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ECA and HVCA Announce Joint Event

The first ever Grand Dinner and Ball organised jointly by the HVCA and the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) will take place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London W2, on the evening of Friday 3 October 2008.

This high-profile inaugural event will feature a four-course meal, top-class entertainment from the band of the Grenadier Guards and a troop of table magicians, a grand charity raffle and dancing until 1.30 am to the Penthouse show band.

“The ECA/HVCA Grand Dinner and Ball represents a superb networking opportunity, as well as an excellent night out,” commented Tim Acland, the HVCA’s regional manager for London and the South East.

“It also provides an ideal opportunity to entertain customers, clients and colleagues at what is certainly one of the best banqueting venues in the capital.”

Mr Acland added that a limited number of valuable sponsorship opportunities remain – for members and non-members alike – as well as the chance to donate prizes for the charity raffle.

Tickets for the black-tie event, which are keenly priced at £90.00 (plus VAT), are available from Emma Burgess on 01708 330710 (emma.burgess@eca.co.uk).

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HVCA Achieves ISO 9001 Certification

HVCA has achieved ISO 9001:2000 quality assurance certification in respect of its membership handling and review processes.

Association secretary Tony Godby explained that certification had initially been sought in support of the HVCA’s role as a TrustMark scheme operator.

"However, this was subsequently widened to include all of the procedures surrounding the operation of the HVCA independent member inspection and assessment regime," said Mr Godby.

And he added that the ISO quality management assessment – which was made in the context of the overall HVCA business plan– encompassed staffing procedures and personnel checks, resource management processes and a range of ancillary services provided by the Association's Membership Department.

HVCA was one of the first organisations to be appointed a scheme operator under the Government-inspired TrustMark initiative, which is designed to help householders to ensure that the tradespeople they employ are reliable, competent and capable of providing a quality service at a fair price.

All HVCA member companies are subject to third-party inspection and assessment of their technical competence and commercial capability every three years.

For further information, contact Tony Godby on 020 7313 4903 (tgodby@hvca.org.uk)

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RAC Group Encourages Innovation

The HVCA Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Group has agreed to sponsor a category in the Cooling Industry Awards 2008, organised by Refrigeration and Air Conditioning magazine.

“Since their inception in 2003, the Cooling Industry Awards have done a very great deal to identify and reward– and so encourage – innovation and environmental responsibility across the building services engineering sector,” commented group chairman Karen Leeder.

“It is this belief – coupled with a long-established commitment to quality and professionalism in all their aspects – that has led the RAC Group to sponsor a Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractor of the Year category as part of this year’s awards activity.”

Nominations are being invited from refrigeration and air conditioning contractors and installers that can demonstrate significant progress in the development and adoption of environmentally friendlier solutions and working practices.

Particular weight will be given by the judges to initiatives and developments for which a proven case can be made that they are both good for the environment and make business sense.

For further information and entry details, visit the Cooling Industry Awards website at www.coolingindustryawards.com.

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Government Commits to Legislation

The Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group has expressed its delight at the announcement that amendments to the construction contracts legislation contained in Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 2006 will be included in the Government’s legislative programme for the next parliamentary session.

“This represents the climax of over seven years’ SEC Group lobbying for enhancements to the current legislation,” said SEC Group chairman Trevor Hursthouse. “We are grateful to construction minister Baroness Vadera and her officials for their help and support.”

Mr Hursthouse added that the amendments to the Act – which are to be included in the proposed Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill – are expected to improve payment certainty across construction, reduce adjudication costs and introduce greater equality and fairness for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

SEC Group understands that the proposed legislation will be announced in the Queen’s Speech on 5 November.

For further information, contact John Nelson on 07921 687301 (contact@secgroup.org.uk).

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Specialist Groups Elect New Chairmen

New chairmen have been elected by three of the HVCA's four specialist groups.

Kevin Talbot of Cranworth Engineering succeeds Barry Pollard of Mansfield Pollard as chairman of the Ductwork Group (DWG).

