Agreed. When a yoof in scruffy clothes turned up to pick my car up for its MOT I was very reluctant to part with it.
How does the council ensure that all participants are actually OK? If rogue traders join it could devalue the scheme completely. It specifically states on the web site that they don't check.
I presume that the councils own works dept is approved by some other trade body;?...
Presumably they'd get thrown out of the Guild of Rogue Traders if they were caught registering for a FT scheme ;-)
OK you've sold me on it (you're in the wrong business Dave! :-)). Where do you get yours made?
They don't check the standard of your work, its more like an ISO quality control thing. They insist on £2M PLI, a CRB check, that you have a written complaints proceedure, that you have a system for quotes & estimates, that you keep proper records etc. They do visit once a year for an audit & will get involved in disputes.
I wouldn't like to lose the status, so I would be inclined to sort any problems out properly.
They don't automatically come down on the side of the customer, if its an unrealistic complaint they will tell them so.
I was in sales for 30 years :-)
Local company called Bell Workwear, but there are loads of small firms around, bound to be one in Reading.
I thought you could only get CRB checked to work in a specific place, like a particular school?
You get a CRB check for each role/location you perform for each organisation with a different CRB coordination scheme (like a school). For example, I have to have one for being on a PTA and another for helping with Scouts. If I moved to a different school/PTA I would probably need another (as each school does its own rather than the local authority) but the Scout one would do for all Scout groups. If it's a professional organisation they will coordinate the CRB checking and it will cover for entry to homes and business premises to do tradesperson work while a member of their organisation. I think.
So did I, but apparently things have changed.
Trading Standards told me to go to
Should have added thats for a 'basic' disclosure which is all TS require.
I thought most of your work was south of the border? Or am I mistaken about where the Medway is? :-)
Interesting - any idea how much the English equivalent costs? I have one, but since I'm a volunteer I don't pay.
Pete
Yes indeed, south of Hadrians Wall. Medway is 30 miles SE of London, sort of diagonally opposite Reading :-)
TS told me to use Discloseure Scotland cos its cheaper. Dunno by how much though.
Maybe you could get Chinese ones off eBay cheaper still ;-)
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember YAPH saying something like:
Hah. Relatedly, I recall when the Guild of Master Craftsmen was fairly new and touting for business. All it required was a willingness to part with thirty quid a year and that was it, done and dusted. There were another couple of similar schemes around at the time, same process. I never saw the point at the time, if there was no accountability or inspection and it was immediately obvious is was a money-raising wheeze for the organisers.
I don't suppose anything's changed.
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