Gas Safe wants your money

[unguided1]

Hi guys

I dunno what this detritus is but I have recieved this from Capita Sorry I mean Gas Safe any way I avent read it properly cos I cant be bothered all I saw was the fact that again they are asking for more money so If you are happy paying more and more to be in you chosen trade then fine keep paying, If your not happy then voice yer opinions


Access to normative standards and documents for smaller Gas Safe registered businesses

Following the groundbreaking agreement between BSI, IGEM and UKLPG to provide smaller businesses with access to the essential industry standards all Gas Safe registered businesses must work to, work has been underway to develop a simple subscription system to bring these documents to engineers.

A number of industry groups and individuals have lobbied for many years to bring down the costs, particularly for smaller businesses and sole traders. It has been estimated that a complete set of all the current industry standards could cost up to £17,000, putting them out of reach for many smaller businesses. By agreeing to reduce the costs for smaller businesses it is hoped this will make it easier for individual engineers to access this essential information.

Gas Safe Register has been asked to host the system on its website as we can provide a secure environment and have systems in place to manage payments. Testing has now been completed and the system is now available to access:

What is available?
More than 80 individual essential Standards documents (32 IGEM, 36 BSI, 16 UKLPG) covering domestic, commercial and industrial gas installations are available on the system. As new standards are issued they will be added to the database.

Where can I find it?
To subscribe to the system, log into your online account at:
www.User PlumbersForums.net Instead - Copy the content, don't link to it.co.uk/engineers using your User ID and password. Click on ‘Standards Subscriptions’ on the left hand side of the page. You will then be taken through the subscription and payment options.

What can I do with the documents?
Documents can be read on screen on the secure website or they can be printed. Electronic copies cannot be saved to your hard drive – this is partly to reduce the risk of pirating but also to ensure that the version you see is always up to date.

What does this cost?
You can subscribe from £75.00 per year if your business has 1 – 5 engineers. (If you subscribe for three years the cost is £180.00)
If your business has 6 -10 engineers then a subscription is £150 per year (or £360 for three years)

A full FAQ on the Access to Standards scheme is available on the website.

Yours sincerely

Simon Ayers
Gas Safe Register



This email and any attachment to it are confidential. Unless you are the intended recipient, you may not use, copy or disclose either the message or any information contained in the message. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this email and notify the sender immediately.

Any views or opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender only, unless otherwise stated. All copyright in any Capita material in this email is reserved.

All emails, incoming and outgoing, may be recorded by Capita and monitored for legitimate business purposes.

Capita exclude all liability for any loss or damage arising or resulting from the receipt, use or transmission of this email to the fullest extent permitted by law.

​

 

[ecowarm]

Yes I got that too

 

[unguided1]

so does that mean I cant use me trusty old corgi book anymore circa 1990????? its probably older than some of the gas safe engineers on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Puddle]

I think it is a great achievement to get this set up and at £75 the cost is not over the top,under £1.50 a week(or just over a quid if taken over 3 years), for all these industry standards,updated as need be,all in one place at your figure tips
Many are quick to take cheap shots at gas safe ,accusing them for not doing enough,lets hope they are just as quick to say well done here for providing the platform required

imho

 

[unguided1]

sorry puddle but I have to disagree with you on this one do the appliance manufacturers not give us enough information in their manuals. I already pay Gas Safe nearly £200 a year for a plastic card that no one wants to look at and a load of magasines that I do not have time to read.
I am assuming that what they are offering is supposedly essential for the safety of my customers and the way I run my business, well I say if it was truly that essential they would be paying me for my time to read it understand and implement it, thats what usually happens when someone tells me what they want me to do, they pay me.
I say this industry is the wrong way round at the moment

 

[REDSAW]

just read my email too,

print them off, bang on ebay and make £17,000 ono......

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/gas-safety-register-forum/22169-about-time-too.html
tamz posted the same last night

 

[unguided1]

http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/gas-safety-register-forum/22169-about-time-too.html
tamz posted the same last night

yeah I didnt realise that tamz had got there first

 

[diamondgas]

65,000 businesses and 130,000 engineers registered with Gas Safe... Share £17,000 for the cost of all the documents ,, hmmmmmmm. If you charged an extra £1/engineer you'd generate £130k ... I wonder how much it costs Gas safe to set up the web facility for us?

 

[Bartdude]

This should be available to all registered installers as part of the membership fee.If Gas Safe is about ensuring correct working practices then we shouldn't have to pay to read them. I would understand an slight increase in the yearly fee to cover the costs but £75 extra per year is too much.And why is the price doubled if the company has more than 6 engineers?That's just profiteering.

