Key Speakers

Dr Matthew Scott
Policy and Practice Officer
Chartered Institute of Housing

Dr Matthew Scott is a policy and practice officer who leads CIH’s work on asset management, specifically on building safety, repairs and maintenance and the domestic transition to Net Zero. He holds a PhD from Newcastle University and has previously held several research and policy roles in the academic and third sectors. 

Matthew will be providing an overview of CIH’S work on building and fire safety as well as an analysis of golden thread regulations.

Andy Frankum
Chair
National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group (NSHFSG)

Andy has been working in the charitable social housing sector for the last 12 years and prior to that in the logistics sector. Andy chairs the National Social Housing Fire Strategy group which represents over 260+ member organisations across the social housing sector in England and Wales and is a member of the HSE Interim Industry Competence Committee. Andy was named #4 global influencer in the 2021 Fire Safety Global Influencers list. 

Andy works closely with the social housing sector, construction and fire safety sectors and is passionate about ensuring that effective fire safety practices including competence is well understood and enhanced, whilst working strategically to monitor change, improve industry competence and promote standards and guidance. 

The aim is to drive consistency across the sector to encourage safer outcomes, which in turn will enable residents and their families to have a safe place to call home. 

Jan Taranczuk
Vice-Chair of the London and South East Area
National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group (NSHFSG)

Jan is an experienced housing practitioner having been in housing for over 55 years. He was in local government for 33 years; 13 of which was as a Chief Officer. He has been in the private sector for 23 years; initially developing new relationships between the private and public sector and since 2001 working across the country on various housing initiatives providing senior management support through interim management and consulting assignments in both local government and RSLs.  

Jan created Jan Taranczuk Associates in 2009 and has been working with a range of housing organisations and private companies on initiatives to improve services to residents, particularly around repairs policy and fire safety. Most recently he has been providing strategic housing advice to several companies providing fire safety initiatives, including Plumis, the manufacturer of Automist the intelligent watermist fire suppression system 

 Jan is vice-chair of the London and South East area of the National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group, a Corporate member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and a past chair of its London Regional Board. He is also an Associate of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers. 

Robert Thilthorpe
Technical Manager
Fire Industry Association (FIA)

Robert joined the FIA team in 2002 as Assistant Technical Manager, taking over as Technical Manager in 2005. Prior to joining, Robert worked for BSI and was responsible for National, European and International Fire Committees for fire extinguishing (FSH/18, CEN /TC191), fire detection and alarms (FSH/12, CEN /TC72), Fire Brigade Equipment (FSH/17, CEN /TC192) Portable Fire Extinguishers (FSH/2) and was one of the founding members of CEN/CLC/TC 4. 

Robert remains the current Chair of FSH/18 Fixed Fire Fighting Systems and CEN /TC191 Fixed Fire Fighting Systems, FSH/16 Hazards to life from fire, FSS/0 Services in fire and security and convenor of ISO/TC21/SC8/WG5 which is responsible for ISO 14520-1 Gaseous extinguishing systems and of ISO/TC21/SC8/WG8 which is responsible for ISO 6813 CO2 extinguishing systems  

He is also the Secretary for the Extinguishing and Services Councils in FIA. 

In Euralarm he has been a member of Services Section since its inception and the Services Task group before that. In that role Robert was involved in developing the Euralarm position on the services standard EN 16763 and one of the team that drafted the Euralarm guidance on Remote Services which has since become EN 50710. 

Robert has Chaired TC Horizontal compliance since 2013 and has been a Euralarm Board member for a similar period.