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Part P: legislation from Hell

Last modified: Tue Aug 21 10:20:55 2007

Are you broadly in agreement with the thoughts expressed in this article? If so, please sign my on-line petition to the Prime Minister. It will only take two minutes of your time! Thanks.

I can remain silent no longer. I've been doing my best not to get involved in the subject of Part P of the Building Regulations, but I just can't stop myself. I'm just getting my soapbox out... climbing on... Right. Here we go.

It was a quiet day in Hell and Satan, finding no damned souls in urgent need of torment, decided to exercise his diabolic powers over the Deputy Prime Minister's Office again. After all, it had been some time since he'd enjoyed foisting the apalling CORGI scheme on us, and the equally contemptible FENSTA, and he was looking for a new way to cause strife and discord. ``I know!'' Said the Price of Darkness to himself: ``I'll make it so that a person with 15 years' experience of electrical engineering can't change a lightbulb in his own home without involving the Local Authority. Won't that be fun?''. And so, from a seething pit in the darkest recess of his infernal kingdom, `Part P' was spawned.

In fact, I'm exaggerating slightly -- changing a lightbulb doesn't come under Part P, but almost any non-trivial electrical work does. Such work is now required to comply with BS7671, an extremely rigorous standard which is equally applicable to extensive industrial installations. As is so often the case, the Government could have implemented a scheme that would have genuinely helped to fulfil its stated objective -- improving electrical safety in dwellings -- in a sensible and measured way, but chose not to. It chose, instead, to put in place a half-hearted, barely coherent piece of legislation that will inconvenience conscientious homeowners and small businesses, while having no impact at all on the army of cowboy electricians out there.

The problem, you see, is that it will become an offence to do any but the most trivial works without involving the local Building Control officials, unless you can show that you have been approved to self-certify your work to BS7671. And the only people who will be able to self-certify are -- you guessed it -- employees of established electrical contractors. There is no genuine, independent test for competence -- no examination, for example. Approval to self-certify can only be given by a small number of trade bodies, like the NICEIC, which are run by people who have a strong vested interested in keeping self-certification approval within their own membership.
      What this all means in practice is that a person recently out of technical college, who works for a established electrical installer, will be able to self-certify, while a person who has been involved in electrical installation for years and years, but who happens not to be working in that field at present, will have to get his work inspected by the local Building Control officers, at some expense and inconvenience.

In fact, none of the following people will be able to do electrical work, even in their own homes, without involving the Local Authority:

• Retired electricians, of any number of years' experience
• Academic electrical engineers
• Experienced, highly-qualified electrical engineers who have moved into other lines of work
• Qualified electricians who are currently unemployed
• In general, the people who write the IEE Wiring Regulations that are supposed to form the basis of good practice

But what really upsets me about Part P is that nobody at the DPMO, or the BSI, or the other organizations involved, even realizes that there is a problem. If somebody at the Ministry has said: ``Yes, we accept that some people are going to be inconvenienced for no good reason, but we have decided that on balance this is a price that has to be paid'', then fair enough. Sort of. But they haven't: nobody even understands that there is an issue to be addressed.
      I had a very disagreeable conversation about all this with a gentleman from the BSI recently. I tried to ask him, in as polite a way as possible, whether it struck anyone as odd that I couldn't install an unfused spur in my own home, despite having a first-class degree in electrical engineering and having worked on electrical systems from generating stations to heart pacemakers over a 15-year period. If he had said: ``Yes, this is an unfortunate consequence of a scheme which we hope on balance will be to the general good'', then I would have accepted that. But it was clear that he did not even understand the questions I was asking. It was as if not being an employee of an electrical contractor automatically renders a person incompentent, so the Government's responsibilities to competent non-employees do not even have to be addressed. When pressed, the BSI representative simply repeated the mantra that Part P was there to prevent untrained people from being let lose on people's domestic wiring. I could not get any kind of response to my objection that no amount of training, of any kind, would suffice unless you were an employee of an electrical contracting business.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that nothing needed to be done to improve the overall competence of electricians. There are some really dodgy operators out there. I'm also not suggesting that DIY electricians shouldn't be subject to some sort of control. What I am objecting to is the implicit assumption that the world can be divided into two distict classes of people:

(a) Competent professional electrical contractors, and
(b) Incompetents and cowboys.

It is the refusal to recognize that a third class, namely:

(b) Competent non-professionals, (or retired professionals, or unemployed professionals)

can even exist that I find so disturbing. Conceivably class (c) will be quite small, but legislation that discriminates against minorities is generally thought to be a bad thing these days.

