Lets scrap Part P! and have a system like this instead.

[Superspark23]

Can we have a system where every installation has its own log book, where it details any work carried out by who, with their own personal registration number, so all work is traceable, if needed. Every notifiable job done, will be sent directly to bco for a fee of £10, larger companies will end up spending more, while smaller companies and people just starting out will pay less than they do currently. Maybe the registration number could be incorporated with trade cards like ecs, jib, cscs ect... and make it covers commercial and industrial too instead of just domestic work.

And installations would need to be checked atleast once every 5 years for insurance reasons similar to car mot's

 

[Engineer54]

Well, I'm not Eng54, but I believe the answer lies with the insurance companies.
They have been badly hit by the financial disaster that is the current recession and will yet be hit again.
Their fight back is to tighten up on "business" policy wording.
Many policies now require PIR & PAT etc. if the client does not fully comply with all aspects of the policy then the whole policy is null and void, when this comes across to domestic then this will sort things as the insurer can specify that they require the work to be done by someone xyz etc. this will then force the insured parties to use competent persons.
There is a flaw in this, and that is for large commercial/industrial where by they have their own competent persons.
It will come and it is coming, and it has come in, it is just that a lot of insurance policy holders just don't check the small print, nor do their brokers/advisors!

Just as i would expect Paul, others coming in to make or save money, out of the general public!! And there was i thinking about further down the line, when the insurers where already jumping on the bandwagon!!

As i mentioned in another post, specifying a Part Pee card holder, is certainly no guarantee of a competent person undertaking insurance work. But that's the sole fault of the Scam Providers themselves, allowing lowly qualified persons in to the schemes and calling them electricians!!!!

 

[Paul.M]

Let's face it, the general public do not understand things like schemes, part p, nvq3 etc etc. If the government made it compulsory for the electrician to give the customer a certificate for any work carried out regardless of how small, just so there is a paper trail. The cowboys will be reduced although not eradicated, insurance companies refuse to pay out for electrical faults if not certificated or notified. Class it as an electrical receipt and if the electrician can't or won't give an electrical receipt the customer does not have to pay or can claim back through the courts any payment made. No need to get the schemes, jib, ecs involved, just a slight change in the law.

 

[Des 56]

I am repeating what I said in a post months ago
Yes insurance companies can be the key to regulating the industry by specifying competence

The problem with that, it would be in their interests to have a policy of satisfactory electrical installations
It would however be a bonus for them,if those installations had problems with their standard,it could mean a nice get out of paying for a claim clause

So on the one hand they could demand a satisfactory installation for insurance purposes,but on the other hand make no stipulation how that is achieved

 

[Engineer54]

Let's face it, the general public do not understand things like schemes, part p, nvq3 etc etc. If the government made it compulsory for the electrician to give the customer a certificate for any work carried out regardless of how small, just so there is a paper trail. The cowboys will be reduced although not eradicated, insurance companies refuse to pay out for electrical faults if not certificated or notified. Class it as an electrical receipt and if the electrician can't or won't give an electrical receipt the customer does not have to pay or can claim back through the courts any payment made. No need to get the schemes, jib, ecs involved, just a slight change in the law.

You try stopping them getting involved, ....especially if they see money to be made out of you!!!

 

[Geordie Spark]

Let's face it, the general public do not understand things like schemes, part p, nvq3 etc etc. If the government made it compulsory for the electrician to give the customer a certificate for any work carried out regardless of how small, just so there is a paper trail. The cowboys will be reduced although not eradicated, insurance companies refuse to pay out for electrical faults if not certificated or notified. Class it as an electrical receipt and if the electrician can't or won't give an electrical receipt the customer does not have to pay or can claim back through the courts any payment made. No need to get the schemes, jib, ecs involved, just a slight change in the law.

I think you'll find that most customers wouldn't be able to recognise a genuine "certificate" / "receipt" if it hit them in the face.

