Part P inspection from South Gloucestershire council

[tim_s_uk]

I've submitted a building notice to South Gloucestershire council (see this thread).

My latest e-mail to them was still polite and contained the following:

I have arranged for a local NAPIT registered electrician to inspect and certify the work, as per your e-mail below. My understanding of the Building Regulations Part P is that Building Control will pay for this inspection, and I will pay for any consultancy required from the same electrician. Please confirm my understanding.

The reply I received was as follows:

Unfortunately, as stated previously, South Gloucestershire Council is not currently in a position to provide inspections of notifiable electrical works carried out by installers not qualified to issue BS 7671 completion certificates, nor are we able to pay for inspections carried out by electricians not working under contract to SGC. The basic requirement of the Building Regulations in this respect is that you (as the Applicant) retain responsibility for demonstrating compliance with the standards laid down by BS 7671.

Has anyone successfully managed to get SGC to pay for an inspection? I'll contact them again and ask if they can arrange an inspection under contract to SGC.

I'll follow this with an extract from the Wiki, provided by BAS in the other thread.

 

[tim_s_uk]

I find this link is intermittent, but it does work:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...ionalcircularletters/buildingregulationspart/

There have been reports that some local authorities are asking householders to have electrical installation work inspected, tested and certificated by someone other than the person carrying out the work. Section 33(2) of the Building Act 1984 (which would give power to local authorities to require persons carrying out building work to carry out such reasonable tests, at the person's expense, of or in connection with the work for the purpose of enabling local authorities to ascertain whether the work complies with the requirements of the Regulations) has not been commenced. This means in our opinion that local authorities do not have the power to require householders to retain an electrician to test and certificate the work in accordance with BS 7671. Local authorities which have adopted such a practice should discontinue it immediately.

Additionally, the new Approved Document P now explicitly says

1.26 The building control body may choose to carry out the inspection and testing itself, or to contract out some or all of the work to a specialist body which will then carry out the work on its behalf. Building control bodies will carry out the necessary inspection and testing at their expense, not at the householders' expense.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Unfortunately, as stated previously, South Gloucestershire Council is not currently in a position to provide inspections of notifiable electrical works carried out by installers not qualified to issue BS 7671 completion certificates,

Well - they've not had long to prepare for the extra responsibilities imposed on them by Part P, have they?

I wonder what they think the fee that they charge is for, if they aren't able to provide any services having charged it, and I wonder what the District Auditor would think of them charging for services they can't provide. In your shoes I'd be tempted to ask them what they think he would say, and cc the District Solicitor.

nor are we able to pay for inspections carried out by electricians not working under contract to SGC.

Now that's fair enough, and hopefully it implies that they will pay for inspections carried out by electricians who are working under contract to SGC...

The basic requirement of the Building Regulations in this respect is that you (as the Applicant) retain responsibility for demonstrating compliance with the standards laid down by BS 7671.

That's not strictly true. Whilst complying with BS7671 is the most sensible way of complying with P1, you don't have to do it. The Building Regulations do not impose a requirement to comply with BS7671, and Approved Document P explicitly states that you don't have to. In practice not following the principles of BS7671 would be more trouble than it's worth, but you aren't able to comply with it fully because you aren't able to test, so you cannot demonstrate compliance. That's why you pay a fee for them to come and check your work to prove compliance.

 

[tim_s_uk]

Thanks for the help BAS.

I sent my latest e-mail to the building control team leader, with the following statements:

I am not registered with a Part P competent person scheme, and as such the local authorities are allowed to test whether the completed electrical installation complies with the regulations. As I understand it, Section 33(2) of the Building Act 1984 has not been commenced, which means I am not liable for the certification of the work in accordance with BS 7671. Section 1.26 of part P1 of the building regulations 2000 states that the necessary inspection and testing will be carried out at the expense of the building control body.

This resulted in a quick and friendly response, including the following:

Our electrician will not carry out a test but will undertake a periodic inspection on completion, in order to confirm to us that the installation is adequate under part P of the regulations. There will be no further expense to you.

He then went on to explain how I should arrange for the first fix and second fix inspections.

So it turns out that talking to the right person and quoting the appropriate regulations are all that's required to get SGC to pay for the inspection.