What the Government should have done, I think, is to prohibit anybody from doing any kind of electrical installation work unless:

(a) That person can pass an examination, administered by an independent academic body, on electrical theory and the relevant British Standards, and
(b) That person's work (not his employer's business) has been inspected on at least one occasion by an independent inspector (not somebody who works for what is essentially an electrical contractor's trades union).

If you are a person who has been inconvenienced by Part P, please get in touch. Perhaps if we can muster enough opposition, this Godless monstrosity can be changed. If you are a person who works for the DPMO or the BSI or one of the cartel of organizations behind Part P, and you can come up with a coherent explanation why your certification scheme is better than mind, please get in touch as well. I'll happily publish any contributions here. [Two years later, and nobody has!]

Update -- August 2007 After many e-mail conversations on this subject, it occurs to me to wonder whether BS7671 is the proper standard for uncomplicated domestic electrical work. Two years ago I would have said so -- it is, at least, well known in the electrical industry and has been carefully thought out. But where household electrical installations are dangerous, they are usually catastrophically dangerous, because of a total disregard for common-sense satefy measures. For example, I've seen power rings extended into multiple, chained unfused spurs because the installer simply didn't understand why this was a bad idea. I've seen conductors twisted together and taped. I've seen speaker cable used for mains (``It's 20-amp cable, right?''). And so on. My feeling these days is that eliminating this kind of error would deal with a majority of domestic electrical risks, and that the full rigours of BS7671 are not necessary for anything but the most extensive electrical works. To take just one example, I can't think of any reason why the requirements for low-voltage cable segregation in BS7671 do anything to ensure safety in a domestic setting. Ease of maintenance, maybe -- but that isn't what the legislation is supposed to be about.

The Government complains about `cowboy' electricians, but surely the way to improve standards is to provide an achievable training and certification path for unskilled and low-skilled electricians? If you tell a typical builder who does electrical work as a sideline that he's got to become fully conversant in the intricacies of BS7671, you're going to get a hollow laugh. But if you ask for, say, attendance at a three-day training course followed a one-hour theory and one-hour practical exam, you might get a reasonable uptake.
      To take an analogy: I have trained to fly light aircraft. I wouldn't be allowed to fly a 747 -- the knowledge and experience requirements for this type of aviation are much, much more stringent, as they should be. But holders of private pilots' licences are deemed competent to fly small aircraft outside a commercial setting. Requiring routine domestic electrical work to comply with BS7671 in all it's particulars is like expecting private pilots to be competent to fly commercial passenger jets. Pilot's licences are graded, and to achieve licences for more difficult and higher-risk aviation requires the pilot to demonstrate higher levels of knowledge and experience. Why should the certification of electrical installers not be the same?
      If we take the requirements of BS7671 which are actually essential to safe domestic working on projects of modest scope, and leave out the stuff that concerns ease of maintenance, three-phase and higher-voltage systems, working with uninsulated conductors, rewirable fuses, and so on (and on, and on), we might end up with a training and certification syllabus that most people could actually get behind. There could, and should, be more stringent certification for people who want to undertake large projects, or work on industrial plant, and so on.

Update -- Jan 2006 It appears that the Government has been putting it about that the Part P scheme was forced on it by its obligations to comply with EC Directive 98/34. This Directive creates an obligation on member states of the EU to put in place schemes for notifying the EU of proposed new technical regulations. Of course, a change in the requirements for safety of electrical installation comes under the remit of this Directive, but the Directive concerns only notification. It does not create any obligation in respect of implementation. In any event, the Directive appears to address regulations concerning standards and equipment; it is arguable whether regulations concerning which persons can carry out work fall within its scope at all.

I've had quite a few more phone calls and e-mails from electrical contractors who are adversely affected by Part P since my last update. Mostly these are small business, who are finding it difficult to bear the additional costs of certification. Organizations like the NICEIC are currently charging approximately £900 per annum. If you're a sole trader with a turnover of, say, £18,000, that's 5% of your turnover. That's a big hit in your profits unless you pass the cost on to your customers, and passing the cost on the customer further widens the gap between the amounts charged by skilled professionals and by cowboys.

The adverse effects of Part P have started to make national news. For example, on May 15th the Telegraph ran an article on a Bristol electrician -- another sole trader -- who could not get approval from the NICEIC to self-certify, because he had not done recent work on a whole house, only smaller jobs. This was a contractor who had the necessary qualifications, and was prepared to pay the NICEIC's extravagent fees, but still could not get self-certification approval.
      Of course, people like this gentlemen always have the option of getting their work inspected by the Local Authority. However, since the LA's don't usually have the staff to do this internally, they seem to be subcontracting the work to registered electrical contractors, at costs of about £600. Needless to say, that's a lot of money to add to the cost of all but the most extensive jobs.