Mike Staton of Statons succeeds Billy Wilgar of A C Wilgar as chairman of the Heating and Plumbing Services (HAPS) Group.

Karen Leader of Barrier Air Conditioning succeeds Graeme Fox of Specialist Mechanical Services as chairman of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (RAC) Group.

New group vice chairmen are Kevin White of Senior Hargreaves (DWG), Robert Smith of RJS Heating (HAPS) and Scott Gleed of Ceilite Air Conditioning (RAC).

Peter Excell of Platinum Maintenance Services and Sue Sharp of Overclean have been re-elected chairman and vice chairman respectively of the Service and Facilities Group (SFG).

Specialist group representatives on the HVCA Council are: Barry Pollard and Kevin Talbot (DWG); Mike Staton and Robert Smith (HAPS); Graeme Fox and Karen Leader (RAC); and Peter Excell and Sue Sharp (SFG).

The 2008 Annual General Meeting and Conference of the HVCA specialist groups took place at Trinity House on London's Tower Hill on Thursday 15 May.

Speakers at the event included Ant Wilson of Faber Maunsell and Iraq War veteran Col Tim Collins OBE.

Col Collins also presented awards to the group's top apprentices: Paul Wharton of E Poppleton & Son (DWG’s Harry Hobbs Award); Simon Stafford of Bob Mansfield Heating and Plumbing (HAPS’ Craft Trainee Award of the Year); Mark Warlock of Macwhirter (RAC’s Harry Decker Award); and Christopher Wood of Maracom (SFG’s Richard Bostel Service Technician of the Year Award).

In his keynote address, HVCA president John Miller emphasised the importance of the specialist groups to the Association's life and work.

He went on to refer to the talks he and his fellow officers were undertaking with their colleagues in the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA), and of the challenge they had set themselves to develop a model for a single organisation to represent all mechanical and electrical contractors.

"You may be interested to learn that, of the vast array of issues on our present agenda, there is one that truly dominates," the president told his audience.

"That is the absolute insistence – by all parties to the process – that, in any future structure, the interests of specialist and single-discipline companies must continue to be served, and their issues, preoccupations and priorities taken fully into account."

Mr Miller also highlighted some of the key activities undertaken by the groups over the past 12 months, including:

The president concluded by wishing Karen Leader, Mike Staton and Kevin Talbot "happy, successful and rewarding terms of office".

For further information, contact Gareth Keller on 020 7313 4937 (gkeller@hvca.org.uk).

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Employment Agency Alliance Launched

An organisation designed to improve and maintain professional standards among employment agencies has been launched by the HVCA.

The Building Services Engineering Employment Agency Alliance represents a voluntary grouping of employment agencies that supply skilled personnel to contractors across building services engineering.

To qualify for membership, an agency must be able to demonstrate its compliance with the recognised industry standards contained in the Alliance’s Key Commitments.

These will be used to establish whether an organisation is operating on a sound commercial footing, is appropriately regulated, and displays a genuine commitment to the sector.

To ensure compliance with the Key Commitments, agencies seeking Alliance membership must submit to a business audit carried out by BM TRADA Certification.

This process will be repeated every three years, with an annual compliance inspection taking place in each intervening year.

“Formation of the Alliance recognises the increasingly important role that employment agencies are playing in the supply chain – along with a need for clear standards by which their performance can be judged,” explained Peter Rimmer, head of the HVCA’s Employment Affairs Department.

“It will also facilitate strategic dialogue between contractors and their manpower suppliers on a range of issues – including education and training, health and safety, workforce competence and legislation.”

Independent chairman of the Alliance is former MP and Labour peer Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan.

“There was a time when the very existence of employment agencies – and the employment of agency workers – was viewed with much suspicion,” Lord O’Neill acknowledged.

In these competitive times, however, many building services engineering contractors had found it increasingly difficult to ensure that the skills and competences of their permanent employees always matched their clients’ requirements.

“As a result, agencies have become a familiar – and, in many cases, a much-valued – feature of the overall employment landscape, as well as a significant provider of skilled labour.

