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Been doing a little research on a government scheme called Trust Mark, where an individual firm can display the symbol only if they sign up to a pretty strict set of rules and regulations.
The Code of Practice (the rules and regs) are designed to deliver excellent customer service to private individuals who engage companies to work on their homes. They include contracts of work, warranty safe guards, pre payment protection along with disciplinary devices if the contractor strays from the path. It’s pretty intensive stuff and not strictly all applicable to domestic appliance repairs, but its close enough to warrant discussion.
To join this government backed (but not funded) scheme individual firms need to find a scheme operative for the industry, and as the criteria does not match our work I guess there won’t actually be one yet, for us. Please correct me if you know different.
The idea behind the scheme operator is that its members pay for the administration of the scheme by paying to license the use of the government’s logo, they, the government undertakes to promote the logo, along with the scheme operator. Therefore if enough companies are willing to join, promoting the logo, on top of government and scheme operative promotion it’s possible that it’ll squeeze all the cowboys out. That ultimately is the government’s purpose.
So, does this actually hold water in the mindset of all of you out there? Would you actually be prepared to pay to join a scheme that forced you to do it right all the time, to stick to H&S, to have customer care as a number one priority, to bite the bullet and assume the conciliation role when necessary?
Oh, and while you think about it, what would you be prepared to pay, £200, £300, £500 per annum to allow some one (scheme operative) to vet and regulate you and your workmanship?
Do you think the rewards of displaying the logo worth the pain and expense?
It’s worth pointing out that this actually costs the government nothing, they provide no funding to scheme operators, and in fact all expenses to run this are provided by the member’s fee, which is exactly how most associations fund themselves, by using member fees.
Your views would be appreciated
KevinRe: Trust Mark is it good for you?
Many repairers are going skint already so the question of paying out more will not get much support.
Most if not all customers don’t want to pay what we charge already.
So where will the funding come from?
Another CORGI about to be spawned?
Anyway if I hadn’t been doing it right for the last ** years I wouldn’t still be in business would I ?
Never mind I get my bus pass in 10 years.Steve
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
Thing is Steve it’s pretty much bound to happen at some stage, much to my dismay. 🙁
Like almost every other industry in the UK regulation of some sort will come, it’s almost a given these days. Pretty much the was I see it the only things that have to be decided is how much, how quick and what strings are attached.
Funding has to come from within the indusrty, end of story. Even if it was partially government kick-started they’d be looking for the money back at some stage.
So the real question that you have to ask is who do you want to oversee such a scheme? The choices are you do it internally, within the industry and play ball with government or they put something in place and when that happens you end up with something like CORGI.
K.
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
It’s always better to jump rather than be pushed to my mind because at least that way you get to determine the timing of the event.
One thing I will say though, is that from what little I have read about the Trust Mark Scheme, it needs to be better tailored towards smaller priced contract work and more finely tuned towards our particular trade before it can be workable, as most of its conditions only apply to jobs over £250 and we dont do many jobs any where near that price.
It was mainly aimed at the jobing builder though I do know that H.M Govt. are keen to bring it to all trades eventually. It’s really only a matter of time, at the end of the day.
I can’t see this being 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} sucessfull without statutory trade certification/qualification, though we would be wise to try and start a dialouge now rather than have another Corgi type quango thrust upon us, God forbid.
In truth I guess that due to the average age of the guy’s in our trade, they are all hoping that they can make it to retirement before they have to bother with it at all.
Sean
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
EFS wrote:Many repairers are going skint already
But, ask yourself why they/we are skint 😉
We as an industry are massively undervalued, we don’t charge/get paid enough – period.
We may well slag Corgi off but they have made many central heating installers wealthy by overseeing legislation, the fact that they have on the whole ignored the whitegoods industry is something of a mystery given the vast quantities of gas cooking appliances in the market place.
So, self regulation is better than an overseeing (government appointed) body surely, at least that way we can raise the stakes from within and pave our own destiny as it were 😀
:hide:
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
Dave_Conway wrote:So, self regulation is better than an overseeing (government appointed) body surely
I couldn’t agree more, self regulation was the brainchild of one Chris Hayter many years back I recall. His scheme worked very well, brought about a lot of regulatory control and unification within the trade and many of his members benefitted financially from joining in.
With the benefit of hindsight it is true to say that any self regulatory scheme would need greater than 75{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} support from the trade in order for it to work effectively. Any such scheme would involve attracting the sole trader into joining, as these individuals represent the majority of the workforce.
EFS wrote:Many repairers are going skint already
Perhaps that is because with no such scheme in operation it is a minefield out there and competition is aggressively self defeating. Each undercutting the other in a dog eat dog state of mayhem and confusion. Uniting these individuals through a single scheme would create cooperation, experience sharing and even work sharing in the longer term.
One scheme, one voice, one goal! 😉
P.S…..and the government can keep its meddling hands off !!!:evil:Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
All points taken so far, but wouldn’t this cause problems with the WEE directive (i.e. overloading with scrap) and our own endeavours to bolster the industry. With the market in the current state, customers wanting free this and free that, would people not just scrap even more machines or go to our less consciensious competitors rather than pay Corgi style prices for repairs? 😕
Tony C
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
You know this subject cracks me up at times…
For years and years we’ve all strived to get rid of the cowboys in this industry and many of us have said, time and again, that without some form of legislation or government backing that would never happen.
Then we get the chance to actually steer it.
In the end it’s going to cost us. Full stop, end of story, there’s no avoiding that.
But, as I said to Sean a few minutes ago, if we got lumped under the banner of the NICEIC, CORGI or A.N. Other how much do they think they’d charge us for their services? What strings would be attached to that, would they even ask our opinion?
Somehow I don’t see that going well for us, do you?
Option 2, behind the red door, is that government simply decide to put another quango in place to do it, a la CORGI style and, guess what… we get shafted again.
So all I’d say is choose your poison.
K.
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
The key to anything remotely effective is self regulation surely? All these quango’s like CORGI and NICEIC rely on far reaching legislation that is for the most part un-workable, bogged down with red tape and loopholes. Quango’s that regulate through stealth and unfair tactics and that bleed the liveblood from those forced to sign up in order to operate.
Please lets not bring WEEE into the equation here (that subject makes me cringe :rolls: )????
If we really have to sign up to yet another quango called TRUSTMARK the God ‘elp us all ❓
Trustmark isn’t a quango Martin, it’s a government backed scheme to offer a quality mark across many sectors. But simply looking at the site will give you a grasp of where it’s going.
You have to remember that on top of that (or behind it) is the ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) and the DTI as well as the HSE from what I can gather. So you can suss where it’s headed.
K.
Re: Trust Mark is it good for you?
No personally I will stick to this route towards quality standards: –
http://www.buywithconfidence.info/
The general public can relate to the Trading Standards Service and trust those that they recommend. Whereas who would put their faith in any government sponsored scheme? I’m sure the public would not be assured by it!
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