Gemini AMPM has been awarded BAFE SP203-4 certification for emergency lighting systems. The registration was confirmed in August 2026 and sits under BAFE Registered Organisation ID 302260, making emergency lighting the fourth fire safety discipline Gemini delivers with independent third-party certification behind it.

What SP203-4 covers

SP203-4 is the BAFE scheme for emergency lighting systems: the luminaires, exit signage and battery systems designed, installed, commissioned and maintained to BS 5266-1, with illuminance levels drawn from BS EN 1838 and test regimes from BS EN 50172 / BS 5266-8. The auditing is not done by BAFE itself: the scheme is delivered through three UKAS-accredited certification bodies licensed by BAFE (BSI, NSI and SSAIB), which assess each registered company against the scheme document and re-assess it on a rolling cycle. Gemini’s SP203-4 registration is certified by NSI, the same certification body behind its three existing BAFE registrations; the certificate itself is in processing, and this article will be updated with the certificate number once NSI issues it.

Like SP203-1 for fire alarms, the scheme is modular across four scopes of work:

  • Design: producing an emergency lighting design to BS 5266-1, with escape routes, open areas and high-risk task areas identified and the illuminance for each proven against BS EN 1838.
  • Installation: executing that design, with the right choice of maintained or non-maintained fittings and self-contained or central battery supply.
  • Commissioning: proving coverage and the full rated duration, then certificating the system at handover.
  • Maintenance: the monthly function tests and annual full-duration tests the standard expects, recorded in the fire safety logbook.

Registration is held module by module, and the public register entry states the scopes each company holds; that entry is the thing to check, not the logo.

Why it matters to a Responsible Person

Emergency lighting is a legal duty, not a fit-and-forget product. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Article 14 requires emergency routes and exits requiring illumination to be provided with emergency lighting that covers a failure of the normal supply, and Article 17 requires that provision to be maintained in efficient working order. Both duties sit with the Responsible Person, and when an enforcing authority, an assessor or an insurer asks how the work was done competently, a third-party-certificated contractor audited annually by a UKAS-accredited body is the cleanest answer available. It is the same logic that has made SP203-1 a baseline requirement on fire alarm tenders, applied to the lighting above the escape route.

In practice the failure mode is rarely the installation and usually the regime: monthly function tests that quietly stop happening, annual three-hour discharge tests that never get scheduled because nobody wants a day of flat batteries, logbooks with a gap where the evidence should be. A certificated maintenance arrangement exists to make those defaults visible and fixable.

Led from inside the business

The award effort was led by Ryan Gemmel, who carried the scheme requirements through the business — design and commissioning procedures, engineer competency records, the audit itself — and saw the assessment through to certification.

The fourth registration

SP203-4 joins Gemini’s three existing BAFE scheme registrations, all held under Registered Organisation ID 302260: SP203-1 for fire detection and alarm systems (certificate 102640), SP203-3 for fixed gaseous fire extinguishing systems (certificate 103290) and SP207 for evacuation alert systems (certificate 103585). For building owners and facilities teams the practical consequence is one contractor able to design, deliver and maintain the detection, the suppression, the evacuation alert provision and now the escape lighting under independent certification, with one visit schedule covering several compliance dates.

The new emergency lighting service page sets out the scope in detail, from BS 5266-1 design and BS EN 62034 automatic testing to planned annual duration tests. To put a survey date in the diary, request a consultation or call 0330 043 0080.