The EICR and competence. What are we going to do about the endless problems brought to the forum?

Gaston:

So, Mr Pekham's suggestion of a minimum requirement of what should be tested is good but does this not become a box filling exercise and the opportunity to claim "I did not inspect that guv because it was not on the list? And anyway, does not BS 7671/GN 3 give us already a good list of what we might want to be inspecting. Also, Mr Steward's suggestion of (presumably costly) auditing is good too.  But who will do the auditing?  What if, for the sake of argument, Mr Benton, the auditor, disagrees with Mr Badadi's inspection. Who becomes the arbiter?  Going down a prescriptive route does, in my opinion, deskills the inspector by presupposing that reports are incompetently carried out by the uninstructed.  Whilst that may be the case sometimes it is, in my opinion, the wrong solution.  We need a better educated, more skilled workforce with the required levels of competency to carry out the inspections.

That will never solve the problem.  If the test is not prescriptive, then it will always come down to the opinion of the person doing the tests.  You can force the testers to do as much training as you like, but that won't change the issue that some people will label something as a C3 and others will label it a C2.


MOT testers have a big book of instructions telling them what is a pass and what is a fail.  Even then, no two testers will grade a car the same.


To the landlord customer, a C3 is a "pass" and the property may be rented out, while a C2 is a "fail" and it must be fixed or the landlord will be fined.

Gaston:

So, Mr Pekham's suggestion of a minimum requirement of what should be tested is good but does this not become a box filling exercise and the opportunity to claim "I did not inspect that guv because it was not on the list? And anyway, does not BS 7671/GN 3 give us already a good list of what we might want to be inspecting. Also, Mr Steward's suggestion of (presumably costly) auditing is good too.  But who will do the auditing?  What if, for the sake of argument, Mr Benton, the auditor, disagrees with Mr Badadi's inspection. Who becomes the arbiter?  Going down a prescriptive route does, in my opinion, deskills the inspector by presupposing that reports are incompetently carried out by the uninstructed.  Whilst that may be the case sometimes it is, in my opinion, the wrong solution.  We need a better educated, more skilled workforce with the required levels of competency to carry out the inspections.

That will never solve the problem.  If the test is not prescriptive, then it will always come down to the opinion of the person doing the tests.  You can force the testers to do as much training as you like, but that won't change the issue that some people will label something as a C3 and others will label it a C2.


MOT testers have a big book of instructions telling them what is a pass and what is a fail.  Even then, no two testers will grade a car the same.


To the landlord customer, a C3 is a "pass" and the property may be rented out, while a C2 is a "fail" and it must be fixed or the landlord will be fined.