I can see "sparks" writing something on any bit of scrap paper or used envelope & presenting it to the customer who would out of ignorance happily accept it.

Before I retired, I could count on one hand the number of customers who bothered to read my CORGI card when I presented it to them to show what category of work I was permitted to do and even fewer of them actually understood what they were looking at.

If Government get involved in advertising in the media TV or what ever to show Joe Public what (s)he should be looking for, how many of them will actually take any notice of the advert?

I can tell you in all honesty that whenever I see anything produced by Government I automatically switch off - sometimes literally !!

 

[Geordie Spark]

I have heard of the practice of just coppying values down from old certs and presenting that as a schedule of tests. There was a good thread on here a while back about a bloke who was working for a firm of subcontractors doing rewires on council stock.Liverpool i think.Anyway, the story went that cables were being jointed in plaster and then the tilers would come in and tile over it all. Feeds being run on the diagonal badly made off joints,reusing old cable etc
Apparently the "inspector and tester" who must have been acting as the duty holder was a 17 year old just coppying values down from old certs.....

I've recently seen certificates completed with values taken from sample Shedule of Test certificates from a text book !!

Worthless ........... absolutely worthless !!!

 

[SoulTy1066]

You shouldn't be able to buy electrical cable and accessories without having a part p card or ecs card which proves you've done a full apprenticeship and 2391. I know that would affect the likes of B&Q but it's the only way I can think that would work

wow i wasn't expecting this reaction.... In the last 6 months i've lost count of the jobs i've been to where customers have DIY'd resulting things being connected up wrongly. The best one was 2 T&E which were hidden in a partition wall with the conductors just twisted together (no connectors/joint box and NO insulating tape). What i'm try to say is that even with a PIR you'd never find a joint like this within the fabric of the building.

 

[malcolmsanford]

Well, I'm not Eng54, but I believe the answer lies with the insurance companies.
They have been badly hit by the financial disaster that is the current recession and will yet be hit again.
Their fight back is to tighten up on "business" policy wording.
Many policies now require PIR & PAT etc. if the client does not fully comply with all aspects of the policy then the whole policy is null and void, when this comes across to domestic then this will sort things as the insurer can specify that they require the work to be done by someone xyz etc. this will then force the insured parties to use competent persons.
There is a flaw in this, and that is for large commercial/industrial where by they have their own competent persons.
It will come and it is coming, and it has come in, it is just that a lot of insurance policy holders just don't check the small print, nor do their brokers/advisors!

Problem is why should our industry rely on it's standards being maintained by insurance companies. If an home insurance policy demanded a PIR every 5 years or whatever all that would happen is that another course would be opened up by the training centres and we would be getting the 40 pound PIR, in exactly the same way as we are now getting the 30p an item PAT, and so in effect demeaning the industry again.

All this was tried in the HIP and unfortunately the scheme was doomed to failure simply because it was too intense too soon, and of course the down turn in the property market.

There is no answer for our industry, it's all too late. There is no longer the coal mines, the industries, where guys were trained in all fields not just electrical, the UK no longer produces anything and so there are no opportunities to train kids today.

Successive governments have dumbed down our industry and segregated it into small blocks of training, domestic, fire alarms, PV, UPS, etc etc, which is why we have the problems we now have.

E54 as hit it on the head, we need to be licenced. The only organisation that is set up at this moment to do this is the JIB. I'm not advocating that they should do it, but I would rather have them do it that an affiliation of the scheme providers. Unfortunately IMO it's all too late, jobs in the training sectors, schemes, LABC would be lost and the government is not prepared to do that.

 

[jeremy]

Why not extend EAWR to cover domiciles?

 

[madmac]

malcolm is absolutely right there, I also agree that the JIB/SJIB are already set up and have been for the last 40 years to regulate standards and training, but, as he also points out I also don't think they are the best we can have, but they are what we have right now and until we get something better then we should use them and not demand anymore bodies be created or we're just going to get bogged down, as we seem to be at present, with multiples of training/regulatory bodies that just confuses the general public and us!
The more we shout for regulation, the more these profiteering training bods. rub their hands in anticipation of another money making scam, i.e. part p, pat testing, domestic installer. These are all just ways of making money quickly by providing basic training on parts of the overall electrical industry instead of providing apprenticeships which at the end produce fully qualified electricians that are trained to work in all sectors, like they used to be!

