As well as helping to run the global organisation that is IRATA, and speaking on behalf of rope access throughout the world, many of our representatives are also involved in important national and international standards committees; contributing on the behalf of rope access for the good of us all.

In the UK, we are represented on the British Standards Institution’s (BSI) Technical Committee, PH/5, ‘Personal fall protection’. This committee is responsible for personal fall protection equipment standards and codes of practice and, in the past, has contributed to and published important rope access documents, e.g. BS 7985, ‘Code of practice for the use of rope access methods for industrial purposes’. PH/5 is currently writing the much anticipated BS 8610, ‘Personal fall protection equipment - Anchor systems - Specification’, which IRATA members have recently been invited to comment on.

PH/5 members provide the UK input to the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), through Technical Committee TC 160, ‘Protection against falls from height including working belts’. This committee looks after many important standards for rope access equipment in common use, e.g. EN 12841, ‘Personal fall protection equipment - Rope access systems - Rope adjustment devices’.

Many of the individuals in PH/5 and TC160 are also active in IRATA’s Equipment and Standards Committee (ESC). This committee looks after many of the technical documents you will be familiar with such as the ICOP. You can therefore be confident that IRATA’s documents follow similar levels of experienced input and scrutiny, which should be reassuring the next time you’re reading the ICOP looking for information to keep you safe at work.

Further afield IRATA members also contribute via Australia and New Zealand’s SF/15 ‘Industrial Height Safety Equipment‘ technical committee, and the USA’s Z359ANSI/ASSE ‘Connecting Components for Personal Fall Arrest Systems’.