“It is logical, therefore, that the industry’s focus should have turned away from the wholesale discouragement of employment agency activity – and towards differentiating between their relative merits.

“The purpose of the Building Services Engineering Employment Agency Alliance is to assist in just such differentiation,” Lord O’Neill concluded.

Three agencies have already achieved Alliance membership, following a series of pilot audits carried out in the second half of 2007. They are: the Capital Group; Oracle Global Resourcing Ltd; and Phoenix Resourcing Services Ltd.

The launch of the Building Services Engineering Employment Agency Alliance took place at the Tower of London on Tuesday 15 April 2008.

Copies of the Alliance’s Key Commitments document can be downloaded from the Alliance website at www.agencyalliance.co.uk.

For further information, contact John Meadley on 020 7313 4914 (jmeadley@hvca.org.uk).

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BEST to Manage Regional Training Groups

New arrangements have been introduced in respect of the Regional Training Groups (RTGs) previously administered by SummitSkills, the sector skills council for building services engineering.

With immediate effect, the operation of the RTGs has been passed to HVCA and its training provider subsidiary Building Engineering Services Training Ltd (BEST).

As a result, BEST will provide the secretariat for each existing RTG, with the assistance of the relevant group chairman and a designated representative of the Association’s Education and Training Department.

BEST will also be contacting local employers in regions not currently served by an RTG, with a view to gauging support for the establishment of a group.

Under the new regime, attendance at RTG meetings will continue to comprise representatives of local employers, colleges and training providers, the sector skills council and other key stakeholders.

The agendas for RTG meetings will be brief and to the point – focusing on the delivery of key information on education and training issues, including Government initiatives, funding opportunities and industry consultations.

Following each RTG meeting, the key issues raised will be incorporated into a discussion document for dissemination to all RTGs nationwide, and to other key organisations within building services engineering A dedicated website is also being planned, in order to allow wider access to RTG activities.

For further information on the Regional Training Groups, and the new secretarial arrangements, contact Sandra Pearse on 020 7313 4929 (spearse@hvca.org.uk).

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Certification Requirements Finalised

The European Commission has finalised its requirements for the training and certification of engineers working on stationary refrigeration and air conditioning equipment under the European Fluorinated Gases (F Gas) Regulation.

While most UK engineers have been assessed in refrigerant handling to the City and Guilds 2078 or the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) standard over the past 15 years, the new F Gas standard will be much more thorough and wide-ranging, according to the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Industry Board (ACRIB).

In future, the regime will include a range of practical assessments, plus a multiple-choice examination.

"This is the first time an assessment specification has been written into a regulation on refrigerant handling,” commented John Ellis, past chairman of ACRIB and past president of the Institute of Refrigeration (IoR). He added that the specification “will be tough to comply with” – but that it would have been considerably more so had it not been for the negotiation that had been carried out at a European level by ACRIB and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Since the requirements were finalised in December of last year, UK industry representatives have been working – mainly through ACRIB, of which HVCA is an active member – with the existing awarding bodies in order to develop a “top-up” qualification for engineers who have already achieved a refrigerant handling qualification.

ACRIB goes on to point out that, given that the existing workforce of up to 40,000 engineers must undergo all or part of the assessment, a key consideration is that the process should be as time-efficient as possible. It is currently anticipated that it will take around four hours for each candidate to be assessed by a qualified assessor – while the level of training needed to ensure that candidates achieve the required standard will depend on their existing qualifications and previous experience.

“ We should not forget that, while there will be a cost to industry, this training will also improve standards of competence throughout the workforce,” said IoR president Jane Gartshore.

Training providers and colleges should be able to register to deliver the new qualifications within the next few weeks, with the first assessments being undertaken in July, when the requirements for personnel certification are due to come into force.

In reality, however, ACRIB expects that it will be “some years” before the whole of the UK workforce has been re-certified.

As a result, the UK Government will issue a consultation this summer on whether to allow up to July 2011 for existing personnel to obtain the new qualification.

