Scottish Govt to regulate "electricians"

[Owain Lastname]

Currently anyone can call themselves an electrician, without the need for any qualifications or competency. This can lead to customers, especially domestic consumers, hiring unqualified or less competent individuals, resulting in faults that can lead to fire or personal injury, such as electric shocks.

The consultation considers whether regulatory measures are required to give greater protection to the public and reduce the level of poor electrical workmanship by a persistent rogue trader element.

The Scottish Government is gathering information and views on whether regulations should be introduced in relation to electricians. We want to hear whether you think there is a need for electricians to be regulated. While the focus of the consultation is on domestic work carried out for individual consumers, it will also apply to commercial and industrial work.

Owain

[Richard]

If only they could do the same for those that call themselves politicians.

[Nick Cat]

I think you'll find 'we want to hear' means we've already decided on some dumb course of action on a matter we don't understand & want to appear to be doing what the people want.

[Owain Lastname]

Well, there is an election coming up, so anything that distracts attention from the Sick Kids' Hospital, care home deaths, unemployment 2.1% worse than the UK average, and 45% of workers facing pay cuts, will be welcome.

Owain

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Erm well bypassing that little hot potato for a moment, what about DIY. When I could see most regulations on wiring stuff was moor or less common sense, but as time has passed lots of extra bits have been added to protect against some very rare issues and situations. The fact is that if you make it so difficult to be a common sense type electrician, many will simply go off grid, pun intended and either DIY when they have no idea what they are doing, or get in an under the radar cowboy. Brian

[Owain Lastname]

I'm more concerned about the low standard of work and supervision by qualified electricians registered with the self-certification scams.

And most dodgy gas work seems to be done by Gas Safe fitters rather than DIY.

Owain

[Robin]

That's a little unkind. They wouldn't be consulting if they weren't inclined to do something. But IME responses to consultation can affect the "what" and "how".

Of course that leaves the problem that responses tend to come from evangelists for change rather than from a cross-section of consumers. But the same is true of politics and policy generally,

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Owain Lastname presented the following explanation :

+1

[Andy Burns]

Presumably the amount of DIY gas work vs Gas Safe is miniscule, so difficult to tell?

[Owain Lastname]

I should have said DIY or unregistered trade gas work.

Yes, it's a small amount.

I think the point is that people know about CORGI for gas work (of course it's Gas Safe now) but get confused about all the various schemes for sparkies, most of which of course do NOT require the individual operative to be qualified.

So maybe Scotland will get a Super Register of individual registers.

Owain

[alan_m]

Plenty of videos on Youtube where UK electricians show the really bad workmanship of fellow electricians, including falsifying testing results.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

been too easy for years

[Chris B]

Yes even I have come across that one - either he didn't know the difference between a TN-S and a TN-C-S earthing system or the guy that filled out the minor works certificate had never seen the installation (I have my own views on which).

[Andrew]

Or Consultants

[Dave Plowman (News]

Being cynical, it is likely trade led, with the intention of making all electrical work illegal, including DIY, unless performed by a paid up member of their organisation.

[Andrew]

So just become an 'Electron Flow modeler' !

[Nick Cat]

It can. But it's routinely dismissed & ignored by politicians that imagine they know what they're doing. It's unfortunate that they so often don't.

That's one issue. The bigger one is that politicians usually lack knowlege in the area they're messing with. Part P, HIPs, counterproductive insulation rules, clueless conclusions from Grenfell, nonstandard CFL lampholders, the list goes on. And on.

NT

[Andrew]

One of the interesting things that came out of Grenfell is that Celotex obtained their ?BBA rating based on a certain additive to the foam core. This additive was changed or removed but they didn't bother to have the new production certified, they just kept the old certificate. Naughty.