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



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[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!