This year’s Quality Plumber Week (QPW), which kicks off today, aims to debate the introduction of a single mandatory License to operate a plumbing and heating business.
It will also focus on celebrating the important role that plumbing and heating engineers play in keeping people healthy and safe.
During QPW, APHC will be exploring the industry’s need to look at the viability of introducing a single national mandatory Licensing Scheme to provide accreditation to operate a plumbing and heating business. The aim of the scheme will be to protect public health, assist the UK in reducing its carbon emissions and provide more of a ‘level playing field’ for the bona fide plumbing and heating installer when quoting and tendering for work.
APHC believes that a Licensing Scheme should protect and forbid anyone using a term such as ‘Licensed Plumbing Company’ or ‘Licensed Heating Company’ or ‘Licensed Plumbing & Heating Company’ unless the company and its installers are accredited and undergo a programme of continuous professional development and scheduled assessment.
However, APHC would like to open this up to debate and are calling for plumbing and heating engineers to have a say.
CEO of APHC, John Thompson, said: “We want to discuss the rights and wrongs of such a scheme, how it could fit within the current framework of legislation and existing competence schemes, how it could be enforced, funded and promoted, what could the membership criteria look like, how would competence be measured, how could it work for new entrants, existing installers and those installers with many years’ worth of experience but who don’t hold an official qualification – just to mention a handful of discussion points.”
APHC is hosting free half-day regional seminars to review possible framework proposals and to provide opinion and ideas. The free seminars will be co-hosted by BPEC and will also include special guest company Monument Tools, who will be facilitating a practical demonstration of a range of its tools.
The half-day seminars will run between 9am and 12pm on:
- 2 Oct – Leicester, which includes an Expo of leading industry suppliers and manufacturers
- 3 Oct – Surrey, hosted at Monument Tools and includes a factory tour
- 4 Oct – Taunton
- 5 Oct – Newport
- 10 Oct – Chester
- 11 Oct – Leeds
There will also be an open debate on social media during Quality Plumber Week via the hashtag #QPW18 on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Industry suppliers and manufacturers are being encouraged to get involved as well. John continued: “As a way of recognising the important work undertaken by the thousands of professionals within our industry, suppliers and manufacturers can pledge their support through social media, customer communications and industry press, plus they can run their own initiatives, competitions and campaigns around Quality Plumber Week.”
APHC would also like to see plumbing and heating engineers post photographs of their work on social media using the hashtag #QPW18.
John concluded: “We are aiming to build on the success of last year, where we saw 923 unique tweets using the QPW17 hashtag which generated 2,968,424 tweet impressions. There was also good reach on Facebook and LinkedIn with LinkedIn posts receiving up to 1,300 impressions and 27 click throughs per post per day. APHC’s Facebook page had a 106% increase in engagement compared to the previous week.”