In the meantime, the existing C&G 2078 certificate and the CITB equivalent remain the refrigerant handling requirement in respect of both the F Gas and the Ozone Depleting Substances Regulations. The Commission has also agreed outline arrangements for a company registration scheme, whereby firms employing certified personnel must be registered.

This is likely to involve interim certification by July 2009, with full registration being achieved by July 2011. Guidance on all aspects of the F Gas Regulation is available from ACRIB and its member organisations at www.acrib.org.uk.

For further information, contact Gareth Keller on 020 7313 4937 ( gkeller@hvca.org.uk) or Mark Oakes 20 7313 4935 (moakes@hvca.org.uk)

For further information on the REFCOM register of companies competent in the safe handleing of refrigerants, go to refcom.org.uk

 

President Urges Government to Enforce Part L Provisions

HVCA president John Miller has challenged the Government to enforce important changes introduced last year to Part L of the Building Regulations.

"Along with many other interests across construction, the HVCA welcomed the Part L revisions, which introduced tighter energy efficiency requirements for h&v projects in new and existing buildings," the president pointed out.

In particular, this had involved a broadening of the range of work that must be notified to local authority building control for inspection and approval, and the development of Competent Persons schemes that allow suitably qualified contractors to self-certify their work as complaint with the regulations.

"The HVCA’s disquiet arises from the fact that - having put such enlightened and environmentally responsible legislation in place - the Government seems unable, or unwilling, to enforce it," said Mr Miller. He added that many of his members reported that, not only were building control departments up and down the country failing to police the regulations. Many of them were quite deliberately turning a blind eye to the new regime.

"Our representations on this key issue to the Department for Communities and Local Government have so far gone unrewarded," the president insisted. “Government must put its house in order on an issue that has massive implications not only for engineering services, not only for construction, but - ultimately - for the nation and the planet.

"Positive action must be taken now," Mr Miller concluded. "The new regulations have teeth. Now they must be made to bite."

John Miller was speaking at the HVCA President's Luncheon 2007, which was held at the British Association of Film and Television Arts, London W1, on Thursday 13 September.

Earlier in his address, Mr Miller reminded his audience – which included MPs, peers, senior civil servants and representatives of other construction industry bodies – that there was "a pressing need" for all parties to the supply chain to recognise and acknowledge the extent to which their interests were "inextricably linked" to those of others.

"Our objective is to work in partnership with organisations that share our aims, our values and our aspirations," the president explained.

On the HVCA's increasingly close relationship with the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA) and the "shared vision" of a single body to represent mechanical and electrical contractors, Mr Miller stressed that this would ultimately be decided by the membership.

"Much consultation and debate must therefore take place before we can move forward towards what we call 'convergence'," said the president.

Mr Miller went on to remind his audience that the Oxford Dictionary defined "co-operation" as "the process of working together towards the same end", and "alliance" as "a union based on common interests and formed for mutual benefit".

" Such concepts – of common interest, of mutual benefit, of collaborative working – lie at the heart of the HVCA's current mission, and our vision for the future."

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Exclusive Liability Insurance for Members

A new contractor liability insurance scheme is now available to HVCA members on an exclusive basis. The scheme – entitled HVCA Unique – has been developed jointly by HVCA subsidiary Welplan and Oval Insurance Broking Ltd, and currently provides cover in respect of:

Other standard covers will be introduced over time, and terms for more specialised areas – including performance bonds – are available on request.

Key to the new scheme is the recognition that the Association's independent member inspection and assessment regime provides an increased level of risk management that is attractive to insurance underwriters – and can therefore deliver significant savings on premiums.

As part of the HVCA Unique development process, Oval carried out an extensive research and benchmarking exercise, with the result that the scheme has been designed specifically to address the concerns and requirements of HVCA member companies. These include:

HVCA Unique replaces the scheme previously offered by Aon.
For further information on HVCA Unique, contact Bruce Kirton at Welplan on 01768 860410 (b.kirton@welplan.co.uk).

