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Following their highly successful lobbying campaign to reform the introduction of self-certification under the Building Regulations, the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) are encouraged that the Government has agreed to review the pilot self-certification scheme after its first year of operation.
Both organisations met this week with the Minister responsible, Christopher Leslie, in a successful first step to bring the FMB/FSB and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) closer together in their work on self-certification under the Building Regulations. ODPM will be keeping the schemes under constant review and will be actively considering the possibilities for reform. The FMB and FSB were encouraged to bring forward proposals for a significant reduction in the administrative burden imposed by self-certification.
Both organisations have argued that the introduction of multiple self-certification schemes across narrow sectors of the construction industry will be economically damaging to legitimate SME building firms and could render them uncompetitive with rogue traders. Their argument gathered force last month when the suggested arrangement by which Quality Mark members did not have to pay additional fees to FENSA collapsed.
Speaking after the meeting, Ian Davis, Director General of the FMB, said:
"It is a good start that the Minister is listening to the general building industry and the representatives of smaller firms. We look forward to being able to work together with the Government to develop reforms to the self-certification process.
"We want a self-certification system that ensures compliance with the Building Regulations without imposing unfair burdens on firms which work in more than one trade and avoids confusing consumers with different levels of vetting, inspection and financial protection."
Charles McKeown, FSB Chairman of Construction, added:
"The Government appears to be willing to learn the lessons from the introduction of the FENSA scheme in particular and will be consulting much more closely with industry on future self-certification initiatives. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that the bureaucratic burdens and costs of these schemes do not lead to a drift into the informal economy."
First posted: 11 September 2002. Last modified: 11 September 2002.
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