Electricians Working Group minutes: November 2017
The first meeting of the Electricians Working Group set up to explore the challenge of ensuring the safety of electrical installations.
Attendees and apologies
Attendees
- Loraine King – Scottish Government (chair)
- Ken Daly - Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland
- Keith Dryburgh - Citizens Advice Scotland
- Fiona Harper - Scottish Joint Industry Board
- Stan Johnston - independent chair of SELECT Registration Board
- John Noble - Scottish Electrical Charitable Training Trust
- Stuart Thompson - NICEIC Scotland
- Alan Wilson - SELECT
- Colin Hird - Scottish Government
- Amy Kirkpatrick - Scottish Government
- Laura McGlynn – Scottish Government
- Andrew McConnell - Scottish Government (Secretariat)
Apologies
- Anne Galbraith - Scottish Electrical Charitable Training Trust
- Bernard McAulay - Unite the Union
- Wayne Mackay – Electrical Safety First
- Karen McDonnell - RoSPA
Items and actions
Welcome and Introductions
The chair welcomed the attendees and thanked them for accepting the invitation to join the group.
Exploration of current system and challenges
The group explained the current system from their own perspectives. Issues discussed included:
- the need to ensure the skills and expertise of those carrying out electrical work, which should not necessarily be conflated with membership of or registration with specific bodies
- focus on regulating individuals, not businesses (reserved to UK Government)
- domestic customers rather than business customers are most likely to use unqualified electricians
- established routes exist to qualify as an electrician, competence is assessed separately
- enforcement of any new regulations need to be considered – changing consumers’ attitudes is more cost effective than enforcement by Trading Standards
- consumer data unclear on extent of issue
- rogue traders need to be forced out of the sector
- Approved Certifier of Construction currently only applies when a building warrant is required
- important to be aware of developments south of the border post-Grenfell
The following emerged as the key priorities:
- celebrate qualified electricians and their competence (including protection of title)
- raise consumers’ knowledge
- ongoing competence and training
- number of different schemes currently – potential to streamline
- enforcement against rogue traders and wider aspects of consumer protection
- insurance and redress
Understanding and developing the evidence base
The chair explained that it was important to develop a common understanding of the scale of the issue and the detriment arising from it. It was agreed that SELECT and NICEIC would work together to develop an agreed evidence base, with input from Scottish Government as required.
Action 1 – SELECT and NICEIC to develop evidence base by next meeting.
Next steps
The next meeting will discuss the evidence base and consider practical solutions to address the issues identified. It was agreed that the next meeting should be in January.
To ensure an open and transparent process, papers and minutes will be published on the Scottish Government website.
Action 2 – Scottish Government to create web page on Scottish Government site.
Action 3 – Scottish Government to circulate possible dates for next meeting of the group.
Contact
Email: consumerandcompetition@gov.scot
Telephone: 0300 244 4000
Post:
Scottish Government
Consumer and Competition Policy Unit
3rd Floor
5 Atlantic Quay
150 Broomielaw
Glasgow
G2 8LU
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