I do think it is insurance which controls who can and who can't do work on an installation. Yet seems relatively easy to get insurance I refused to do some work in a school as I had no insurance and it would just cost too much for a one off job. However the guy was able to include me on his policy without having to see any of my qualifications and that does raise the question as to who insurance companies will issue both public liability and Professional Indemnity Insurance to?
I have never tried to claim from either type and I wonder how easy? So if I say a building is safe and I miss noting an earth wire is missing how easy would it be to claim from either me direct or my insurance?
It is so easy for a socket to be behind furniture during an inspection and later be exposed. Or for some one to fiddle with after the inspection. Now the inspection form is only valid when presented together with a schedule of test results so if I miss a socket then it should be easy to show as it would be missing from the list of results. Or would it?
We only show results for a circuit not every socket found on that circuit and unless given a schedule listing all sockets before starting clearly no electrician could be held responsible for something he was unaware existed.
So to claim one would need to show there was something very wrong with the inspection. However if it's criminal activity then the insurance would not cover. So what would it cover?
When one looks at some of the cases it's normally a host of items not just one. The guy being killed because the electrician who fitted the central heating boiler put a lose wire which he thought was a earth bonding wire onto the earth bond spade terminal but it was in fact an unused wire from normally closed part of a switch resulted in the pipework becoming live when the boiler was off. Since he only tested with everything switched on he did not find his error.
Had that been all likely he would have got away with it, but he was called back because some one got a shock. And the court said having been alerted that there was an error he should have done more tests.
It was found there was no earth connected to the socket the boiler was plugged into, which coupled with the error, resulted in the death. So here there was documented evidence that he (the electrician) had made a mistake. However it's rare to have something to prove who made the error. Specially with a EICR or even simple PAT testing.
Clearly with testing nothing should be wrong in the first place and where it is 90% of the time it is visible. Other than a visible problem it would be hard to prove for example that an earth bond bolt was lose at time of testing and it should have been found.
Something like a final ring with open circuit because of a removed lenght of cable OK might be able to prove. But miss a figure of 8 installation it would be hard to show it was missed because of negligence or more to the point injury or damage was the result.
When my son had new paperwork and as a result he made an error. It was not a problem with the house, but just wrong figures in the spaces provided which resulted on paper work. The house would fail as the loop impedance was too high. Whole block of houses before he noted error, and he corrected on all the new ones. He had intended to tell his boss, but forgot until months latter. This paperwork went to his employer, from them to the scheme provider, and from them to the LABC, all who failed to highlight the error. So if there had really been an error with the house, and some one injured, who would take the blame? Four people at least should have flagged up the error, likely three insurance companies, and likely the courts would have to proportion the blame.
I watch some of the builders from hell TV stuff. Never have I seen the LACB taken to task for not highlighting earlier the errors made. To my mind we pay the LABC a lot of money but it would seem they do very little for that money. Social services are picked up many times for errors in inspecting and testing but not LABC why?
What we need is a licence. And a points system like with driving licence and over set amount of points and one can't trade. Part P is nothing. My son was employed by a Part P registered firm and did the inspection and testing for six sites because he had a C&G2391 but never was he inspected to see if he was doing it right. I am sure he did it right except for paperwork slip up. But 9 months with that firm and never tested. Same with many other firms he worked for. OK sole traders are inspected but large firms seem to get away with it.
