There have been a number of recent changes to important industry normative documents and working practices that have affected both ACS and gas N/SVQ qualifications. One of the most significant developments is the introduction of BS7967 – Carbon Monoxide in Dwellings and the use of Combustion Performance of gas fired appliances Parts 1-4.
To ensure gas operatives who carry out this work activity can demonstrate their competence against these standards the ACS committee introduced a new assessment - Combustion Performance Analysis (CPA1). This assessment can be undertaken as a stand alone assessment if required and is now widely available.
In addition the core competency covering characteristics of combustion in CCN1 has been reviewed and amended to include additional assessment requirements due to the publication of BS7967.
As the gas N/SVQ 6012 is aligned to ACS combustion performance analysis will be incorporated into the award as appropriate.
The catering industry has recently been provided guidance by the HSE in the form of Catering Information Sheet (CAIS) 23 & 10 REV1. This revision has affected a change to the ACS catering assessment CCCN1 and its derivatives.
All of the changes that affect ACS assessments and the gas N/SVQ will be in place and included in the assessment process by end February 2008 (combustion performance analysis to be confirmed).
Other normative documents affecting ACS and N/SVQ’s recently published include:
- BS 5871 pt4 flueless fires, convector heaters and heating stoves
- BS 5871 pt2 amd re Cassette type fires
- BSEN 1775 2007 – Pipework in Buildings
- IGE/GM5 gas in flats (FFD on all appliances)
- IGE/UP/10 Ed 3 (edition 2 superseded Oct 07)
- BS 6400 pt3 (LPG meters)
EMTA Awards ltd have recently added a plumbing NVQ including a gas element to its portfolio of qualifications, currently like the City & Guilds plumbing and non aligned gas awards ACS must be undertaken if candidates wish to become CORGI registered and work on gas.