 

[Engineer54]

Agree, the JIB and others out there, are not the people to regulate a National Register Of Qualified Electricians. They have had 40 years to improve the industry, and have failed miserably, only concentrating on what is profitable to there organisation.

Any National Register, must be a Government backed organisation, covered by statutory enforceable rules etc... Preferably it should be non, or semi-profit making, to stop any idea's of future privatisation.

 

[malcolmsanford]

Well for all their failings the JIB at this moment in time are the only ones set up to get a licenced registration going. I think the JIB do get a bad press but I can only relate to how I have had dealings with them, and they have always been good, and my association with them goes back nearly 40 yrs. They do maintain a degree of standards for their grading, we only have to read on here the number of guys who rightly or wrongly can not get registration because of their structuring, so they at least have some criteria for applying a grading system, I agree that it should be looked at or perhaps be more flexible.

Not sure if the IET would be interested in something like this though I would welcome their input on this.

 

[madmac]

Yes quite right there 54, they've had 40 years and what have they achieved? The dumbing down of a once sought after trade qualification. The blatant profiteering with scant disregard of standards and training. And the utter contempt in the way electricians are treated by employers/agencies and the JIB/SJIB themselves!!! The whole system needs ripped up and started all over again with strong representation from the grass roots( the electricians), and that means a strong union first and foremost!!! Without the involvement of grass roots views, the powers that be, will get away with what they have been getting away with for far too long due to a weak and ineffectual union!!! It can't be left up to daft girls in an office or ex-student types to tell us how to regulate our industry, we need to be driving the reforms desperately needed before we lose any control we have left!!!

 

[millwall ken]

Yes quite right there 54, they've had 40 years and what have they achieved? The dumbing down of a once sought after trade qualification. The blatant profiteering with scant disregard of standards and training. And the utter contempt in the way electricians are treated by employers/agencies and the JIB/SJIB themselves!!! The whole system needs ripped up and started all over again with strong representation from the grass roots( the electricians), and that means a strong union first and foremost!!! Without the involvement of grass roots views, the powers that be, will get away with what they have been getting away with for far too long due to a weak and ineffectual union!!! It can't be left up to daft girls in an office or ex-student types to tell us how to regulate our industry, we need to be driving the reforms desperately needed before we lose any control we have left!!!

I'm sorry mate but I can't see how this scenario would be of any damn concern to a Union. The role of the Union is to ensure fair working practices for its members and thats all!!! It is nothing to do with the Unions how an industry should be run - although only a fool wouldn't ask for some sort of Union imput, I agree. However you and some of the other fellas are correct in stating that our industry DOES need a full and comprehensive review from top to bottom. The scams need to go along with the parasitic agencies, I agree. But this is nothing to do with the Unions; other than to highlight such scams that are in place.

You have only to look at the post by gary.hall to see how our industry is viewed by the public. This is something that only the Government and regulatory bodies can counter.

However like I've said, I'd willingly sign up to a Union that stuck to its role, rather than sticking its nose into Government foreign policy.

 

[madmac]

Fair point ken about unions, however, I will disagree on the issue of union involvement, I honestly think that the industry can't be trusted to set down parameters for training by themselves and need the electricians to guide them and by getting the training aspect(apprenticeships) going then we will eradicate as much as is possible, the scourge of cowboy/agency and fast track training providers from having any bribing influence on these governing bodies because we will have a say on just how training and regulation is provided. By the way this as you already know mate is how the JIB/SJIB structure is set up at present with regards to the training and regulation of working conditions/wages and the strict criteria of attaining the correct qualifications and abiding by statutory guidelines etc.