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Improved Training Regime in Northern Ireland

Improved arrangements for apprenticeship training across the hvacr and plumbing sectors will be introduced into Northern Ireland in the autumn of this year.

Key to the revised regime is the establishment of a new organisation, Plumbing and Mechanical Services Training Ltd (PMST).

PMST – a joint venture between HVCA subsidiary Building Engineering Services Training Ltd (BEST) and the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation (SNIPEF) – has been appointed by the Department for Employment and Learning to manage apprenticeship programmes leading to Level 2 and 3 National Vocational Qualifications, for an initial three-year period commencing in September.

HVCA believes that the new arrangements – which replace the JobSkills regime and are very similar to a programme that has operated successfully in Scotland for more than 20 years – will better serve the new-entrant training needs of both industries.

In particular, it is anticipated that they will attract more able applicants and so lead to increased achievement rates.

PMST will operate from premises in Ballymena, adjacent to those of the Electrical Training Trust, which plays a similar role across the electrical sector.

Its chairman is Derek Poole, a former chairman of the Building Engineering Services Committee of the Construction Industry Training Board (Northern Ireland).

The HVCA representatives on the board are Paul Kane of Central Group Services Ltd, Albert Hamilton of Sharpe Ventilation Services Ltd, Mark Brenner of BEST and Tony Thomas, the Association’s head of education and training.

For further information, contact PMST on 028 256 66831.

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MP Condemns 'Irresponsible' Behaviour

Video clips showing various incidents of horseplay on construction sites – which are being displayed on the Youtube website and elsewhere on the Internet – were the subject of a debate by the All Party Parliamentary Building Services Engineering Group at its meeting in the House of Commons on 13 March.

"In recent years, the building services engineering sector has enjoyed an excellent – and improving – reputation for its commitment to health and safety," commented the group's chairman, Claire Curtis-Thomas MP.

"Irresponsible and potentially dangerous behaviour such as that portrayed in the video clips has no place in today's construction industry. All steps must therefore be taken – by both employers and employees – to stamp it out." This sentiment was echoed by Bill Belshaw, HVCA past president and chairman of the Heating and Ventilating Joint Safety Committee, membership of which is comprised of representation from employers and from the trade union Amicus.

"I have good reason to believe that the incidents highlighted are by no means representative of the sector, and that, by and large, building services engineering contractors take site safety very seriously, in every situation and at all levels of the workforce," Mr Belshaw insisted.

And he confirmed that the companies involved in the incidents in question were taking appropriately rigorous disciplinary action against the individuals involved.

The All Party Parliamentary Building Services Engineering Group – to which the HVCA provides administrative support – exists to raise awareness of the principal issues involving the sector.

Bob Towse 020 7313 4928 btowse@hvca.org.uk

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HVCA Implements Agenda for Action

As part of its Agenda for Action on Sustainability, the Association has launched the first in a series of free-of-charge publications that will highlight different elements of the sustainability challenge.

The eight-page guide – entitled Sustainability A–Z for H&V – provides definitions of terms used in connection with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning of sustainable buildings.

"A great many terms are bandied about without their users always being entirely clear on their precise meaning," commented David Frise, chairman of the HVCA Sustainability Issues Group. "This new HVCA publication has been designed to ensure that our members – and others in the building services engineering sector – have a ready reference to those terms in most widespread use."

The Sustainability A–Z for H&V was launched at the H&V 07 and RAC 07 events, which took place at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, from Tuesday 27 to Thursday 1 March 2007.

During H&V 07, David Frise and HVCA president elect John Miller led a major debate on how contractors can take full advantage of the business opportunities offered by the rising demand for sustainable design solutions.

At RAC 07, Graeme Fox, chairman of the HVCA Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Group, took part in an in-depth discussion on the safe handling of refrigerants.

Click here to download your copy of Sustainability A–Z for H+V.

For further information, contact Bob Towse on 020 7313 4928 (btowse@hvca.org.uk).

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