In a Commons debate on March 16th 2005, Michael Fabricant, MP for Lichfield, and a Fellow of the IEE, suggested that ``...part P is not necessary and [...] houses would not burn down if it were repealed tomorrow.'' He pointed out that it was costing electricians £2000 to obtain. Phil Hope, the Minister in charge of the implementation of Part P, gave the standard response that Part P would ``save lives'' but, as usual, gave no evidence or justification for this.

Update -- April 2005 While I wouldn't for a moment recommend anyone to defy the law, it seems to me that if you are a competent electrical installer -- amateur or professional -- and can prove that you are, section 8 of the Building Regulations 2002 -- which limits the general obligations imposed by the Regulations -- might afford you a defence to any prosecution arising out of Part P. This section says:

Parts A to D, F to K, N and P ... of Schedule 1 shall not require anything to be done except for the purpose of securing reasonable standards of health and safety for persons in or about buildings (and any others who may be affected by buildings, or matters connected with buildings).

I have receive a lot of correspondence on this issue, as you might expect. Here are some examples.

• An electrician from the Isle of Wight wrote to me (on paper, no less!) that he was now unable to self-certify under the Part P rules because he had withdrawn from the NICEIC. The reason for his doing so, as I understand it, was that customers were unwilling to pay the overheads involved in NICEIC registration as part of the cost of the work, when so many unregistered contractors charged less. This gentleman is a sole trader with 40 years experience as an electrician. The government's own figures suggest that there could be 10,000 sole traders and small businesses in the same position.
• Another electrician contacted me to point out that even electricians who are deemed competent to self-certify in the course of business may still not be able to do electrical work in their own homes. The reason in his particular case is that this his employer's public liability insurance does not cover work carried out except under the auspices of the firm, so issuing a completion certificate for work done privately will be breaking the terms of the insurance contract. Consequently employees have been instructed not to issue completion certificates in respect of their own properties, or other work they might do for friends and relatives.
• It's been brought to my attention that extra-low voltage installations, and signalling/communications wiring, are within the scope of Part P, if they are within a `special location' or `special installation'. I had read this, but I must have been so appalled that my brain did not fully absorb it first time around. So, for example, all the following would now require the involvement of the building control officer:
  • Wiring hi-fi loudspeakers in your garden
  • Installing an ethernet network point in your kitchen (maximum voltage -- 0.8 volts!)
  • Putting low-voltage lights on your garden railway (the only garden lighting that is exempt is `pre-assembled CE-marked sets)
  • Running a telephone cable under your bathroom floor
  • ...no doubt you can think of others
• I received an e-mail from a home automation enthusiast. Home automation is the process of applying computer control to domestic lighting, power, or heating systems. Ambitious home automation installations will undoubtedly fall foul of Part P, because they often involve the replacement of mains-voltage power and light switching with low-voltage, computer operated switchgear. Anyway, this correspondent pointed out that Part P marked the death of the home automation industry in the UK, because the only people with the technical expertise to certify the compiliance of such an installation with BS7671 are amateurs -- no ordinary electrician or local authority inspector will have the expertise.
• Another correspondent has analysed in detail government accident figures from New Zealand, where DIY electrical work was re-allowed in 1992. It appears that the number of electrical accidents occuring in the home has, in fact, fallen slightly since this change, rather than becoming the catastrophe that the electrician's trade bodies protested about. What's more, comparing NZ with Australia, where all kinds of DIY electrical work are banned, and adjusting for population and type of work done, this correspondent has found that the electrical accident rate in NZ is 30% lower than in Australia.
        He offered two explanations for this.
        First, in an environment where DIY electrical work is accepted, there will be a higher level of knowledge of electrical safety issues among the general population than in an environment where only business are allowed to undertake such work. This seems a sensible conclusion: you may not know, for example, what benefit you will obtain from, say, buying an in-line RCD unit to plug your lawnmowever into, but I'll bet you know someone who does. The rapid uptake of new electrical safety technology into the home has come about because of the high level knowledge of such matters in the community, not because of Government safety initiatives. Many people only realize that the electrical wiring in their houses is dangerous because they have knowledgeable friends and relatives to point this out.
        Second, because people in Australia aren't allowed to undertake electrical work, there is an over-abundance of power adapters and extension leads, with the risks this entails. Fuses and RCDs are designed to protect cables against transient over-current situations (short-circuits, in particular), not long-term overheating caused by sub-threshold overcurrent situations. To protect against damage by long-term overheating, it is necessary to give some thought to the number and distribution of socket outlets.
• Oddly, in the UK adding a fused spur to a ring main will not invoke Part P, and yet surely this is a task that is far more frequently undertaken by incompetent installers -- amateur and professional -- than, say, adding a new ring circuit to a kitchen.

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