Abbreviation BESA Type Trade association | Formation 1904 Legal status Non-profit company | |
Purpose Building Engineering Services industry in the UK Headquarters Lincoln House 137-143 Hammersmith Road London W14 0QL | ||
The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA), until 2012 the Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association, is the main UK trade association for companies that design, install, commission and maintain heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration (HVACR) and related engineering projects.
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History
The Association has undergone several name changes since it was initially founded in 1904.
It was originally the National Association of Master Heating & Domestic Engineers and was intended to represent the commercial interests of engineering contractors rather than individual engineers, who, since 1897 had been able to join the Institution of Heating & Ventilating Engineers (today CIBSE). Following a series of industrial disputes with employers, the contractors body was established in January 1904, and held its first official meeting in March, and its first council meeting on 14 June 1904. Fourteen founder members were joined by six further companies at that meeting.
In 1927 it was renamed the National Association of Heating, Ventilating & Domestic Engineering Employers, which was instrumental in helping create the first industry training scheme for heating and ventilation engineers at Borough Polytechnic, now London South Bank University, in 1947.
In 1963, the Association became the Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association. In 2012, it had almost 1400 company members throughout the UK.
It changed its name to the Building and Engineering Services Association (B&ES) on 1 March 2012. In January 2016, it amended its name slightly to the Building Engineering Services Association, dropping the ampersand from both its name and acronym (now BESA).
Function and activities
As an employers' association, it negotiates benefits and conditions for employees in the sector in a National Agreement with Unite the Union.
The BESA provides quality assurance services, promotes excellence and seeks to shape the commercial environment in which its members operate through representation and leadership; it has submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament on matters including industry training and university skills provision, health and safety, and energy and climate change.
It provides technical support services tailored to particular industry specialisms which include: standards for ductwork (e.g. DSP DW/144, first published in 1997, and cited in Building Regulations) and ductwork cleaning (e.g. B&ES TR/19), heating and plumbing services, refrigeration and air conditioning, and service and facilities.
Its members are subject to regular, third-party inspection and assessment to ensure technical and commercial competence.
Industry role
The BESA is a member of the Specialist Engineering Contractors Group (SEC Group), which is represented on the Strategic Forum for Construction; it also represents the views of its members as a trade association member of Build UK.
Internationally, the BESA is a member of GCP Europe, the European umbrella body for the HVACR and plumbing sectors, and of CEETB (European Technical Contractors Committee for the Construction Industry), which represents all engineering specialists across Europe's construction sector.
Subsidiary companies
The BESA has a number of subsidiary businesses that provide benefits and services to their members and businesses in their sector. These include Welplan Ltd (a pension and Employee benefit administrator), Engineering Services Skillcard Ltd (which issues smart cards certifying the competence levels of individuals), REFCOM Ltd (a registration scheme for companies working with F-Gas refrigerants as regulated by the F-gas Regulation (EC) No 842/2006), SFG20 (an online software tool which provides building maintenance standards), and BESA Training (an apprenticeship training organisation) formerly branded as BEST.