The Part P scam

[Johnmelad502]

 

[kevindgas]

I expect Sellafield employs car park attendants, canteen cooks and office cleaners, but I don't suppose they are any different to any other car park attendants, canteen cooks or office cleaners.

other than glowing in the dark they probably aren't

 

[Milligan]

OIC, i thought it had turned into a 2 man job

will you bother to write to you MP about the disgraceful mess this industry is in?

I think you mis-understood Mr.Sheds. He didn't say it was sensible as a whole, he merely stated 'how it is'.

Just for my own curiosity could you explain, in simple, terms how you would do this job? Im interested.

Before your current state of mind relaxes, please write to your MP about this.

Pg 290, readers digest DIY manual, I would be interested in your critique of the text. I am particularly fond of the diagram showing 1 cable running from the CU, through a control unit to the back of the Oven/Cooker. But my favourite has to be the box "Understading an electric cooker circuit". Good thing I went to University, those comprehensive skills sure come in handy.

If I misunderstood Mr Sheds I apologise, I merely took his response as a challenge and parried accordingly. However if he doesn't think that people will "just put a plug on it and plug it in" to avoid having to notify and readily accepts this is a safe practice, well, that's just dandy.

I shan't waste a letter to my own MP on the basis that there is an election coming up so I may well write a letter to Mr Cameron instead as I feel it may have more traction.

Dear Mr Cameron,

I'd like to bring to your attention a matter which has vexed me greatly of late....

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It has to do with lords and mp's approving the legislation in support of their sponsered back handers from their approved authorising authorities - simples.

Can you provide evidence that MPs and peers have been taking bribes from NICEIC & the ECA?

 

[Johnmelad502]

It has to do with lords and mp's approving the legislation in support of their sponsered back handers from their approved authorising authorities - simples.

Can you provide evidence that MPs and peers have been taking bribes from NICEIC & the ECA?

Can you provide evidence thay they have not?

 

[Paul_C]

Please provide a breakdown of all of the costs incurred and show why it should be a heck of a lot less.

What do we actually have involved with a simple job like this? A notification submitted and filed, payment passed to accounting for deposit, a site visit by the inspector which is likely to take maybe 15 minutes (assuming it's not one of the LABC's trying to insist you must spend even more money on a third-party inspection), then another few minutes' paperwork for the certificate. Allow for traveling time, the couple of minutes spent by assorted office staff opening, filing, etc. and we have perhaps 2-employee-hours' worth of time, plus travel costs and whatever tiny amount you wish to allocate out of overall operating expenses for this short period. You think that should come to over £100?

And even if it does, how can such high fees possibly be justified against the small cost of the job actually being done by the homeowner?

What drastic action do you suggest?

It's not a case of not doing any or all of the things you list at all; it's a case of doing them far more efficiently and cheaply than they are done at the moment. In the case of lighting the council building, for example, my local council could start by turning off the lights when nobody's there. You can drive past at 10 p.m. and there are lights blazing brightly from every window. Training doesn't have to consist of sending employees on courses at £400 a time for things they don't really need in their job, especially when some of the courses are so banal it's ridiculous or when they're not even providing accurate information. Office furniture and similar should be purchased for value and function, not for fancy design, and offices shouldn't automatically be refurbished at great expense after only 3 or 4 years when there was absolutely nothing wrong with the existing furniture. So it goes on.....

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I find it incredible that some people think it perfectly reasonable to pay £190 (or more) to the local council to do a job which costs £20 in materials in one's own home.

Do you mean reasonable as in "£190 is a reasonable sum to charge" or reasonable as in "the use of Building Regulations to ensure electrical safety is reasonable"?

Especially when council tax has already doubled over the last decade yet the services it's supposed to provide have become progressively worse.

If you think that Building Control fees should be lower because of Council Tax rises then then you clearly believe that Council Tax payers should be paying for people to have private building work inspected. Doesn't seem fair, to me.

 

[LiamPope]

BAS, if you think the LABC fees are so reasonable, why do you do notifiable work without notifying and paying the fees?

Liam

 

[Paul_C]

Do you mean reasonable as in "£190 is a reasonable sum to charge" or reasonable as in "the use of Building Regulations to ensure electrical safety is reasonable"?

The former. Although seeing as the stated aim of Part P was to improve electrical safety and after 5 years there is no evidence to suggest that any such improvement has occurred, is it reasonable for Part P to continue to exist?

If you think that Building Control fees should be lower because of Council Tax rises then then you clearly believe that Council Tax payers should be paying for people to have private building work inspected. Doesn't seem fair, to me.

And paying £190 to the council to have your £20 job inspected is fair? There are numerous aspects of local councils which could be argued to be unfair. For council tax you could start, for example, with the very basic issue of asking why somebody who has worked hard to live in a £300,000 house has to pay considerably more than somebody living in a £70,000 house when he's getting exactly the same services (or lack of) for his money.

I was just pointing out that the huge increase in council tax over recent years is not exactly making people feel kindly toward then being told they need to pay more extortionate amounts for other things. They are all related.

 

[Spark123]

There used to be some on the site, but it's been a while.

Used to be some what on site?

Calder Hall used to generate power, the reactors are still there but now in the stage of decommisioning.
Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing facility.

What does Homer Simpson do?

