Is it time to license the building trades? 

This is a tale of two plumbers. And a quietly leaking toilet cistern. It was in a downstairs loo, where I recently decided to have 20-year-old lino replaced. My only role was to remove the old flooring – which is why I left it until the night before the fitters arrived. Bad move.

The lino only yielded with a faint, slightly ominous sucking sound. The chipboard beneath was black and sopping wet. The culprit was clearly the cistern. The inlet connection was wet, the valve inside limescale-encrusted and obviously in a bad way.

I turned off the isolating valve, emptied the cistern, towelled the floor and left a dehumidifier running. Luckily, by the time the fitters arrived, the floor had all but dried out.

Meanwhile I called a plumber and ordered a state-of-the-art dual-flush replacement valve kit. It seemed a good opportunity to upgrade from single flush.

Plumber number one had been recommended by a local website. On the phone he sounded cheery and practical. The plumber who turned up wasn’t like that.

He wasn’t impressed by my new valve. He didn’t think it would fit in the cistern or that the operating button would work in the opening available. Finally, he let drop that he’d never actually seen this sort of valve before.

After an hour, we’d discovered that the new valve did fit, but the operating button didn’t. Also the replacement gasket included in the kit to seal the cistern to the pan was too small.

The plumber offered to fetch new parts, which could take another hour, given local traffic. By then it would have been cheaper to have bought a new toilet. I decided to cut my losses.

Plumber number two was brisk, matter-of-fact and knew the valve I’d bought. He pointed out that its operating button was more effective fitted to the cistern lid rather than, as in my case, the front. But he could see a way to make it work. He also fitted a new gasket between cistern and pan, making the seal watertight. It all took just over half an hour.

What’s the lesson of this tale? Generalisations can be unfair, especially with a subject as notoriously complex as plumbing, but, as a customer, I found one plumber knowledgeable, flexible and effective, and the other – well, not.

Both companies offered similar services; both had professional accreditation and glowing testimonials. But the fact remains that only plumbers who work with gas or electricity are legally obliged to be certified by a professional body or have any professional qualification at all. Those who work only with water are free to call themselves plumbers, and trade as such.

This isn’t the case in many other countries, including the United States, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong. There, plumbers need to be licensed to practice, and licences are only granted after extensive formal training.

Professional standards

Licensing recently received support from the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE), the professional body which overlooks plumbing and heating standards in the UK. According to membership director Tim Sainty, the decline in traditional apprenticeships in favour of diplomas and short courses ‘has had the inevitable effect of a fall in standards’.

The CIPHE believes a statutory licensing system would raise professional standards and allow licensees to prove to customers they are competent, insured and subject to independent investigation in case of problems.

Ironically, according to a recent Which? survey, plumbers are one of the most trusted trades. Trust in builders, however, who also have no legal requirement to be qualified, remains a huge issue for consumers, and especially selfbuilders.

Earlier this year research by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) found that one in three homeowners was delaying a building project because they feared being ripped off by cowboys.

It also revealed that 78 per cent of customers favoured the idea of legally enforced licensing, as did a similar proportion of small- and medium-sized building firms. ‘Rogue traders are dampening demand for construction work,” said FMB chief executive Brian Berry, “and consumers are being left to exploitation.”

In July the FMB launched a report, Licence to build: a pathway to licensing UK construction, which received cross-party support at its parliamentary launch. It suggested a UK-wide licensing system, administered by a single authority and covering all forms of paid-for construction, from sole traders to major contractors. Members would have to prove an appropriate level of qualification or experience, as well as insurance, and be regularly inspected and penalised or expelled if standards weren’t maintained.

But don’t we already have enough safeguards? Certainly there are numerous competence schemes, like the Construction Skills Certification Scheme, the recent government-endorsed TrustMark scheme and a host of trade and professional bodies. Plus, of course, the Building Regulations.

But, as the Grenfell tragedy made so obvious, building control inspections can be far from comprehensive. Trade and professional bodies are often more inclined to protect members’ interests than those of consumers. And many current vetting and inspection schemes are voluntary – leaving room for the incompetent and the crooked to operate unhindered.

The FMB licensing system wouldn’t have to replace all these. A preferred option is to integrate them, to avoid duplication and minimise costs. For selfbuilders, though, the most obvious benefit would be an online database of licensed members – but a database, unlike many existing websites, which is independently checked and rigorously policed.

The FMB believe their scheme will squeeze out cowboys, raise standards and help restore the public’s trust in construction. Their main argument is that similar schemes have improved construction professionalism in other countries, such as the US, Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe.

All I can say is that when I told a Ukrainian structural engineer that a plumber could turn up, fail to complete a job and still charge full rate for his time, she was appalled. In Kiev, she insisted, no one would dream of paying until they were fully satisfied.

October 2018