Qualified supervisor

[Pete999]

Firstli will say I have nil experience of the QS, been scanning through the Selects Committee report on Part P that Dillb passed on to me ealier today. One of the things that caught my attention was the scope of the QS's duties, it would seen from what was said during the discussion was that the QS has overall responsibility of the electrical certification of work carried out by the install teams of larger Electrical Companies. What happens with a one man band, how do they manage?
The discussion turned to qualifications, apparently the guys doing the actual work, installing etc, need not be Electricians, or hold any qualifications, they only need to be Competent, the final sy on whether an insallation is the responsibility of the QS.
This may be old hat to most of you Guys and Gals, but how on Earth can the poor QS keep tabs on how the installation has been carried out? Has this changed recently? Is this why The NICEIC in all it's wisdom has now decided to create a new position within their ranks, of someone asessing the suitability of the Electicians doing the work? I think it was Gavin who posted the report in one of his posts, have I got it wrong, grateful for your thoughts.

 

[Midwest]

Fair enough. But the thing with all of that, is its the NICEIC rules/ guidelines? So what's going to happen, if they are not followed or complied with?

 

[Pete999]

If you look at page 5 of the NICEIC rules and regulations booklet and job roles it clearly defines the roles of Principle Duty Holder, qualifying Manager/Supervisor.
The company I worked for before being made to go self employed used me to get their approved status as I was the only one with all the qualifications to hold that role. Plus I had been a QS for 16years prior and Qualifying Manager for 2.5yrs. When he got his certificate hung up on his office wall he called me into the office to tell me he couldn’t afford to pay me and keep me on the books when he was short of work, so I would either have to get another job or go self employed. He employs self employed electricians and the ones left on the cards are all non electricians. The highest qualified is still only graded as an improver in old money as hasn’t done AM2 or nvq level 3. I asked him twice before leaving office how this would affect his full scope accreditation he said it won’t on both times. Then he said to me you obviously know something I don’t so tell me what I don’t know. I turned and left and told him to read his terms and conditions and pay attention to page 5 and role of QS.
A QS is a full time employee of the company who is available at all times apart from holidays or authorised absence / sickness to monitor the installations being carried by the company. Where young or trainee or non qualified persons are employed it’s the QS responsibility to ensure they are being trained and working safely. It is the responsibility of the QS to ensure all electricians or competent persons are carrying out their duties to the regs. If that means having to carry our site visits and monitoring then it is the Principle Duty Holders responsibility to ensure that the QS has time to carry out his duties.
The QS is responsible for all certification and the correct storing and issuing of certificates.
The QS has more responsibility than any other person in the organisation in my book. If the QS believes that any work being carried out is wrong and is pressured to sign off work then he should refuse to sign it himself and I would say he should be writing a letter to NICEIC to that fact and get them to actually do something constructive and put into good use the extortionate amount of money they get paid each year by their members to help their members.

The QS role is a money spinner, there are members on here who canagreeto that fact, many house basher outfits, use people who have the qualifications and experience, and only pay them lip
service. in my view dedicated QS try their hardest, but are g iven very little if any support from their CEOs, I know of one hardworking QS who called their Bosses bluff and was forced to leave the employ, best move he made in my opinion.

 

[Toneyz]

Fair enough. But the thing with all of that, is its the NICEIC rules/ guidelines? So what's going to happen, if they are not followed or complied with?

Remove the company from the roll just to go straight to NAPIT.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

If you look at page 5 of the NICEIC rules and regulations booklet and job roles it clearly defines the roles of Principle Duty Holder, qualifying Manager/Supervisor.
The company I worked for before being made to go self employed used me to get their approved status as I was the only one with all the qualifications to hold that role. Plus I had been a QS for 16years prior and Qualifying Manager for 2.5yrs. When he got his certificate hung up on his office wall he called me into the office to tell me he couldn’t afford to pay me and keep me on the books when he was short of work, so I would either have to get another job or go self employed. He employs self employed electricians and the ones left on the cards are all non electricians. The highest qualified is still only graded as an improver in old money as hasn’t done AM2 or nvq level 3. I asked him twice before leaving office how this would affect his full scope accreditation he said it won’t on both times. Then he said to me you obviously know something I don’t so tell me what I don’t know. I turned and left and told him to read his terms and conditions and pay attention to page 5 and role of QS.
A QS is a full time employee of the company who is available at all times apart from holidays or authorised absence / sickness to monitor the installations being carried by the company. Where young or trainee or non qualified persons are employed it’s the QS responsibility to ensure they are being trained and working safely. It is the responsibility of the QS to ensure all electricians or competent persons are carrying out their duties to the regs. If that means having to carry our site visits and monitoring then it is the Principle Duty Holders responsibility to ensure that the QS has time to carry out his duties.
The QS is responsible for all certification and the correct storing and issuing of certificates.
The QS has more responsibility than any other person in the organisation in my book. If the QS believes that any work being carried out is wrong and is pressured to sign off work then he should refuse to sign it himself and I would say he should be writing a letter to NICEIC to that fact and get them to actually do something constructive and put into good use the extortionate amount of money they get paid each year by their members to help their members.

