ECA and ESC announce major partnership

[NICEIC ENGINEER]

As announced yesterday the ECA and ESC have formed a new partnership for the good of the industry.

From April next year the NICEIC and ELECSA brands will be operated by a new venture called Certsure giving the industry a stronger voice to government and major stakeholders.

The move will bring many benefits to NICEIC and ELECSA registrants, the first of which is the creation of www.electricalsafetyregister.com a definitive searchable database of more than 30 000 registered electricians.

As part of our policy to be open and informative about the merger we have set up this thread for anyone to ask any questions or queries they might have.

A member of the NICEIC team will monitor the site at various points over the next week and provide answers to any questions you might have about the move.

We want you to get involved and look forward to hearing from you.

 

[buzzlightyear]

Precisely my point.

any body got shaires in niceic/eca

 

[Spoon]

I am not part of any scheme but how about this for an idea.... Please rip it apart if you think I’m talking bull.

An independent non-profit company is set up. Approved by the government, but not run by it. After all this is about Electrical Safety / Competent Electricians and not about making money. It is compulsory for electricians to join this and they have to pay an annual fee. (Will explain later why)
To join you have to send in a photo and all your qualification certificates, which have been obtained by approved courses. Therefore stopping some Joe Blogs setting up a fake course and selling certificates. Anyone sending in fake certs will be fined for fraud and their picture put in a Fraud section of the web site.
Every quote you do has to be inputted into a data base. On the quote you have to explain exactly what the job is and what work you intend to carry out. The data base gives each quote a unique code. You send a copy of this quote to the customer. This should stop the customer from adding any extra work while you are on the job. If extra work is required then an amendment to the quote needs to be done. Everyone should now be happy with the work that needs to be carried out.
Once the work has been carried out the customer can then go onto the web site and give you marks out of 10 and other things. Something like Amazon item reviews. They have to input their unique code, therefore stopping anyone putting info into the system. These overall marks will show up next to your name when people do a search. Again like Amazon…
The annual fee you pay is to pay qualified people, who go round inspecting your work, at any point, and checks to see if everything is up to regs. I understand that this can’t be done for every job, but as least you know that there is a good chance that someone may check your work. (If you know everything is correct and are not a cowboy then you should not be offended by someone checking your work.) This person has to have 10 years or more experience and takes a test every year.
Everyone who sells electrical items will have to have a big banner near the items with the company name on. Also they have to show a list of jobs that the general public is allowed to carry out themselves and other jobs that have to be done by someone from the company. I will let you people decide what jobs they can carry out and what jobs they can’t.
Any profit the company makes at the end of the financial year then goes to reducing the annual fee for the people on the list.
Not sure where this would leave the existing schemes, as they should not be needed.
I am sure I have missed bits out, but I think that this would be a good idea…

 

[imago]

I had my letter and sticker through the post the other day too.

Many others have covered the points of concern I have for the move in general, so I'll restrict my question to a simple yet practical issue.

If the whole thing has been designed to inform and simplify the finding/confirming of a registered person; why is there no web site or contact information on the sticker?

 

[Gravid]

Good idea but it seems there's two registers.

Electrical Safety Register - Find your local, registered electrical contractor

Electrical Safety - The Electricians Register

 

[imago]

Good idea but it seems there's two registers.

Electrical Safety Register - Find your local, registered electrical contractor

Electrical Safety - The Electricians Register

Oh, OK. So having looked at both web sites I can see why they didn't want to put the address' on the sticker. Maybe when the final versions of the sites are available they'll issue new stickers?

In the mean time I suppose customers will have to stcik with this one Competent Persons Register | Home

 

[Daveash123]

To NICEIC ENGINEER, Will it address the issue of qualified, JIB gold card technicians working full time for NICEIC companies, carrying out small jobs for friends and families in their spare time. How much do you want from such people to join your club.

Regards

 

[UNG]

The government has its share of the blame with the introduction of ill thought out regulations which have been corrupted in to money making schemes. Training has gone to the dogs with training providers putting profit first with the blessing of the government.

And all of them have managed to redefine "Qualified" and "Competent"

My once proud trade has gone from a highly respected position in society to be on a par with a back street mechanic.

With the complexity of cars these days I'm not sure we are on a par there are some very knowledgeable back street mechanics out there who know more than the main dealers vehicle technicians do

No actually the list should be free to sparks who can prove they have the qualifications by showing their certificates obtained whilst training on a credible course at a credible college, then when they notify works a small cost should be incurred for admin costs when they notify building control, why pay hundreds a year to be on a list after a 5 year apprenticship which costs thousands of hard earn pounds, not only that but having several scammers policing us is just making money for them which in reality is not necassary, we are asking a body to confirm we are competant after we have served our time paying for the original apprentiship, a 12 month MOT would be adequate once registration is assured IMO to make sure we are not slipping in standards, but to get on the list and to be able to get the 12 month MOT a 2 week course should not be adequate and further training and experience obtained by the applicant and not assured due to money paid out, 17 days is a total joke regarding part pee and I for one think the whole thing should be removed at once and a proper scheme set up without a dozen scammers fighting for money which shouldn't have to be paid out to skilled time served tradesmen, as mentioned dozens of times before by dozens of sparks money is what part pee is all about. now as to the guys who have done DI courses over 2-3 years I applaud you for trying to get there via bonafide courses at college and have no problem with you if you pass the 12 monthly MOT which is by engineers who should have a minimun 10 years experience in the trade and not be tesco shelf stackers, the problem I and many have if the 17 day course, this should be abandoned immediately for the safety of the consumer.

