2p worth....
I became an electrician in 1988ish. I did my full 4 stage CITB funded SJIB approved apprenticeship. It said on my certificate "completed Apprenticeship". My plastic card said "Electrician" on it. 2 years later my new card said "Approved Electrician" on it.
The "deal" was/is that I/we/Us all kept our regulations updated to ensure that we were all doing the correct things to the correct standards at any given time in the future. So I did my 15th Edition as an apprentice, I done the 16th, 17th and 18th out of my own pocket in keeping with "the deal".
My card if I choose to reapply for one should still say "Approved electrician" based upon the above.
Now IF I live in Scotland it will STILL say Approved electrician, If I try to register in England (Which I also did in the past because I have lived there for the best part of 30 years ) it will say something daft such as electrical Labourer...BUT for the previous 25 years or more my english JIB card said "Approved electrician"
The change ? They have renamed the test from C&G along with the modules we all done to an NVQ3...The NVQ 3 I am led to believe is taking pictures of your work, building up a portfolio and getting all of the above signed/countersigned by an electrician that has witnessed/monitored/mentored me....I did ALL of this as part of my apprenticeship. But there is zero space for the old tickets...
Now I mention the JIB because it is essentially the exact same thing that the likes of the current providers use to decide if you are eligible to register with them. They have effectively shut the door on people like myself who have been working as successful electricians keeping ALL our bits updated. We just woke up one day to learn "Sorry mate you qualified pre 1992 so now you need to prove that you are an electrician again".
for me it's not the tightening of the entry requirements. It's the fact that they have disregarded lots of the official routes taken to become an electrician - lots of the older guys will even say "Those tests were HARDER in our day" well thats arguable but the results seem to back up that claim. My tests were not multiple choice, Nor were they open book, the old 2391 had a pretty horrific failure rate....But suddenly I/We now need an NVQ that doesn't even come close to what I/We already bloody well done.
I did an AM1 and AM2. End of year exams to progress to the next stage....My AM2 even had this mad stuff called MICC in it which seemed to worry a lot of lads, Good job they stripped it out of the test for the shiny new AM2 lol.
As for the schemes themselves and the effectiveness of them. Well we are still waiting on public statements from each scheme as to how many operatives they strike off for bad workmanship. It must be an easy question to answer but yet as far as I am aware the question was asked in the select committee about 10+ years ago and still we don't know the answers.
The schemes are only as effective as those policing them. If they simply say ok show us your bits of paper and get the payment sent to us and your good to go, then that isn't achieving what was "intended" by making it a requirement that to work in a domestic setting you need to be registered with a scheme....And so on.
The NIC will come after you if you use their logo a week after your membership has lapsed though, they are VERY hot on that.
Overall one comes away with the suspicion that the system currently is NOTHING to do with safety and is much more to do with money.
It's quite amusing that I could in england perfectly legally work in an explosive environment doing electrical work, I could do electrical work in nuclear power stations I can do all commercial, all industrial, I could be in charge of 100 electricians on sight and be giving them guidance and showing them what to do even how to do it......But If I go home and decide to add say a brand new circuit for a fridge so its on it's own in my kitchen then in today's world in Enlgland im technically "not allowed" or more to the point I need to get a scheme member to come and check my work, test it and sign it off for me. If nobody can see that is wrong then I really don't know what to say.
The annoying thing is with a few tweaks to the recognition of all routes coupled with surprise inspections of jobs completed (where the scheme contacts a customer and arranges a site visit say 1 week after notification) include ONE phone number for customers to report bad experiences/poor workmanship which would trigger a site visit from an inspector....it's ALL achievable. People would start to fall off the schemes due to their bad workmanship and the customers would be at least semi confident that paying a bit more for a "registered" electrician at least gave you a decent chance of some sort of protection. The gas guys do not seem to have these problems.....
I need something in place to get my work notified to council