 

[tamz]

I think they have had to negotiate this as they (gas safe) do not (don't think they are allowed to) produce books like corgi did.
As i have already said, how can you be expected to work to a standard when the only time most see them is during an ACS resit.
They should be freely available to all in the trade but at least this is a start. Not many could say they can't afford a pound odds a week.

 

[mickie]

they take a direct debit from you once a week do they ?

 

[tamz]

Stick it in a biscuit tin and save up for it. Cheaper than a coffee a week. Seriously, if you can't afford this you should think about giving it up.

 

[Gray0689]

Stick it in a biscuit tin and save up for it. Cheaper than a coffee a week. Seriously, if you can't afford this you should think about giving it up.

Agree

 

[mickie]

its probably not so much about being able to afford it, more, i'd rather spend my money on something else..

 

[unguided1]

sorry guys but I disagree If it is your only overhead then no its not expensive but why am I paying nearly £200 a year for I have seen the gas safe inspector once since they started I get a plastic card ,magazines that I do not have time to read an unusable website site as any time I want to register something I have to phone them up.

I am taxed by the government and taxed by these leaches, I have no argument if I actualy get value for money but I do not feel that I do

 

[tamz]

I would rather spend my money on drink and wild women but i have a responsible company to run monday to friday. As such i need to know the standards.

Now over the years i have spent probably over 5k buying standards that are relevant to the work i do because i need to know exactly how it should be done. Now i'm not saying that everything i or the guys i employ have ever done is 100% as it should have been, but i as their employer i know every rule in the book and can cover their rse as need be.

If you are doing this for a living it is your responsibility to know the standard to work to. You may have had an excuse before (but that was never an excuse) that it was too expensive but that is now no longer the case.

If you would rather spend your money on something else, say the 3 year £180. What can you buy for that? 2 nights in a travel lodge? A weekend ticket to the pleasure beach?
Get real. You do this for a living.

 

[tamz]

sorry guys but I disagree If it is your only overhead then no its not expensive but why am I paying nearly £200 a year for I have seen the gas safe inspector once since they started

I have never seen one for ????? 6 -7 years!

 

[unguided1]

Hi Tamz and there lies the difference you have a company and blokes to run where as I am self employed any costs that are passed onto me are ultimately passed onto my customers making my jobs as expenive as yours, as an employer you do have a lot more responsibilities than my self, but that is your choice, I do not have employees because I do not want the hassle that goes with it, the government claims that they are going to cut down on the red tape and beurocracy. seems to me they are making more and making us pay for it too.

 

[mickie]

ive never bought a standard whatever that is and never will, isnt the gas safety book enough ?

 

[diamondgas]

For me personally I can afford it, it's more the principle. Yet something else wanting money off me!

Do I need them? Questionable, I can count on one hand how many times I've looked at a BSI or IGEM document, 4 or 5 depending on how many times the ACS and re-sits have been going!

Personally I believe my money will be better spent phoning Gas Safe if I really have a burning question or visiting here where at least one or two of you look like you're gonna buy into it! I don't need access to these documents to prove my credibility all I believe I need is the know how of where to access them!

That is not a knock at anyone buying into this facility, whoever does must feel the importance too!

 

[unguided1]

I agree Diamond it is certainly not the fact that I cannot afford £75 but these professional bodies are leaching money out of all of us for very little return, I could be one of these plumbers earning 50K a year if I werent heamoriging money like a suicide victim whos just slashed their wrists

 

[bert large]

I agree Diamond it is certainly not the fact that I cannot afford £75 but these professional bodies are leaching money out of all of us for very little return, I could be one of these plumbers earning 50K a year if I werent heamoriging money like a suicide victim whos just slashed their wrists

Thats the way of it over past ten or fifteen years though Unguided. These parasitic "governing bodies" have sprung up everywhere. Gas Safe is obviously there as there are obvious safety implications but there are many others, FENSA for instance has appeared to ensure new windows "comply", all you get is someone in a sharp suit come along, check the window has a stamp in the corner, tick a box & ask for £150 or more,
It is scandalous but the UK has generated all these people that can do nothing more than push a pen & shuffle papers. The government is trying to generate jobs for them all, off the back of hardworking trademen. Makes my blood boil. Gas work notification is exactly the same.

 

[unguided1]

My main problem is I am extremly frustrated in the fact that I am not very good at getting my whole point across the whole point of Gas Safe is in the long term good for our industry but the physical cost for encouraging small business is discouraging especialy when like my work where I cover all aspects of heating and plumbing

 

[GasSafePR]

Hello all

There are a few myths and misunderstanding worth clarifying here:

Under the gas regulations all registered engineers have a duty to keep themselves up to date with technical and legislative information. That has always been the case and was the same under the previous registration body but the rules don't come from us.

