Requirements of members concerning the demonstration of their technical competence

Demonstrating technical competence

All Registered Members of the ECA are required to demonstrate their technical competence.

This requirement can be met in one of two ways:

• through an assessment carried out by the ECA
• through an assessment, carried out by a suitable third party, under a scheme that is ‘Deemed-to-Satisfy’ the ECA’s requirements.

Assessments that are Deemed-to-Satisfy the ECA’s requirements are determined by the Association’s Technical Development Committee and are published on the Association’s website.

Demonstration of technical competence through assessment is required on application to the ECA – ‘Initial Technical Assessment’ – and regularly thereafter at a frequency of no less than once every three years – ‘Periodic Technical Assessment’_[1].

The benchmark used by the Association for demonstrating competence – both for its own assessments and for Deemed-to-Satisfy assessments – is the ‘Electrotechnical Assessment Scheme’ (EAS)_[2].

Categories of work

A firm must be assessed (Initial and Periodic Assessments) in its ‘Core Category of Work’. This is the type of work that is most important to the member – because of its volume, value or because it defines the character of the firm.

Members may in addition choose to be assessed in other categories of work.

The categories of work used by the Association for describing a firm’s profile of activities, together with the appropriate technical assessments for those categories, are published on the ECA website.

Membership profiling

Registered Members that comply with the above requirements are featured in the ECA’s Register and are entitled to profile themselves there for the benefit of third parties. The categories of work mentioned above are used for this purpose.

Registered Members that wish to indicate that they carry out, or wish to carry out, ‘Domestic Work’ must be registered with an authorised full-scope Part P Competent Person Scheme.

Registered members that wish to indicate that they have a specialist competence in one or more of ECA’s defined Specialist Work Categories must have achieved a satisfactory Initial Technical Assessment and, thereafter, satisfactory Periodic Technical Assessments, for the Specialist Work Categories concerned.    

Specialists

 For the purposes of its Register, ECA recognises the following Specialist Work Categories :

• fire detection and alarms
• security systems
• controls and instrumentation
• datacomms.

_{27 November 2006}

 

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[1] Members’ Deemed-to-Satisfy assessments are checked annually. If, for whatever reason, a member ceases to take, or is unable to satisfy, its  Deemed-to-Satisfy assessment it must then undertake an assessment from the ECA.