Is Oftec compulsory yet?

[Malcolm Farrow]

Many thanks all for the welcome. I’ll do my best to answer the questions you’ve raised:

LA building control typically charge between £75 – 150 to sign off an installation (my understanding is that fees vary from council to council). So, if you're not registered, you could just add these fees to the job and then get the LABC to sign off the work. However, if you’re thinking of going down this route, you should be aware that many officers within LABC are nervous about taking on the responsibility for the commission and are likely to want an OFTEC registered technician to look over the installation and commission it before they declare its compliance.

At OFTEC we’re acutely aware about the issue of sub-standard work and know that poor or unsafe work would concern anyone who does the job properly. To combat this, we’ve set up a reporting system on our website for registered technicians (you’ll need to login to use it). We will take whatever action we can to get your concerns addressed. This could be by involving local authority building control, regional trading standards or contacting those affected directly. We can’t promise to resolve all your concerns, but we’ll do everything we can to make those who can take enforcement action do it. We also promise to give you regular feedback on our progress.

The new government favour a light touch to regulation so it’s unlikely that OFTEC (or any other CPS) will become mandatory at present.

Naturally, I don’t agree with the point about training and assessment but, if you have genuine concerns, please talk to our training manager.

Finally, the changes to who should notify were decided by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and Welsh Government, not us, so any cynicism is unjustified. In actual fact OFTEC is a not-for-profit organisation.

Hope this is useful.

 

[GasmanNI]

OFTEC is another parasite on the back of the plumbing industry.

Competence is when you pass the assessment and not membership of an organisation. If membership defined competence then belonging to the AA would mean you can drive a car?

OFTEC have no legal standing on the statue book but maybe could be asked to assist in an investigation.

Competence is subjective, can you follow the manufacturers instructions and comply with the BS standard for fluing, ventilation, oil storage etc in doing work, yes competent, no not competent.

 

[Worcester]

OFTEC is another parasite on the back of the plumbing industry.

Competence is when you pass the assessment and not membership of an organisation. If membership defined competence then belonging to the AA would mean you can drive a car?

OFTEC have no legal standing on the statue book but maybe could be asked to assist in an investigation.

Competence is subjective, can you follow the manufacturers instructions and comply with the BS standard for fluing, ventilation, oil storage etc in doing work, yes competent, no not competent.

Not so.

You have to be a member of one of the organisations I listed earlier, if you wish to be considered competent by the buidlng control departments, these organisation then assess your competence, initially on application based on qualifications, experience and physical assessment and with annual inspections to re-assess your continued competence,

The bodies that are allowed to assess and certify you as competent are appointed by the Department for Communities and Local Government, see here: Competent Persons Register | Home and here: https://www.gov.uk/building-regulations-competent-person-schemes.

It would be good it that website was actually populated by the competent person scheme providers, the only part done so far is for electrical and that's only because of a spat bewteen Napit and NICEIC with electrical safety registers 🙂

There is a complete list of who can deem you competent for each type of work is here: https://www.gov.uk/competent-person...nd-how-schemes-are-authorised#current-schemes

Those organisations are actually named in the appropriate legislation, i.e on the statute book, see the recent The Building Regulations &c. (Amendment) Regulations 2015 The Building Regulations &c. (Amendment) Regulations 2015 see SCHEDULE 1 Regulation 2(12) page 9

So yes they DO have some (non-exclusive) legal standing on the statute book, be it shared with other bodies.

 

[lame plumber]

i can never understand why:

someone who bothers to go out and learn the skills needed to work on an oil boiler,
who then joins a registered body such as oftec,
who obviously wants to follow the rules and do the job well

SHOULD THEN HAVE TO TAKE OUT INSURANCE FROM THE REGISTERED BODY TO ENSURE THAT IF THEY ARE FOUND TO BE WANTING AND HAVE LEFT THE INDUSTRY THAT THE CUSTOMER CAN HAVE THE FAULTS PUT RIGHT.


Bloody world is all arse about face, surely the onus should be on hitting the idiots out there undercutting the ones following the regs correctly rather than hitting those trying to tow the line once again. If you go to the trouble of doing things right and professionally, why on earth do we need insurance in case we dont. Bloody industry regulators and pen pushers getting it all wrong at the cost of those actuallly doing the job right in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!

Any comments Malcolm?

 

[Worcester]

With all MCS installations our insurance premiums are even higher! - We also haveto comply with RECC guidelines on our business practices! - So we have Ofgem Rules, MCS standards and fees, RECC Code of Practice and fees, Insurances, Competent Scheme Rules and Fees, - we spend over £5k a year just to be able to trade....

