Portable Applinace Testing (PAT) qualifications

The HSE recognises posession of C&G 2377/2 certificate as demonstrating the required compitence to carry out testing, and C&G 2377/1 certificate as demonstrating the required compitence to plan and manage the testing regime. This is what should be held by the tester testing equipment in a workplace such as an office. These qualifications are intended to be obtainable by anyone who knows how to wire a plug and understands the difference between milliohms and megohms. You do not need to be an electrician, and actually very few electricians are qualified to perform PAT testing. The two exams are normally taken together as part of a two-day course. (The course numbers may have changed slightly since I did it.)

For rented accomodation, the rules are different and I'm not completely familiar with them never having been involved here. What I recall was that the government screwed up in a similar way to Part P. It allows local authorities to define if testing is required and who can do the testing, and they mostly say the tester must be a member of NICEIC, which means most testers for rented accomodation don't have a clue what they're doing.

Not when I did it.