I would say that ideally a government run scheme needs to be put into place where the minimum standard of qualification to be deemed competent to work anywhere in the industry, domestic, commercial or industrial is NVQ3.
What's an NVQ? One can not cover all three sectors.
however renewal assessments would be made every three years instead of every one.
My employer assessed my work constantly in industry. No assessor can know every process.
I would introduce rules that meant that a large proportion of income for the scheme would have to be put towards raising public awareness of electrical safety and the importance of using a qualified electrician
How about the money going in to training apprentices.
and the penalties for not doing so.
Protectionism is how that will be seen.
I would make the complaints procedure easy for the consumer and ensure that nforcement was backed by statute, ie. you carry out pony work you get one chance to mend your ways and after that, if the standard of work doesn't improve your right to work as an electrician is stripped away from you for good.
You make a mistake, who’s going to see it? No one will know until the house has burnt down.
I would also recommend the introduction of an electricians licence, backed by statute. Legislation would then need to be introduced to restrict the purchasing of any electrical equipment bar the very essentials (plug tops, fuses, lamps etc...) to licenced electricians only. Practising unlicenced electrical work would have to be punishable by severe fines and/or imprisonment.
Get real
Those would be my recommendations, however, we have to realise that we don't live in an ideal world. Compromises would have to be made unfortunately.
