Your answers Gentlemen, please. This is indicating a serious problem in the Industry. Trust is now zero. I am disgusted with the behavior of these alleged "inspectors" who are dim, dumb, deaf and blind, and cannot read the BBB. It is not good enough is it?
There is some really crummy stuff out there in regular use.
Some of it is actually dangerous, and should be taken out of service as soon as possible.
On the other hand quite a lot of it is just crummy, or ugly, or a bit of a nuisance, but poses no real risk to humanity.
And meeting BS7671 2018 is neither necessary, nor on its own sufficient, to make all installations safe and 'good'.
so
Q1) How do we help folk trying to inspect to tell the difference between serious non-compliance to regs and irrelevant ones, and how to spot situations that meet the regs but are not really safe ?
and longer term,
Q2) How do we address poor installation work being done right now ?
Now various NICIEC and NAPIT guides are an attempt to address Q1 with the folk we already have in the field, and probably do quite well in a number of cases, but they should be really seen as more of a starting point for what to look for, not the last word in how to make a decision.
.
If we are stuck with less than ideal inspectors, and for now we will be, and fiddling with an exam syllabus will not alter that in any useful timeline, there needs to be a solid back-up to support the harassed field operative, in terms of some sort of 'phone a friend' for the odder cases, and and proper dispute mechanisms for when it goes wrong between customer and inspector.
Part P and competent persons schemes were an attempt to address Q 2, and that too lacks any real back-up to make it reliable.
Scheme membership is more of a tax on good businesses, especially smaller ones, and assessment is something that can be carefully steered around by a few bad ones.
Furthermore, an awful lot of things are not notifiable work and just appear or disappear without a paper trail
(and I would argue strongly that notification to the local council is totally the wrong target here, it should be ensuring the man with the toolbox knows what they are doing, not submission of a form with a stamp from some 'supervisor' tens of miles away )
The long term answer is education of course,but that is slow.
Meanwhile support to set the bar at a uniform height, and a dispute resolution mechanism are both needed.
There is some really crummy stuff out there in regular use.
Some of it is actually dangerous, and should be taken out of service as soon as possible.
On the other hand quite a lot of it is just crummy, or ugly, or a bit of a nuisance, but poses no real risk to humanity.
And meeting BS7671 2018 is neither necessary, nor on its own sufficient, to make all installations safe and 'good'.
so
Q1) How do we help folk trying to inspect to tell the difference between serious non-compliance to regs and irrelevant ones, and how to spot situations that meet the regs but are not really safe ?
and longer term,
Q2) How do we address poor installation work being done right now ?
Now various NICIEC and NAPIT guides are an attempt to address Q1 with the folk we already have in the field, and probably do quite well in a number of cases, but they should be really seen as more of a starting point for what to look for, not the last word in how to make a decision.
.
If we are stuck with less than ideal inspectors, and for now we will be, and fiddling with an exam syllabus will not alter that in any useful timeline, there needs to be a solid back-up to support the harassed field operative, in terms of some sort of 'phone a friend' for the odder cases, and and proper dispute mechanisms for when it goes wrong between customer and inspector.
Part P and competent persons schemes were an attempt to address Q 2, and that too lacks any real back-up to make it reliable.
Scheme membership is more of a tax on good businesses, especially smaller ones, and assessment is something that can be carefully steered around by a few bad ones.
Furthermore, an awful lot of things are not notifiable work and just appear or disappear without a paper trail
(and I would argue strongly that notification to the local council is totally the wrong target here, it should be ensuring the man with the toolbox knows what they are doing, not submission of a form with a stamp from some 'supervisor' tens of miles away )
The long term answer is education of course,but that is slow.
Meanwhile support to set the bar at a uniform height, and a dispute resolution mechanism are both needed.