Homer Simpson works at Springfields nuclear power plant, the namesake just outside Preston is afaik a fuel assembly plant

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[mikhailfaradayski]

Strangely enough, i don't have a copy of readers digest to look at, would you mind scanning/posting here so we can all look to see what advice it gives?

Does it go as far as to tell you what tools and materials are required and how to test and certificate the work appropriately?
Attendance to university may or equally may not be proof of some kind of relevant knowledge.

What was your degree relating to?

If I misunderstood Mr Sheds I apologise, I merely took his response as a challenge and parried accordingly.

you wouldn't be the first, however, no matter how much you disagree with what he told you, he is just telling you 'like it is'. He did not make the rules, but he does understand them and has helped you by telling you directly.

However if he doesn't think that people will "just put a plug on it and plug it in" to avoid having to notify and readily accepts this is a safe practice, well, that's just dandy.

i really don't know if that is what he thinks, i happen to doubt that he would support any actions which may cause danger to the users of an installation, but why don't you ask him?

I shan't waste a letter to my own MP on the basis that there is an election coming up so I may well write a letter to Mr Cameron instead as I feel it may have more traction.

Dear Mr Cameron,

I'd like to bring to your attention a matter which has vexed me greatly of late....

sounds like a great idea, why don't you do us all a favour.....
Id love to see a copy of it, if it is a powerful letter, would you mind if i 'robbed' it, stick my own details on it and send it to Cameron aswell?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

What do we actually have involved with a simple job like this? A notification submitted and filed, payment passed to accounting for deposit, a site visit by the inspector which is likely to take maybe 15 minutes (assuming it's not one of the LABC's trying to insist you must spend even more money on a third-party inspection), then another few minutes' paperwork for the certificate. Allow for traveling time, the couple of minutes spent by assorted office staff opening, filing, etc. and we have perhaps 2-employee-hours' worth of time, plus travel costs and whatever tiny amount you wish to allocate out of overall operating expenses for this short period. You think that should come to over £100?

I don't think you have any experience whatsoever, do you, of environments where you have to charge people out at a rate which reflects their actual running costs, taking into account how many chargeable hours/days you get out of them allowing for holidays, sickness, training, admin etc, and adding in the cost of providing them with a work environment - land and office buildings and furniture and equipment to be paid for, the running costs of the buildings, the general organisational infrastructure to be paid for, pensions, training - the list goes on and on and on, and if you were running a business and you didn't want to go bust you could not dismiss all of those as trivial, or you would go bust. Even at reasonably high utilisation rates a rule of thumb is around 3x what you actually pay the person.

Also LABCs have to operate with a fairly coarse system of price bands based on the value of the works, and they cannot rely on never having to make more than one visit to a site, and they cannot rely on it only taking a few hours.

And even if it does, how can such high fees possibly be justified against the small cost of the job actually being done by the homeowner?

Again you need to make a distinction between whether £190 is a reasonable amount to charge for the activities of a Building Control dept (I think it probably is) and whether the whole idea is reasonable given the small cost of the job actually being done. The two are very different things.

And as I said - if you asked an electrician to come along, check your design calculations, check where and how you had installed the cables, run tests on the circuit and produce a report to say that it was OK, how much do you think you'd have to pay?

It's not a case of not doing any or all of the things you list at all; it's a case of doing them far more efficiently and cheaply than they are done at the moment. In the case of lighting the council building, for example, my local council could start by turning off the lights when nobody's there. You can drive past at 10 p.m. and there are lights blazing brightly from every window.

Ok -fine - how much will that save? Councils provide services such as police, fire, recycling, refuse collection and removal, schools, leisure centres, park and ride schemes, parks and open spaces, street cleaning, subsidising of public transport, tourism, museums, social housing grants, housing and council tax benefits, environmental health and food safety in pubs, restaurants and shops, planning services, support for voluntary groups, meals on wheels, facilities for young people, adapting homes for disabled people, play centres for children, cctv installation, sports facilities, issuing taxi licences, flood defences, and many others.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't turn the lights off, of course they should, and of course lots of small savings can add up, but really - do you honestly think that turning them off would bring about any reduction in your council tax, let alone a significant one?

Training doesn't have to consist of sending employees on courses at £400 a time for things they don't really need in their job, especially when some of the courses are so banal it's ridiculous or when they're not even providing accurate information.

Is that what they do? Do you know that they do?

Office furniture and similar should be purchased for value and function, not for fancy design,

You'll find it is.

and offices shouldn't automatically be refurbished at great expense after only 3 or 4 years when there was absolutely nothing wrong with the existing furniture.

You'll find that they are not.

So it goes on.....

I think that what really goes on is your dislike of the whole idea of there being governments at all, be they local or national. I think you're a bit like those American nutcases who see the frightful "dead hand of big government" everywhere they look, or those wallies in the Taxpayers Alliance.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

BAS, if you think the LABC fees are so reasonable, why do you do notifiable work without notifying and paying the fees?

Do you mean "reasonable" as in "if a service is to be offered it is reasonable to charge enough for it so that the council does not lose money or have to use taxpayers money to fund it" or as in "it is reasonable to have a regime where people have to pay fees which are orders of magnitude greater than the cost of the job"?

There's an enormous difference, and I'm amazed that so many people don't seem to get it.

 

[Gees]

Wouldnt the local council have to do ALL of the above, even if there was no work to do?

It surely cannot cost an extra 100 and odd quid to process each job. Thats quite a few hours work for a council employee, unless they are on BIG wages..