also introduce the right for competence assessment institutions to suspend the construction practice certificate if the language proficiency of construction specialists does not meet the requirements specified in the normative acts.

Regulations regarding the requirements for submitting data to competence assessment institutions have also been clarified, taking into account that currently, all data about construction specialists are entered electronically into the Construction Information System (BIS). Additionally, the minimum number of experts overseeing the work of construction specialists and conducting competence assessments has been specified.

Detailed information on the amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers regulations of March 20, 2018, No. 169 "Regulations on the Assessment of Competence of Construction Specialists and Supervision of Independent Practice" can be found on the Legislation Portal.

Ministry of Economics Public Relations Department prese@em.gov.lv