Moving Forward: Continous Improvement from Leading Certification Bodies
Certsure and NAPIT are once again working together on proposals to take the industry forward and improve standards within the electrical sector.
The two Competent Person Scheme (CPS) operators previously collaborated on Registered Competent Person Electrical (RCPE) - a single mark and register, which brought together more than 40,000 registered electrical contracting firms across England and Wales.
The driving forces behind RCPE now want to expand on that work and further strengthen the assessment process of both organisations.
Over the years, the strengths of the two organisations have been Certsure’s focus on the management and supervision of competence and NAPIT’s focus on individual competence.
The new collaboration aims to combine these approaches into a consistent approach, offering to individually assess all electrical employees registered with Certsure and NAPIT to provide competence recognition for all electricians.
Emma Clancy, CEO of Certsure commented: “We are delighted to be working with NAPIT to raise standards and strengthen the competency recognition model further within the existing framework.
“This work refines and builds on an existing model which already covers over 43,000 electrical firms and has a competency assessment at its heart”
The collaboration is a response to further improve standards and to give contractors further choice around their assessment. One that will better meet the requirements of their customers at all scales of electrical work.
As Mike Andrews, CEO of NAPIT explains: “Our work is an important cornerstone of the electrical industry.
“Certsure and NAPIT understand that we can only improve the safety of electrical installation work by working together in a coordinated approach.
“We can only do this by assessing the competence of organisations and individuals first hand; monitoring their abilities to ensure they are working to the latest standards and industry requirements.”
The model for registering electrical contractors has been in operation for more than 60 years. During that time, it has evolved into the Electrotechnical Assessment Specification (EAS), which has been developed by bodies representing the electrical installation industry and consumer safety interests to enhance the standard of safety of electrical installation work within the domestic, industrial and commercial sectors.
This industry led approach has demonstrably worked, because of the balance it provides between electrical safety regulation, protection for consumers and cost burden of regulation on companies.
During this time, the UK Government has had little reason to intervene because of the ability of the industry to work together and solve any issues.
Emma added: “We have demonstrated in the past our ability to work together to find the right solution.
“By engaging more minds and considering issues in a broader context we can achieve greater results.
“We believe this is the right approach to take and are open to working with others to find the right solution for the greater good.”
Article Published:
18 September 2017
registered competent person electricalcompetent personnapit