Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320-332)
FEDERATION OF
MASTER BUILDERS
4 DECEMBER 2007
Q320 Mark Hunter: I am going to move
onto a question about standards setting. The Federation, as I
understand it, is an approved scheme operator for the Government's
TrustMark?
Mr Diment: It is.
Q321 Mark Hunter: Which is at least
in theory designed to help protect people from rogue traders.
Could you tell us in your opinion why consumer awareness of the
TrustMark scheme is so low and also what your organisation is
doing to tackle that problem, if anything?
Mr Berry: The FMB was instrumental
in helping to set up TrustMark because we think it is a very good
thing to help advise clients. The problem that we are picking
up from our members is that TrustMark is not widely known amongst
the general public and particularly the clients of FMB builders
and that is probably because of poor marketing of TrustMark. We
are trying to do our bit by promoting TrustMark in the promotion
of material, and certainly in terms of our trade magazines wherever
we can we refer to TrustMark. Government funding for TrustMark
was cut earlier this year and members are saying there is very
little business advantage at the moment in the TrustMark, and
so what is needed is a robust marketing and consumer plan for
TrustMark so that everyone in the industry is familiar with TrustMark
and would know what it means and who to go to if they want any
work done in their house.
Q322 Mark Hunter: How many members
at the moment are accredited?
Mr Berry: 2,774.
Q323 Mark Hunter: Out of how many?
Mr Berry: Out of 13,000, but that
is the largest number within the TrustMark scheme by far.
Q324 Mark Hunter: But there is still
some way to go?
Mr Berry: We need to encourage
more members to do so and we are trying to do that.
Q325 Mark Hunter: What do you do
as an organisation to encourage more of your own members to sign
up?
Mr Berry: We are trying actively
to promote it to our members but the problem is that all the feedback
we are getting is they cannot see the business advantage. Clients
are not asking for the TrustMark kite symbol and so until they
can see the added business advantage it becomes very difficult.
Q326 Mark Hunter: So you think Government
needs to give a lead on this and do more to promote what the scheme
is about?
Mr Berry: It was a commitment
in the Government's Manifesto and now it has taken away the money.
If you are going to promote a scheme like TrustMark you do need
to put the money behind the marketing to make sure that everyone
knows about it.
Q327 Chairman: How much money is
involved in TrustMark?
Mr Diment: There was an initial
grant, if my memory serves me right, of about £2 million
for the first 18 months of its operation but direct government
support for TrustMark ceased at the end of March this year and
it is now reliant only on the subscriptions that are paid by the
individual companies that are prepared to get themselves licensed
through TrustMark.
Q328 Chairman: This comes under the
consumer affairs part of BERR, does it?
Mr Diment: No, the construction
division.
Q329 Chairman: That leads me to the
last question I want to ask you before we let you go, because
bogus self employment is an issue that we spent a lot of time
discussing at the last evidence session and my domestic boiler
featured in that earlier session because I realised I had a bogus
self-employed plumber who was very difficult to call to account
afterwards for the quality of his work. Is it a matter of concern
and also does it have consumer implications? Do your members use
self-employed labour or are they typically small teams of builders
and craftsmen who go round and do the work on a fully employed
basis?
Mr Diment: Certainly a substantial
proportion of our members operate entirely with their own employees
most of the time but, equally, a large number of them do occasionally
have to bring in specialist staff either to cope with short-term
peaks or a particular craft that they do not have within their
existing workforce. I think it is almost impossible for us to
put an estimate on the number who might be employed. We like to
think, and I am reasonably confident, that the vast majority are
employed legitimately, but I do not think anybody can put their
hand on their heart and say there are none at all.
Q330 Chairman: The business model
which actually says a company entirely uses self-employed labour
would not meet the approval of your organisation. I am thinking
of systematic, well-planned large businesses. Thames Water referred
me to this plumbing company and it turned out that the plumbing
company was using entirely self-employed people and had no employed
staff at all and the responsibility therefore was shuffled between
the two.
Mr Diment: When we look at the
turnover of a company we would like to see that equate somehow
to the declared workforce of the company, and if there was a great
inconsistency we would be asking more questions.
Q331 Chairman: Because there are
consumer implications for extensive use of the self employed at
your level?
Mr Diment: Yes.
Q332 Chairman: And they are different
implications to the ones of big businesses who might have other
reasons for using bogusly self-employed labour?
Mr Diment: Yes.
Chairman: Okay, I think that concludes
our evidence session. Your written evidence came to us some months
ago because of our delay in launching this inquiry because we
thought we might be about to be abolished, so if there are things
that you have not been able to say today that you would like to
give us further written submissions, please feel free to do that;
otherwise thank you very much indeed.
| 
