Understanding all above but also many outfits, one man bands etc were doing electrical work unqualified before Part P and then when Part P courses come along at an affordable duration these same outfits done the course and put it on there van. They must do a safer job after some training than none.
Certainly, they should have a better understanding of requirements after the (Part P specific) training than before. It doesn't follow that they will then do the job any better though.
I know many firms who have openly admitted to getting some of their staff through a Part P course, simply to be able to wear the badge, and carry on doing what they already were - e.g. boiler fits, kitchen and bathroom work.
As far as competence is concerned that is up to the individual and the scheme provider not the 1,3,5 day, or 3,4 yr course.
Competence is always up to the individual. The courses *should* help the competence, but only if the individual is willing to take on the education provided and then apply it consistently. As for the scheme providers, they should be assessing the competence of the individual against consistent criteria every time, and should NOT be doing anything else at all, beyond stating that an individual is, or is not meeting the requirements for the scheme, and by extension (if the scheme is correctly designed), the requirements for a safe and practical installation.
IMO if your running from the Part P then your fueling what you are disagreeing with when you should be standing strong and enuring correction under the label of safety.
In an ideal world, perhaps. The reality, however, is that legislation has forced many very competent, and very qualified individuals into a system which does not benefit them in any way at all - in fact, which takes away from the very reasons most of them bothered to do the training, become competent, and to uphold the rules in the first place.
The real effect of Part P on the whole, has been to allow an influx of cowboys which otherwise would not have had any advantage, to gain footholds in ways never before possible. Ten years ago, it would have been inconceivable that a kitchen fitter, or DIY warehouse, for example, would undertake anything like the scale or scope of electrical work they do now. Part P and its insistence on scheme registration has simply allowed them to gain footholds in areas where they wouldn't have before.
Simply, Part P schemes say to most applicants - "Pay the money and carry on". It isn't like Part P work is any more policed than any other aspect of a tradesman's work in any other field, or any more than a typical electrician's work was prior to Part P.
I say again, that the only time prosecutions are ever going to be likely is where there is an incident and investigation is unavoidable - but mostly, it is an exercise in paperwork, and money generation, other than that.
Without the policing, and proper inspection of work completed under the schemes available (which doesn't happen), nothing at all will change. The only real benefit is that people are aware enough of Part P requirements, that it would look suspicious for any domestic electrician to claim they were carrying out domestic work without such scheme membership - and that would probably attract scrutiny in itself.
Hence, the industry as far as domestic work is concerned, is over a barrel by means of regulations which do not do what they set out to do at all, in any way, at all.
We all know that Part P has failed, utterly, to make any improvements to safety whatever, because it cannot police what actually happens every day.
Campaign as was mentioned earlier.
National campaigns might help, but for the moment, given the state of things, it will be very much down to us, electricians working every day and having to face the very many issues ill-considered legislation produce, to make our customers aware of what they really need to know to make informed, safe, decisions, within the framework dumped on us.
Why oh why has Part P not been given proper pubic awareness alike Gas Safe?
Primarily because gas safety is a legal Act in its own right, and Part P is only one part of a hotch potch of building regulations, designed to do too many things in a limited set of legislation.
Electricity has never been treated as a dangerous product in the way gas has, and in part, that is a testimony to the track record of electrical manufacturers to make their products as safe as possible despite legislative attempts to insinuate otherwise.
It is also a testimony to the majority of electricians out there in the UK who do work to exceptionally high standards consistently.
I'm sure this will happen quickly if as many Part P prosecutions take place as the gas fitters?
As said, prosecutions will only start to take any sort of hold if the policing is there in the first place. Gas Safe was set up as a funded partnership specifically to police Gas work, and receives an amount of funding on top of registration fees to ensure it does police as far as it can (which is still only around one in every two hundred notifiable gas works).
However, another reason you won't see prosecutions quite simply is that it is not cost effective to prosecute minor fails and only the very worst of identified no-compliances will ever be prosecuted - those resulting in really dangerous safety issues, or fire - or obviously, death.
What Part P has given us, is only proof that whether "policing" is voluntary, such as NICEIC or ECA, or legislation driven such as NAPIT and ELECSA schemes for Part P, they all fail on common ground - real policing. Until there is some way of rigorously enforcing regulations, or those who claim to work to them, it doesn't matter at all how much we legislate, or create voluntary schemes, there will always be those working around them, without care or qualification. They will simply continue to play the odds.
I'm sure the above will agree but we have to keep our nose on the bread trail.
Well, this is true, but I think for any effective changes it is necessary that this time around (the pending review in 2013) that the voices of real electricians actually working at the coal face every day are actually heard this time, and the advice we have to offer heeded, for once.
Only by working to the very highest standards we can, and continuing to educate public as we each try to, will awareness of the need for care and safety in electricity ever get heard.
One of the most effective ways, I guess, for doing that would be a national hall of shame - if not for individuals carrying out dangerous work, at least for photos of the results of dangerous work.