AND STILL RECC and the Competent Sheme bodies do ***** all about closing down or penalising the cowboys....

BMW moment over...

 

[Ray Stafford]

i can never understand why:

someone who bothers to go out and learn the skills needed to work on an oil boiler,
who then joins a registered body such as oftec,
who obviously wants to follow the rules and do the job well

SHOULD THEN HAVE TO TAKE OUT INSURANCE FROM THE REGISTERED BODY TO ENSURE THAT IF THEY ARE FOUND TO BE WANTING AND HAVE LEFT THE INDUSTRY THAT THE CUSTOMER CAN HAVE THE FAULTS PUT RIGHT.


Bloody world is all arse about face, surely the onus should be on hitting the idiots out there undercutting the ones following the regs correctly rather than hitting those trying to tow the line once again. If you go to the trouble of doing things right and professionally, why on earth do we need insurance in case we dont. Bloody industry regulators and pen pushers getting it all wrong at the cost of those actuallly doing the job right in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you are missing the point.

This is no difference from a solicitor or architect having professional indemnity insurance, or a Doctor having malpractice insurance or a travel operator paying into the ABTA scheme.

Sure, I expect my solicitor to give me good advice anyway, and my doctor to be diagnose and treat me correctly, and my travel operator not to go bust whilst I am abroad. But the point is to signal to the potential customer that these are responsible and stable practitioners who can be relied upon, and in the very unlikely event of a problem, they have paid into a scheme which will compensate anyone affected.

Its this sort of signalling which allows the customer to identify the reliable from the cowboy. Effectively, its a form of marketing.

Dealing with incompetent or dangerous workmanship is a completely different field of activity, and the two are not mutually exclusive. Doing more or less of one, does not in any way mean that there will be more or less of the other.

 

[SimonG]

Do gas safe engineers have to buy indemnity insurance off of gas safe?

To me gas safe is law, oftec is a joke, but to appear professional I pay my money. About time we had a combustion safe authority that combined all forms of heating appliances and make it that if you decide to install outside the law then somebody drops on you from a great height and cuts off your gonads. Then I woke up and smelt the coffee.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I appreciate that this is not a popular view, but I actually think that the current regulatory system works reasonably well, and any changes would attract an equal amount of criticism, just from different people.

I start from the point that the purpose of regulation is to prevent harm to the general public.

The purpose is not to force up prices to consumers, or to restrain trade, or to create closed shops like the old medieval guilds. We should also not use technical regulation as an adjunct to general consumer protection. Once you put safety to one side, the protections against being ripped off should be no different for a gas boiler than it is for a washing machine. People have the right to make what you or I would consider to be poor decisions when buying goods or services, and regulation should content itself with safety, and not with trying to second guess those decisions.

So if you want me to support additional regulation, then you need to show me the body-count or hospitalisation statistics, and convince me that the proposed regulatory action will reduce it.

Forcing people to register does not, in itself, make all work safe. I have seen some horribly dangerous work done by registered engineers.

We have enough regs already. What we need is to see some more active enforcement of the regs we have, and I would like to see the HSE enforce the law a little more actively, but that's all that is required.

<dons the flak-jacket and helmet that he first wore into the forum>

 

[SimonG]

But then we are talking more gas than oil again.

 

[lame plumber]

I see where your coming from Ray, but my gripe is the fact that people doing the right thing are more likely to be hit for an honest mistake than any cowboy out there botching on a daily basis. I feel more like a motorist and the way government hits the law abiding driver more and more, leaving the uninsured to crack on driving as they please. Its about time they regulators got the equivalent of a few anpr cameras going against the cowboys and not just hitting on the lawful trades.

Re the oftec insurance its not an indemnity cover as such it just seems to be there for once youve gone out of the trade! if you havent dont it right. I already carry an indemnity cover as part of my insurance package.

 

[Worcester]

Oftec may not be for compulsory oil, though moves afoot suggest that MCS may well be compulsory for anybody installing renewables in the future irrespective of whether RHI is paid or not.

To protect consumers from an inrush of heat pump installers without proper training and experience when gas boilers become no longer acceptable in new builds (beyond 2016? ) and the RHI has disappeared from retro-fits, it looks like MCS will transform itself and become a GasSafe equivalent for Biomass, Thermal, Heat Pumps (all Types) and PV (Legislation is being prepared now...)

 

[Lou]

I am updating threads. If this is not current then please visit the Oil & Solid Fuel Forum and post a new thread.