Communities and Local Government CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Steve Lomax

Written by the proprietor of a small electrical contacting business established in 1986 and have been NICEIC approved since 1989.

Is Part P adequate in safeguarding electrical health and safety in domestic dwellings?

Part P is adequate in safeguarding electrical safety because only those installations which are already compliant with BS7671 (the wiring regulations) are notified under part P. Those installations that are not compliant with BS7671 are not notified under Part P either by ignorance or defiance. This constitutes most installations.

What are the costs of complying with the Regulations?

Maintaining approval with an authorised body constitutes the largest part of the cost. This, along with administration costs would come to typically £800–£1,000 per annum, with a cost of around £4.00 per job in certification. This is a flat rate and would represent around 10% of a small job or 0.2% of a medium re-wire. These would include some re-training and re-qualification for the “Qualified supervisor” each time the regulations are upgraded. Typically once or twice every 10 years. The extra cost of complying with Part P, is very small in addition to previous authority approval maintenance costs.

How could Part P Regulations be revised to be streamlined and made more effective?

Abolish Part P altogether. It is too complicated and unworkable without a major awareness advertising campaign and policing. It is largely ignored. As an industry, electricity does not pose a large enough risk to be worthy of a scheme this complex. A law that made it a requirement that a property could not be sold, let or leased as “habitable” without a satisfactory electrical installation report, would be more effective in ensuring electrical safety than Part P.

What would be the consequence of the removal or significant reduction of the scope of the Building Regulations so far as they apply to electrical and gas installation and repairs in dwellings?

Very little. The mandatory regulations would remain. The unworkable and largely ignored statutory regulations would be lost. Installers may choose to remain approved or not. The public may undertake or appoint trades as they feel fit. The vast majority do not understand the system as it exists at this time anyhow.

What reasons are given for the above answers?

Part P requirements have split the industry into three types of contractor or installers (including DIY):

1.Those installers that are competent, experienced and qualified tend to comply with the requirements. This extra statutory requirement is therefore largely superfluous as these installers already complying with mandatory regulations.

2.Those installers that are incompetent, inexperienced and unqualified who are unaware of the requirement.

3.Those installers that may or may not be incompetent, inexperienced and unqualified, but choose to ignore the requirement as they see the regulations as un-necessary and inconsequential if breached.

The householders and clients fall into three categories:

1.Those that are aware that such regulations exist and would recognise non-compliance of them.

2.Those that are unconcerned with regulations and will appoint the installer who will work at the lowest price, which may be themselves, irrespective of compliance.

3.Those that are unaware of the regulations.

Since the introduction of the regulations in 2005, in the day to day experience of meeting customers and general public, currently:

Less than 2% of the public are fully aware of the regulations and would recognise the certification they would expect to receive to confirm compliance with them.

Around 80% are aware that some form of regulation or code of practice exists, but would not demand certification if none were offered, nor would they question the validity of any certification offered.

Almost 20% are totally unaware of any regulation.

The costs of maintaining the compliance, scheme registration, administration, training and certification required by the regulations are very significant. Compliant installers who need to meet these overhead costs are usually undercut by non-compliant installers who do not have such costs.

There is no effective policing of the regulations.

There is no public advertising that the regulations exist. It is the householder who is ultimately liable for non-conformity of the regulations, not the installer, yet the majority of householders are unaware of this liability.

The regulation is further complicated in the fact that different methods of compliance and requirements exist for gas, electric, water and glazing installations. The householder has little choice other than to accept what he is told by the tradesman, whether this is accurate or not.

The introduction of the Part P regulations was haphazard, and over too short a period of time. The industry is still suffering the haste of implementation in inefficient systems, poor continuity across and within trades and inadequate policing.

Prior to the introduction, clients had confidence that all work carried out by NICEIC or ECA approved contractors was to the highest standard of safety compliance. To accommodate Part P, those contractors that could not meet the strict criteria that approval by these organisations required, now needed some other form of approval, and an over-complicated multi-tier system has evolved, with a significant drop in the overall level of competency. The general public now have no idea which level of competency the contractor they are appointing has. There are so many levels of approval by so many different authorities that even the building trade itself has difficulty determining the competency or scope of approval of any given contractor.

The introduction of the scheme has not rid the trade of unregistered and incompetent installers. Indeed, the over complication has made it easier for these contractors to trade undetected. There are too many “Approval” logos the general public now need to recognise.

The requirement has more to do with paperwork and liability and than with competent, safe working practice. An installer not prepared to accept liability is unlikely to be concerned with safety.

There are virtually no penalties for installers who blatantly display or imply that they are approved by organisations that they are not affiliated with. It tends to be other contractors that notice this but trading standards, the authority policing such infringements can only act on public complaints and even then have little power to act.

It is possible for an individual to attain the required electrical qualification and approval criteria within a matter of weeks without ever undertaking any on-site work, other than that in their own home. The industry is flooded with “approved” and “qualified” contractors with no skills or experience in safe working.

The approval authorities are commercial companies that derive income by the number of contractors they ‘sign up’ and then sell certificate forms, tools and other merchandise to. They stand to loose income by rejecting applications or revoking the approval of unsafe installers. This is a conflict of interests.

I am aware of, or have heard of only three convictions under this law since 2005:

This low conviction number is grossly disproportionate to the number of offences committed.

If the conviction rate is higher than three in six years then this should be more widely publicised for the law to function as a deterrent against unsafe installation.

The low conviction rate demonstrates that there is not a problem, and the law is not needed.

The conviction rate is certainly disproportionate to the number of circuit breakers sold by DIY stores, each of which should carry a warning that it is breaking the law for an unregistered person to fit this item.

December 2011