Dream scheme - Electrotechnical Assessment Scheme

For many of you that read this magazine the progress of the Scheme will be of great interest. Its implementation will introduce changes to the assessment process that you may already be familiar with and, more significantly perhaps, one of its major consequences will be to introduce the potential for assessment agencies, other than those already established, to assess contractors.

To recap, the development of the Scheme was initiated by organisations with either direct involvement or an interest in the industry’s activities under the aegis of a working group of the Electrical Industry Installation Liaison Committee. This group was responding to Government initiatives such as the Quality Mark scheme and the introduction of electrical safety in the Building Regulations; both of these initiatives require the confirmation of technical competence of the electrical contractor.

During the early stages of its development it was decided that the Scheme should go further than providing a safety assurance and it was therefore agreed that the functionality of an installation should be included as part of its criteria.

Whilst a prime reason for its development was to meet the requirements of the initiatives mentioned it was also recognised that its criteria could be beneficial to other sectors of the industry. As a consequence all of the categories of work in ES 59004: The qualification of electrical installation contractors were included in the Scheme.

To ensure that the independence of the assessment process is maintained, agencies wishing to offer assessments against the Scheme’s requirements will have to seek accreditation to EN 45011.

The consultation process

It took approximately a year to draft the Scheme; the culmination of this effort being the launch of the draft for public comment on 18 January 2000.

The consultation period on the draft ended on 14 April and during the three month period over 600 comments were received from 47 organisations and individuals. There were also a number of letters received from individuals offering expressions of support and some criticising the perceived imposition of more regulation on the industry.

As the secretary of the EIILC working group I am now collating the comments that have been received, and the process of considering each of these comments began on 13 June 2000.

Part 2 of the Scheme

Prior to its launch for public comment, the EIILC working group recognised that the Scheme would only provide a credible set of assessment criteria for the industry if it was delivered in a consistent manner.

In order to achieve a consistent delivery by both existing and new assessment agencies that may want to offer their services, it was agreed that a set of interpretative requirements should be drawn up for use by assessment agencies when assessing contractors against the criteria of the Scheme. These interpretative requirements would form part of the assessment criteria for assessment agencies when seeking accreditation against EN 45011. To put it simply, any assessment agency that wants to be able to claim that it can offer assessment services against the Scheme and be able to use the Scheme logo, will have to apply the interpretative requirements of Part 2.

To ensure that the criteria of Part 2 properly reflected the requirements of EN 45011 the support of the Association of British Certification Bodies (ABCB) was sought. The ABCB agreed to participate in the development of Part 2, and during the period that the first part was out for comment the interpretative requirements were developed. These are now out for comment with the EIILC working group and following any changes will be circulated to certification bodies and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) for comment prior to being finalised.

Future developments

Clearly from the comments that have been received there is much to do. The members of the working group will, when considering these comments, need to seek to achieve a compromise as there will be many conflicting views being put forward.

If a spirit of compromise can be achieved, and I am confident that this will be the case given the co-operation that has already been evident within the working group, it is expected that all comments will have been dealt with by the end of the summer period. This work will be undertaken in parallel with the circulation for comment of Part 2, the intention being that both documents will be completed and ready for publication during the autumn of this year.

Once the documents have been completed they will be presented to UKAS in order that a pilot can be undertaken to ensure that the Scheme criteria can be practically implemented. It is expected that this pilot will attract a number of certification bodies that would want to be able to offer assessment services to electrical contractors. If the pilot is successful it is expected that the Scheme will become publicly available during the middle part of 2001 with certification bodies being able to offer assessments and award the logo to contractors.

However, the success of the Scheme will, in part, hinge on the introduction of the government initiatives I previously mentioned. Currently, the Quality Mark scheme is being piloted in Birmingham and, later this year, Somerset. The proposed introduction of electrical safety into the Building Regulations has not yet been circulated as a consultative document, although it is anticipated that this will happen during this summer.

In order for electrical contractors to realise the benefit of subjecting themselves to the rigours of the Scheme it is imperative that the Building Regulations requirements are introduced in a reasonable time scale. It is therefore hoped that they are implemented during the latter part of 2001 or early in 2002. The EIILC working group includes representatives from the DETR so they are fully aware of the need to maintain progress with the changes to the Building Regulations.

Another factor in the success of the Scheme will be recognition of the logo by users of electrical contractors. The logo shown here can only be used by contractors that have been satisfactorily assessed by an accredited assessment agency.

The purpose of achieving wide recognition of this logo is to ensure that the benefits of a single Scheme are passed on to electrical contractors who have been assessed to its requirements. Without this recognition there is a risk that clients will still insist that electrical contractors be subject to assessments by specific assessment agencies even though they have been recognised as technically competent under the requirements of the Scheme.

The imposition of multiple assessments will be to no-one’s benefit and will only increase costs to all concerned. It is important, therefore, that the logo is well publicised both now and in the future as being a mark that demonstrates that an electrical contractor is technically competent. Individual organisations on the EIILC working group will play an important part in promoting this logo as, it is hoped, will the DETR when electrical safety is introduced in the Building Regulations.