fearghalg, Are they Engineers or electricians? What work are they doing for whom, and where? £500 is way, more than the training provider I work for sometimes, charges

fearghalg Your question may be better directed to the NICEIC, helpline is 0870 013 0391.

Not sure The Joint Industries Board website states that an approved electrician does not have to undertake any further qualifications or training to maintain approved grade once attained. However he must be fully conversant with "current" IEE wiring regs. What industry body are your sparks graded by ?

All 16th qualified electricians must install/test and all the rest of it to the current regs. It is not a LEGAL requirement to be 16th or 17th. You can be a 14th ed and still install to the 17th

OK, I have to be careful with my words. I don't see where the NICEIC statement that it is a legal requirement comes from. I'm sure you all know that the legal requirements come from statute law. BS7671 is unfortunately not statute law. IF they are undertaking installations or modifications to the fixed wiring then I would like to see them having undertaken the 17th, or at least perhaps one of the more senior guys. Also, if you are "worried" about this, then you should already have in place the requirement for I&T under BS7671 including the completion of EIC's & MWC's for the modifications done. You will also have calibrated &/or verified test equipment on site that is used on every modification (of any kind) and repair to the fixed installation wiring to comply with BS7671. If your not doing this then forget about the 17th course, it's irrelevant. IF you are then great. You will also require copies of BS7671, possibly the OSG & the relevant guidance notes on site for them to use. Finally, wrt the fixed install. I would prefer again to see at least one of them having higher qualifications, unless you have an electrical engineer on site who is competent to undertake the design changes on the systems. Now on to your machines etc. forget BS7671 as it is irrelevant to machine repairs and changes etc. BS7671 stops at the point of connection of any equipment to the fixed install, typically the mains isolator for the machine. There are some exceptions, but, where these are present then realistically you need persons with higher than the average electricians competence to sort these situations out. There is absolutely no requirement, and in fact it would be in many "factory maintenance" environments to have your "sparks" NICEIC/ECA/ELECSA/NAPIT etc. assessed. These schemes are for electrical contracting companies not for in house maintenance people. However, you can encourage them to register with the JIB and attain their "grade" cards, which should be no problem if they are correctly trained & competent.