Gas Safe register produce Technical Bulletins which are in our magazine and on the website and which are freely available to registered engineers. These summarise the key points on things like industry standards but aren't designed to replace them.

Industry bodies and individuals e.g. ARGI have lobbied for many years to bring down the costs of Gas Industry Standards for many years. The Standards bodies have now responded.

Gas Safe is hosting the system on our website because we can provide some data security (the standards are in the area of the site which registered engineers have to log in to) and because we have the systems in place to process subscription payments on behalf of the standards bodies.

As we said in our communications - this is not an additional cost on top of registration, this is an entirely seperate and optional service we have been asked to provide to help smaller registered businesses keep up to date with changes.

There is really no more to it than that.

GasSafePR

 

[unguided1]

Well I still feel its not enough, I do not read the magazines that are sent to me as I rarely find the time and I find that the website for me is unusable as I can never find what I am looking for when I have tried to use the site, even if I can get passed the damned password. I was extremely dissapointed along with many heating engineers when we were forced to become Corgi registered and I am still dissapointed now, I do not feel and have never felt that the register was their to protect me or to help me, but to force the lone business man out of business along with the fact that our industry was finally splintered with the creation of Oftec and Heatas.

Many engineers here will not feel like this because they are new to the industry and have grown up with it but you talk to many of the old guys and they will tell you how they felt hounded out of their chosen trade by the creation of these so called professional bodies Now the same is happening with the creation of the MCS (which of course you do not care about because it has nothing to do with you) The self employed are being forced out because of this rediculous QMS and high costings once again allowing the big businesses to take control and forcing the self employed guys if they want work in their chosen profesion out unless they want to specialise. I for one do not want to specialise but because of the way these professional bodies leach money out of us left right and centre this is what invariably happens.

So who are these nameless people who have spent the last twenty years splintering my chosen profession making me feel as though I am being hounded out of extinction, because I and my size 10 boots would love to know because I really really want to give them the kicking of their lives

 

[diamondgas]

Hey Unguided1 ... Passionate response.

I stand back and watch as we have surreptitiously been overtaken by FEAR driven bureaucracy! Alas you go with the flow or step aside! Don't let it get to you matey.

 

[unguided1]

I promise I wont let it get to me but I tell yer now I am sick and tired of being kicked down at every turn and I want some proper answers and not the pathetic excuse answers of a well oiled back hand accepting politician where they rip yer guts out whilst telling you what a wonderfull job they are doing and how its good for you, So its about time we had some truth who are these nameless backstabbers

 

[unguided1]

As per my other thread 2 days have passed and still no answer not the sort of response you expect from a fellow forum member I mean its not as if the questions I have asked are that difficult to answer or at least to get some sort of response to

 

[diamondgas]

he/she is PR unguided1, if you're on about Gas Safe PR? Silence speaks volumes though! Probably scheduled a meeting to discuss how best to respond .. Our money paying for their time of course!

I'd assume Gas Safe produce records of there accounts? It'd be interesting to know exactly how our money is spent!

 

[quality]

isn`t It is supposed to be a non profit organization cough cough

 

[Puddle]

Am I missing something here,gas safe are not responsible for the regulations coming into force,they just have been appointed to run the gas safe register and assist in the policing of the regulations,if you have a gripe about the set up of the regulations indeed laws of the land relating to the gas industry,get on to your mp and government departments

Gas safe officially is no position to comment on the above and have responded to the issues in question/thread topic and explained there involvement quite clearly

Are we saying this service should not be supplied because it costs money,were gas safe to say,''we will not provide our set up unless all is free'',thus probably provide nothing or forcing the bodies to go else were ,using a platform that would then cost us more for the documentation,by providing there existing infrastructure ,they have kept the price down,monies collected is not all theirs,will be no doubt dispensed between the agencies concerned to cover costs

Back to gas registration,I was voluntarily reg before legislation,let it lapse when I came to London, as no one here was and at the time was mad the way everything was handled ,not necessarily the end result (we older plumbers are usually very free spirited anyway and hate restrictions)however we are now in 2011 and legislation has been passed and the system has been established and gas safe are part of that system,sit back and look at their role and how they carry that out and what charges they make to carry out there responsibilities,yes things can improve here and there but that is the same all over(there is no way everyone will be happy about every issue) over all,if we are honest,they are carrying the role out in a very satisfactory manor,as said many things they get criticised for ,are in fact not in their control or just criticised for the fact they are linked to the big'C'
We have a professional body because we are now classed as being professional,with this goes cost,therefore many will attack the system just because of this fact and non other and there is no advantage to any of us committing self harm

We are not going back to the old unregistered days,so pull up your braces and work out how to improved the industry within the environment we are in,this is what gas safe have done again,in making these documents available to us at a affordable price and again ,I thank them for that