My brother had a similar situation with the ECA.
He had all the necessary qualifications for the firm to be registered.
As soon as the firm got registered they got rid of him.

 

[Midwest]

Remove the company from the roll just to go straight to NAPIT.

Do they 'police' their rules any better?

 

[Pete999]

My brother had a similar situation with the ECA.
He had all the necessary qualifications for the firm to be registered.
As soon as the firm got registered they got rid of him.

I imagine the case of your Brother is not an isolated case, many unscrupulous opperators follow this method.

 

[Pete999]

Been reading through all the replies etc on this thread, and listening to some anecdotes from Friends of Mine (yes I do have a few Friends).

I don't have any practical experience of the CPS, and how they assess companies for admission.
A question comes to mind, is it the assessor who choseswhich jobs to inspect, or does the QS / Boss chose, or pick the works for a particular assessment, because, I can see a flaw if it's the latter, pick a job that was done by a decent tradesman, once we get accepted thats another year, we can muddle by using unskilled labour, is this the norm, I watched Emma Clancy sqiurm a little when the Chairman of the Select Commmitte asked the same sort of question.

 

[Dillb]

Been reading through all the replies etc on this thread, and listening to some anecdotes from Friends of Mine (yes I do have a few Friends).

I don't have any practical experience of the CPS, and how they assess companies for admission.
A question comes to mind, is it the assessor who choseswhich jobs to inspect, or does the QS / Boss chose, or pick the works for a particular assessment, because, I can see a flaw if it's the latter, pick a job that was done by a decent tradesman, once we get accepted thats another year, we can muddle by using unskilled labour, is this the norm, I watched Emma Clancy sqiurm a little when the Chairman of the Select Commmitte asked the same sort of question.

Have a guess Pete, heres a clue. Someone has paid alot of money to these companies and the scam wouldnt want them to fail now would they. As I have said previoulsy, all O was asked to do on the only assesment I ever did was a RCD test on a socket circuit, guess what the assesor was that impressed he told me I passed with a “A” rating lol

 

[Pete999]

Have a guess Pete, heres a clue. Someone has paid alot of money to these companies and the scam wouldnt want them to fail now would they. As I have said previoulsy, all O was asked to do on the only assesment I ever did was a RCD test on a socket circuit, guess what the assesor was that impressed he told me I passed with a “A” rating lol

I was just wondering Dillb if it was/is the norm, but I can see your point, just really proves that it is a money thing, laughable really, for the person being assessed I would imagine it's nothing more than a formallity, am I right in that assumption, I know you shouldn't assume anything, but it seems that way to me.

 

[Dillb]

Yes its all a formality, as you say the scams were squirming at the questions beijg asked as they were worried about their income being rumbled. I have worked for several shopfitting firms over the years and all of their work has been all over the UK, yet when it come to the annual assesment they always had a local rewire to show them.

 

[Toneyz]

Do they 'police' their rules any better?

They say they co-operate with each other in which case how can the previous company I worked for with all the things that I have highlighted in the past after I left was their opportunity to remove from the roll (NICEIC) and NAPIT accepting them ££££££££££

 

[Sparkingmad]

You are supposed to show your assessor x number of jobs which you are supposed to warn or ask the clients if it’s ok to come back if required. The assessor is then supposed to pick 2 or 3 depending on size location etc to go to. In my previous line of work the assessor would be lead by the manager as to what jobs he could see, 1 was always a new build that I had already been too a few days before to check everything was to standard. Once out the office I was left to my own devices with the assessor and as I always had my laptop with me with copies of the certs on it from the office, which mysteriously had found there way into the shared folder part of the software I took the assessor to the jobs I wanted him to see and knowing what he would prefer to view. Boring site work that once you had seen 1 you had seen them all or bigger installations such as new substations, swimming pools, sewage treatment plant rooms. Funnily enough I took him to my jobs as I wanted him to check that my standard of work and that of what I expected was good enough.