Campaign for an electrician's licence scheme...Please Read...

[Lec]

Who would support the introduction of a Licence scheme for electricans, as used in Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc etc.

Well, you can.

I have heard so many electrcians say "what we need is a licensing scheme like in Australia, that would solve the problem..... But it will never happen"

Take a look at L-E-C.org.uk - The Licensed Electricians Campaign

If the vast majority of electricians supported this campaign, the government wiould have to listen and act.

Comments please.

 

[Guest123]

Re: Campaign for an electrician's licence scheme

I'll make this one a "sticky thread" at the top of the forum.

 

[Jason Smith]

Who would support the introduction of a Licence scheme for electricans, as used in Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc etc.

Well, you can.

I have heard so many electrcians say "what we need is a licensing scheme like in Australia, that would solve the problem..... But it will never happen"

Take a look at L-E-C.org.uk - The Licensed Electricians Campaign

If the vast majority of electricians supported this campaign, the government wiould have to listen and act.

Comments please.

Dont we already have this in the UK- Niceic is a charity, all profits go to the electrical safety
councill, - The secretary of state says that a person can only be registered with a competent persons body if he/she can pass an assesment etc, with work produced- This again is Napitt, elecsa, niceic etc- The link above once again, infers some kind of slur on those that were able to do a short course. Whether you did a short course or not, you wont get through a first assesment if you lack practical skills and technical electrical knowledge.

 

[Lec]

Jason, No one should take this as a slur, except perhaps the cowboys out there.

To say the NICEIC are already doing this is perhaps a little naive.
Short courses have their place, but experience has no substitute.
A licence would reflect the level of qualification and experience, in the level of licence issued. Is that not fair?
I think the Part P issue is a red herring, as we all know that it does not work in the way it was intended.
Why do we tend to want to squabble between us rather than work together to improve things for us all.
The campaign is intended to unite electricians, not divide.

 

[Jason Smith]

agreed mate, can I clear up a couple of things- ALL of our scheme providers not just the niceic are the link between us and the licence provider- the secretary of state. I am full scope, that means qualified anything in a dwelling- as opposed to defined scope, if a inspector had not passed my major works, i.e full rewires, I would not hold that "licence" which is a reflection of my practical and technical ability.
What I would like to draw issue with, is the fact that it would appear that a person who has attended a short course is to be treated as a person with no experience. Now that could of course be absolutely true. And is likely to be. I say therfore, that He/she is not likely to get through a Assesment and therfore be Licensed, or in this country, as a competent person. We need to stop this sort of person practicing electrics just because he may be good at passing exams. Totally agree. If you could tell me that a licence scheme woulds stop this as opposed to the one we already have, IMO, than it well get my vote. I personally can build houses- very important if you want to know how to re wire one, I agree that mr office worker, can pass his electrical exams and still not know what an SDS looks like, in my opinion thats where the schemes come in. How would a licensing scheme differ, as It would have to be based on technical/practical ability - Not arguing, just expressing.

 

[cbw]

Well writen Jason, I have nothing to add how would another licensing scheme be any better, could we not just inprove what we have allready????

 

[super_stuey]

In my opinion you can have new schemes, licenses, cards etc every year if you so wish. None of them will ever mean a single thing until they are POLICED, and reports of dodgy/un-licensed work are followed up and PUNISHED.

 

[pmac10]

lec.
where would an industrial maintenance electrican lie in this scheme? i consider myself more than competent to carry out minor domestic work(have 2381) but also know my limits. im not a qualified domestic installer but consider myself competent. i also suspect people who have done the short courses, who are now educated, would also know their limits (knowledge can be frightening),
it wouldnt really affect my daily life, but in my experience, time servred doesnt always equal competent,
good luck anyway mate. (and i still might sign up)

 

[Jason Smith]

NICEIC Connections mag this month reports that a unregistered company was fined £5000 for five offences under the building act 1984 and building regs act 2000. The faulty electrical installation was carried out in Bilton and discovered by a Councill bUilding inspector. The councill had not been notified and the installation was considered to be so dangerous that immediate action was taken to disconnect the supply.

Now I agree that we need to stop the cowboys. Big time. But the problem is no one knows they are there (obviously in the above quote someone found out ) The only people that can stop them is you and I. when we come across an installation that clearly, is well say no more. It is up to you and I to police ourselves, And report back to our governing bodies.

Often a quiet word respectfully done, non threatening etc, willfrequently stop our "unlicensed friends from operating, or put them on the straight and narrow.

 

[Jason Smith]

lec.
where would an industrial maintenance electrican lie in this scheme? i consider myself more than competent to carry out minor domestic work(have 2381) but also know my limits. im not a qualified domestic installer but consider myself competent. i also suspect people who have done the short courses, who are now educated, would also know their limits (knowledge can be frightening),
it wouldnt really affect my daily life, but in my experience, time servred doesnt always equal competent,
good luck anyway mate. (and i still might sign up)

I agree with you Pmac time served doesnt always equal competent, and if you presented me with a hundred time served, and a hundred short courses (of which I am one ) I would predict that if all 200 were to be judged, then at least 190 of those judged would come from the time served group. My point is that, an inspection from a competent persons scheme inspector should sort em out. We should be directing our efforts to that, as that is what we have got. may be interesting to know how many our scheme providers fail each year, I already know its enough for the Niceic to have to issue a leaflet on common causes of failure ...........................I meant judges good enough coming from the time served.

