John Martin of QMSA queries whether there is any merit in making prospective Green Deal installers undergo additional site visits.
Since DECC stated heating engineers would be ‘deemed to comply’ with the Green Deal, there have been a lot of changes.
Initially, this meant that any MCS or Gas Safe Registered business would be deemed to comply with the requirements for Green Deal registration. This was subsequently changed by DECC so that Gas Safe installers would be deemed to comply only with technical requirements, but their business management system would need to be approved to administer Green Deal.
A further change now means that Gas Safe installers will still require a site visit to determine their competence to install a boiler under Green Deal, making ‘deemed to comply’ for heating engineers worthless.
There is a caveat stating that Certification Bodies should apply a ‘pragmatic approach’, but a suggestion of continual monitoring with no up-front visit was rejected by the Green Deal Oversight Registration body. The majority of Green Deal Certification bodies also insisted that an up-front site inspection of a boiler install was needed.
Having been involved for many years in certification, I have always felt that third party certification has its place in ensuring quality through appropriate monitoring and rejected the ‘it’s just a money making scheme’ criticisms. However, I can only see the insistence on yet another inspection of an installer who has undertaken ACS and is further monitored by Gas Safe as exactly that.
Arguments that a Gas Safe Registered installer may not be competent in energy efficiency legislation, water regulations etc because these are not part of ACS or Gas Safe are invalid; this can be determined by reviewing the installers qualifications without the need to inspect.
Therefore, I ask the question of DECC, UKAS and the Certification Bodies what exactly will be inspected for the likely £500+ annual fee over and above what has been previously verified at several levels under other schemes?
At what point can we finally accept an installer’s competence to work? If there is no confidence in existing schemes, perhaps they should be reviewed or scrapped as not being fit for purpose.
[author image=”https://www.installeronline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/johnmartin.jpg” ]John Martin is a former installer who for the past 15 years has been involved in Certification and is a former Director of Logic Certification. John is currently the MD of Benchmark Certification and the founder of QMSA Ltd. QMSA provide support primarily to small businesses wishing to become MCS or Green Deal approved and VOICE is part of the overall support service offered to help give installers a say in the way their industry is shaped.[/author]