And just to make things clear,I am not connected to gas safe or feel a need to lick their butt just a normal gas plumber,who looks out from my van window,see's cost of membership very reasonable as the renewables guys are finding,the gas mag has come on leaps and bounds and would recommend everyone finds the time to read it,with its inclusion of up to date bulletins and dare I say it,articles have become readable and interesting,the web site has improved a lot and I get around it ok,like any thing you have to get use to it,maybe others have not used for a while,if so,get on there,will be surprised at improvements.
I reregistered this year,so easy ,thought I must have made a mistake
The main area I think they should be looking at now is the lack of experience new trained members have under their belt,this is a difficult situation and know they are monitoring closely,which is one of the reasons old timers may not see an inspector as they are concentrating,quite rightly on policing this area

maybe a bit more of the glass half full not half empty attitude

:rant:
imho

 

[unguided1]

isn`t It is supposed to be a non profit organization cough cough

Nah Corgi was supposedly non profit company, but gas safe is run by a company that has to give dividens to its shareholders

 

[unguided1]

Am I missing something here,gas safe are not responsible for the regulations coming into force,they just have been appointed to run the gas safe register and assist in the policing of the regulations,if you have a gripe about the set up of the regulations indeed laws of the land relating to the gas industry,get on to your mp and government departments

Gas safe officially is no position to comment on the above and have responded to the issues in question/thread topic and explained there involvement quite clearly

Are we saying this service should not be supplied because it costs money,were gas safe to say,''we will not provide our set up unless all is free'',thus probably provide nothing or forcing the bodies to go else were ,using a platform that would then cost us more for the documentation,by providing there existing infrastructure ,they have kept the price down,monies collected is not all theirs,will be no doubt dispensed between the agencies concerned to cover costs

Back to gas registration,I was voluntarily reg before legislation,let it lapse when I came to London, as no one here was and at the time was mad the way everything was handled ,not necessarily the end result (we older plumbers are usually very free spirited anyway and hate restrictions)however we are now in 2011 and legislation has been passed and the system has been established and gas safe are part of that system,sit back and look at their role and how they carry that out and what charges they make to carry out there responsibilities,yes things can improve here and there but that is the same all over(there is no way everyone will be happy about every issue) over all,if we are honest,they are carrying the role out in a very satisfactory manor,as said many things they get criticised for ,are in fact not in their control or just criticised for the fact they are linked to the big'C'
We have a professional body because we are now classed as being professional,with this goes cost,therefore many will attack the system just because of this fact and non other and there is no advantage to any of us committing self harm

We are not going back to the old unregistered days,so pull up your braces and work out how to improved the industry within the environment we are in,this is what gas safe have done again,in making these documents available to us at a affordable price and again ,I thank them for that

And just to make things clear,I am not connected to gas safe or feel a need to lick their butt just a normal gas plumber,who looks out from my van window,see's cost of membership very reasonable as the renewables guys are finding,the gas mag has come on leaps and bounds and would recommend everyone finds the time to read it,with its inclusion of up to date bulletins and dare I say it,articles have become readable and interesting,the web site has improved a lot and I get around it ok,like any thing you have to get use to it,maybe others have not used for a while,if so,get on there,will be surprised at improvements.
I reregistered this year,so easy ,thought I must have made a mistake
The main area I think they should be looking at now is the lack of experience new trained members have under their belt,this is a difficult situation and know they are monitoring closely,which is one of the reasons old timers may not see an inspector as they are concentrating,quite rightly on policing this area

maybe a bit more of the glass half full not half empty attitude

:rant:
imho

Hi puddle excellent rant and compeletly justified
I agree that Gas Safe are not responsible for making the regulations but I want to know who actually writes them also Gas Safe I assume are there not just to administer the register but also to represent me and if not why not. Many times I have written to MPs and met with them over many things and I am afraid to say that I never met a compitant MP yet, that was able to do anything at all.


I am also not saying that the register should be done away with at all, but why does our industry have to be so splintered, the point I am trying to get across is that there should be a register that encompasses the whole of the industry, and not just parts of it, my reason for saying this is when you talk to joe public they immediatley assume that because you are GS you must be a fully qualified heating engineer and plumber, and this is not the case in many instances
therefore I strongly beleive that their should only be one body and one fee that encompasses gas, oil, solid fuel, renewables, heating and plumbing. My reason for saying this is that when you turn up on a job and yer charging a customer £250 a day the customer believes that the money you are charging is going straight into your pocket, when the reality is you are charging to cover the cost of retrainning every 5 years and covering the cost of all the bodies you have to be a member of, along with all other associated costs.

 

[unguided1]

and still no response from Gas Safe