 

[bibzo]

It’s only the British electrician that would accept a system we have no say in
The electricians in the rest on Europe would be banging the drum, and politicians would be jumping

 

[pmac10]

jason s, i have been in FT/PT engineering education from 1997, in my experience, and i was one of them, 16/17 year olds learn to pass an exam and then dump the info in preperation for the next, as one gets older you realise you need this info. people i have met who have done short courses are people who want to learn and are sponges for information, not turning up cause mummy says so.
a large part of my time day to day is taken up pulling time served maintenance sparks out of holes they have no idea how they dug. Bar one, our apprentices are uninterested, cheeky little *****, so i focus my attention on the one who wants to learn, i can remember apprentiships as highly sought after positions and it ****es me off when so many unwilling kids seem to have them forced upon them when many 25-30 year olds would jump at the chance. rant over, lec i still might join

 

[Lec]

Guys, thanks for the comments, all good points.
Have you read the stuff on the webs site, I think it might answer some of the questions.
I will try to respond to the issues raised.
As we all know Part P has not addressed the issues that it was intended to.
There are many people out there with little experience, having used some one else’s work to get through the Part P assessment, there are even courses run in South Wales that say they can get you through the competent persons assessment, after just 4 weeks training. The list goes on. But Part P is just part of the problem.
Try raising a complaint and see if the system is policed. Just don’t hold your breath. Building control do not have the resources or the knowledge to police the system. The Approval bodies don’t police things either. Oh yes there are headlines in their mags, rogue electrician prosecuted etc etc, but it’s just a very very tiny drop in an ocean of dangerous, poor quality work out there.
The problem is that the approval bodies do not have to account to anyone. If they do not perform, no one is there to hold them to account.
I am not saying we should get rid of the NICEIC or the ECA, they do some excellent work for the industry and we would be much worse off without them. However, they do not and could not police the industry effectively, at the end of the day their primary aim is to make profit. The profit is then used to grow their organisations, like any business. You may also like to take a look at who runs these organisations and their back grounds. I think you will be surprised, you will struggle to find any electricians.
The licensing scheme would issue licenses, based on qualifications, proof of ability (assessment) and most importantly, experience. Thus everyone should get the correct level of license, for the line of electrical work that they are involved in. If you want or need a higher level licence, you will have to train, pass assessments etc to prove you are competent at that level. Is that not fair.
Importantly the scheme would be run on a not for profit basis, with totally transparent accounts, so that everyone could see where the money is used.
I would envisage the scheme using the existing inspectors on a sub-contract bases. There jobs would be secure so long as they performed. If the inspectors didn’t provide a good service for the money paid, questions would be asked and if necessary contracts withdrawn. How about random inspections. Those out there doing it correctly wouldn’t have anything to worry about, but those breaking the rules would hate the idea.
The licensing scheme would be need to be run by qualified and experienced electricians, with one aim. To raise standards and ensure that all electrical work was carried out to the standards set in BS7671 and Best Practice guidelines set out by the Electrical Safety Council.
If we can raise the standards or work, we will raise the standards of training, this in turn will raise the status of electricians and that will raise pay rates.
Tell me what the existing trade bodies have done to achieve any of these. They will tell you that they have done lots, but the real truth is that standards have dropped, training standards have dropped, our status has dropped.
Why do we struggle to get well educated kids into apprenticeships, the simple truth is that schools and the public, see the electrical trade as a low skill, low status occupation and therefore dissuade the high achievers from entering the trade, instead they push low achievers into the trade. We then end up with kids that really don’t want to learn and end up wasting ours & JTLs time and money. This then leads to a lowering of training standards, in an attempt to try and get them through their apprenticeships, when they are really not capable.
The only way we can change this down ward spiral is to take back control of the industry, which can only be achieved with a new organisation, with higher standards and expectations. Free from the burdens of profit & politics.
I don’t have anywhere near all the answers, but at least I’m trying to start the ball rolling in an attempt to improve the electricians lot.
Don’t sit on the fence, unhappy with the way things are, What have you got to loose ? Sign up and support the campaign, it’s just the beginning of a long journey towards a much better industry, which you will have the opportunity to shape.

 

[rocker]

What have you got to loose ?

What you are trying to do seems very admirable, but unfortunately politicians will have to be involved somewhere along the line. What this invariably means is that nothing will actually change, but there will be something else for us to pay out. It's sad but it's true. This is politics' intrinsic quality. As jason said, we need to be policing ouselves - the best thing we can do is start grassing the morons. I know it's one of these things that is 'not done', but at the end of the day there are people out there putting in wholly unsafe installations - if every spark started reportingpoor jobs then we would eventually weed out these guys, and the next generation of cowboys would know better than to mess with electricity.

All a new licencing scheme is going to do is line the government's pockets and put more of us in the dole queue.

 

[Des 56]

Excellent acount of the state of our industry Lec

I wish the petition well,but have my doubts about its possible positive outcome

People should not take national registration as an attack on who was trained where and how long that training took

My hope for such a scheme would be that the register would have skill levels and competence levels that stated the persons position against recognised national levels and the range of work within those capabilities

The present system has had quite a few years and is showing its utter failure to achieve any of its aims



However instead of regulating installations and electricans,regulate test and inspection

If there has to be regulation,lets regulate inspection and testing and leave the actual installing to anybody who thinks they can install ( as is nowadays)
In the end the installions will improve because of that testing and inspection regime

Nevertheless I will sign up to it,because it would be better than continuing with the complete nonesense we have at the moment