E-Newsletter March 2016
Dear Colleague,
Advisory Reports
We have been advised by Landmark that the error regarding the validity of Advisory Reports for buildings of more than 1000m2 has now been rectified. Since January 2013, Advisory Reports for buildings of more than 1000m2which have been issued with a nominated date of 9th January 2013 or later have been showing, incorrectly, a validity of 10 years whereas it is in fact 7 years.Advisory Reports now showing the correct validity can be downloaded from the Landmark Register.If this has caused you a problem or is likely to in future you need to consider whether you should inform your clients of this error and either send them the corrected document or send them a link to the register so that they can download a copy themselves.The validity of Advisory Reports of buildings of 250 – 1000m2 remains at 10 years for now.
Section 63 in Scotland
I gave you the headline information on this in my February e-newsletter. We are currently testing the lodging of DECs for Scotland and the Action Plan associated with the EPC.
We are also in discussions with the Building Standards Division in Scotland over the competencies required to engage in this work. The DEC and AR is fairly straightforward as it is basically the same as for the rest of the UK. The Action Plan is based on Green Deal Advisor competencies. We have already demonstrated that our LCC Design/LCEAs have these competencies, and hold UKAS accreditation to certify this. We are hopeful that this will translate to the current situation in Scotland, but are waiting for confirmation of this. The Action Plan can only be produced using iSBEM, at the time of writing I haven't been able to confirm whether any other software vendors are going to be involved, so this might present a training requirement.
I have included this item even though we do not currently have all of the answers because people have been asking.
I will provide further information as it becomes available.
EPB Regulations 2012 Amendment 2
You might be interested to know that an amendment to the regulations laid in September last year and that came into force in October required enforcement authorities to have an enforcement plan and effectively requiring neighbouring enforcement authorities to check each other. I know that most of you will not be involved in enforcement, but you might be interested to know what is being required of those that are. A copy of the amendment can be found here.
Certification logos.
For those of you that use our logos in your promotional material, we now have some new logos that are more consistent with changes we have made to our own branding. If you would like to incorporate them in any new material they can be e-mailed to you on request as appropriate for your registration.
CPD audit
We have arrived at that time of year again when we need to check that you have met your obligation to demonstrate your systematic improvement and broadening of your knowledge and skill in accordance with CIBSE Certification guidelines on CPD.
I am paraphrasing your code of conduct to give you a point of reference. This always surprises a few people because although we all carry out CPD activities almost without thinking about it, we are often too busy to properly record it.
Unfortunately as we operate registers of competent people under a variety of oversight obligations, we have to make everything evidence based. My assertion that everyone on our register is professional and of course engages in CPD activity just doesn't cut it when we are audited.
By starting early in the year, there is a reasonable chance that you will be able to remember and record what you did last year if you haven't already. You have already had the stern warning this week, so this is a more gentle, with reminder of the rationale, follow up. On the 14th March we will need to suspend your registration if you haven't updated your CPD record for 2015. Remember this isn't a list of courses that you have attended, it is everything that you have done to keep up to date, which includes reading.
This item applies to fewer than30% of the people on the registers, please make that 0% by 14th March.
ISO 50001
It was really good to see so many of you here in Balham at our Breakfast Briefing in February where we were making the connection between ESOS and ISO 50001. For those of you that couldn't make it, the information on the event can be found here. We had speakers that have first-hand experience in different roles. Their presentations can be viewed as follows: The ISO 50001 auditor. The ISO 50001 implementation Consultant. The ISO 50001 client.
We hope to run similar events around the country and we will of course communicate that through this newsletter.
Regards
Dr Andrew Geens
Head of CIBSE Certification