Had to add that as they are all doing supposedly credible courses is just the less than credible time they are being delivered in by these promise the earth training establishments

While I have some sympathy for your views I am not at all convinced the facts support this. I see poor, if not dangerous, workmanship everyday and it seems to me that there is just as much that is 20 to 30 years old compared to recent.
Maybe others experiences are different......

30 years is close to spanning 4 different sets of regs what may be considered as bad workmanship now may have been compliant with the 14th edition then again a 30 year old installation could have had bodged repairs or mods so doesn't make a good argument for me

3) Start policing the part P schemes! I don't care how people get training or on schemes in the 1st place but I do care a lot that they can then do poor or dangerous work and nothing is apparently done about it. There are regular threads on here about substandard work or inspection reports with hard evidence they are done by registered "electricians" and nothing is done about it by the scheme involved.

I'd particularly like feedback on that last point because without it the rest is meaningless!

I do care how people get their training and their place on a competent persons scheme. The current training and scheme system along with Part P is "Not fit for purpose" you need look no further than this forum and some the questions and problems posted to see that. IMO some of today's short comings have their foundations in the Eighties boom where skilled labour was at a premium and the gap was plugged by Skill Centre trained guys who were trained in 6 months but at least they had a good training foundation to build on, in the 21st century this has evolved into something akin to a Mr Benn story go into the changing room and come out the other side as an electrician. To highlight how inadequate the training is you only have to look at the study time to that of a time served guy a 17 day course will give around a 140 hours of study where as a time served spark doing three years day release at college will have done around a 1000 hours of study plus on the job training as well

The whole set up needs to be reviewed and evaluated to decide what is fit for purpose to go forward I don't think this will happen as too many parties have a vested interest for the current status quo to change

 

[Rockingit]

Mr NICEIC - a direct question:

What justification does the NICEIC, ECA and the Electrical Safety Council have, for listing on a public reference, a person who may potentially have only sat ONE desk based exam (2382-10), which is open book, as 'Qualified and/or Competent', whereas the Industry respected body for training standards,being the JIB, consider that same qualification a periphery exam and of no merit on its own?

You may also like to consider finding either the guts (or creative writing skills if honesty is just too much) to add further commentary as to why it is that the Domestic Installers which your organisation (and others) happily churn out year on year are also not recognised by the JIB system which is arguably suggestive that they do not agree with your organisation that these people are, as you maintain, 'competent'.

 

[Spoon]

I dont think "Mr NICEIC" is coming back to this post. I feel a bit sorry for the bloke in a way. He probably really loves his job and was thinking that when he told people about this 2 sided partnership everyone would pat him on the back and congratulate him on a job well done. To his company and ECA it is a job well done and he does deserve a pat on the back. Its just sticking its fingers up at everyone else, but he cant see this. The comment "but some operators did not want to cooperate" is just class and makes this partnership sound shady. I wonder if the person who said this clicked his/her heels together while saying it.

 

[MDJ]

Hes without doubt a nice guy and a very good engineer, My engineer is very good and I have learned much from him, he is only posting what he has been told to as well I suspect, perhaps when he sees this he can report back to them above us and tell them how we guys in the field feel about the whole issue.

 

[Rockingit]

I think everyone should have a read of this - of particular interest is the last line at the bottom of pg 11. What? You didn't know the ESC owned NICEIC??...... in fairness nor did I until twenty minutes ago.

http://www.esc.org.uk/fileadmin/use...eports/ESC_Financial_Statements_2011_2012.pdf

 

[Guest111]

Well we,ve had a debate and a good one at that and yet no doubt despite some very valid comments no doubt they will be ignored.I take the point made about qualified and competant persons though however it raises an interesting point.Now my good lady wife knows not to touch a live cable and the reasons why,so bearing that in mind and the definition of a competant person does that mean that I could send her out sparking should I wish to do so?After all she is aware of the dangers and knows how to avoid them,she doesnt know much else but if you take the definition to the letter then technically I suppose she is up to the job.

 

[Spoon]

I was going to ask you what her hourly rate is, but you might take it the wrong way....

 

[Guest111]

I was going to ask you what her hourly rate is, but you might take it the wrong way....

thats the trouble with my wife,could have got her a load of painting work earlier on when she had a week off,£400 cash but she didn,t fancy it.

 

[Geordie Spark]

Hes without doubt a nice guy and a very good engineer, My engineer is very good and I have learned much from him, he is only posting what he has been told to as well I suspect, perhaps when he sees this he can report back to them above us and tell them how we guys in the field feel about the whole issue.

Aye well, I feel that the whole lot of them are a bunch of spivs and missed their true vocation which is in politics.

Let him report back with that !!