Is mandatory licencing a pipedream….
After spending the last 38 years within the UK gas industry it was time to take on my next challenge, a move to the UK water industry. Previously, for the last 10 years I had led the Gas Safe Register mandatory UK scheme on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).
The Gas Safe Register is recognised worldwide as a successful competence-based scheme which registers over 76,000 gas businesses and c.130,000 competent individual gas engineers.
The opening to lead WaterRegsUK sat up above other organisations as I could see real opportunities to take much of my positive learning from the world of gas and inject this into improvements or developments within the water industry.
Protecting public safety has always been close to my heart and this continues within the core of WaterRegsUK’s purpose. Working closely with c.30 UK Water Companies, we support their role to provide safe, resilient water supplies to the UK. Through promotion and enforcement of the Water Fittings Regulations and Byelaws, we protect public health by helping to keep water safe in premises, so it is always safe to drink and never wasted. WaterRegsUK also operates the Water Industry Approved Plumbers Scheme (WIAPS), one of the four voluntary UK schemes that register qualified and insured UK water professionals. Members from all four schemes make up the WaterSafe Register where consumers go to find installers to complete their plumbing work.
Five months into role there are some exciting projects already underway that I’m sure will offer significant improvements to the existing regime. One of these is the planned go live of online applications from new members joining the scheme. Once live in April 2026 this will complete our online presence for members allowing them to fully manage their registration online.
Scheme processes are reviewed annually and have identified several changes to drive up further quality and compliance. These include tightening of the entry criteria for water supply pipe installers joining the WIAPS scheme, introduction of a cyclic 5-year reassessment of Water Fittings Regulations competency and a review of the membership Rules of Registration.
Planned technology improvements will help those registered to comply with the Regulations, by enabling them to submit notifiable work to the appropriate water company and or provide Certificates of Compliance to their customers through a simple online function. Digital ID Cards for those registered will also go live in 2026 along with access to further online learning as a form of CPD.
Consistency of auditing of members by the water companies is crucial to ensure good visibility, sound data capture and compliance with the regulations. A project currently underway seeks to drive this consistency across all subscribing water companies by creating a single online platform to collect and report on all auditing activity and outcome. The outputs of this are also feeding into a separate working group which is looking at using this data to drive a Risk Engine which in turn supports the priority and frequency of auditing members.
In considering the industry currently, alongside the future challenges of water reuse, compliance and consumer safety, I cannot see why a future mandatory scheme alike the Gas Safe Register is not the necessary conclusion.