Follow up self with further thoughts;

During my working career, I saw a fair few failures of one sort or another whilst working in the DIY trade, the Glass Textile Industry, Precision Engineering and the World of Academia as a Technician and finally as a Facilities Manger of Technical Facilities with a team of Technicians under me.

Over that time, I observed that the vast majority of ‘Failures’ could be put down to ‘Failures in Communicating’ For a team to work well, there is a need for good communications. In my latter years, I was asked to stop doing what I had been doing for some 35 years as a technician and go into junior management at the University. One of the first things I instated was regular meetings of all technical staff to discuss any problems, review current workloads, plans for the immediate future and leave time for all technicians to speak their minds and lay out any problems they were having and listen to comments and suggestions etc. Other areas of Academia started making little rumblings about these meetings as I called them at lunchtimes and had food provided out of expenses. Some people could not see why Technicians should be given food on expenses! I retorted that it was all about communications and that successful accomplishment of the work would greatly benefit from the team effort. I stuck to my guns and the Head of Institute agreed with me and gave me all his support. Regards, Toodles.

I think you're on the right track @jamespa
The Competent Persons Scheme is already being promoted by MCS as a quick way to get more HP installers 'out there' and working.

... but because it's being formally organised, they haven't got the checks in place to ensure that the candidates already have the appropriate range of skills before they're accepted onto the 3-day course.

The provisions under the Building Act were originally intended to work the other way around, and could still do so.
The concept is based on providing a method of approval for those who are already demonstrating competence.

Imagine:

A farmer offers a tiny half-acre field to the Local Planning Authority under the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA).

The LPA like the idea, and it's supported by the District Councillor for that ward.
But it's outside the areas identified for development under the Local Plan (the adopted Core Strategy).
The site doesn't get included.

The Councillor and the farmer decide to push forward the site anyway because they have a real need to house workers in their 20's who've grown up in the area.
They obtain a copy of the Self Build list from the Council. (All Councils are required to keep such a list of interested parties).

A meeting is held in the village hall.
This attracts a great deal of interest, and four possible self-builders are selected for the site, which actually has potential for 10 dwellings.

• the herdsman for that farm, who operates the milking parlour
• an apprentice electrician, currently having to travel 60+ miles/day to reach building sites for work
• a newly-married couple; the wife is the daughter of the local GP, whilst the husband works in IT
• another couple; the wife teaches in the local primary school and the husband is a mechanic in a garage

They form a Community Land Trust and apply for Outline Planning Permission.
This is granted unanimously as an 'exception site' due to the obvious housing need for genuinely local people.

The local news carries the story, and they are approached by two other people:

1: The British Legion have a member who is recently invalided out of the Royal Engineers.
He's lost a leg due to a land mine, and will need housing and work within about 3 months.
His parents live in the adjacent ward for the same District Council.
As part of his rehabilitation, he will come with a package that includes money towards housing and employment re-training.

2: Another local family have a daughter aged 28 who left home, but got caught up in a city-based drugs gang.
Following a court conviction she's been sent for detox at a clinic 250-miles away.
She's about to be released under licence. Neither the Probation Service nor the family want her to return to that city.

The Community Land Trust agrees to both new applicants joining them.

They are introduced to an architect who occasionally produces reports for the Council.
She designs them a site layout for ten dwellings to be built using Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) for rapid construction.

They obtain full planning consent for the first six of those houses.
Each is to be equipped with heat-pumps and UFH.

As construction starts, the ex-REME quickly becomes accepted as the group leader.
He pulls in knowledge from others still in the army, and they re-design the heat-pump systems to have integrated storage batteries.
These will be charged by rooftop solar-panels, and a 3kW hydro-electric generator in the stream two fields away (with the farmer's agreement).

The houses are built and the new residents move in within 6 months from starting.

The farmer immediately requests that similar heat-pumps with battery storage are installed at the main farmhouse and the cottage of his other farm worker.

The Councillor brings to site a representative of a Housing Association.
They ask the same group to build the remaining four houses on that plot, to be owned by the Association and rented out to people on the Council's housing list.

... and I guess you can see where this is heading!

Not only have those households got a steady stream of potential customers, but they've also acquired a particular skill-set based around their re-modelled heat pump.

That's the point at which they get granted Competent Persons Status within the scope of the Building Act.

It's miles different to the strategy being pursued by MCS and central government.
Instead of being general-purpose trained/qualified trades-people, they are the designers and installers of a particular type of heat-pump system for which there is growing demand.

@jamespa Yes, I agree, Teamwork! Regards, Toodles.

I thought I'd chip in with some musings by Richard Erskine (of "Insulate Britain! Yes, but by how much?" fame/infamy) from 9th March 2022 where he believes that SMEs are the way ahead, breaking the job of heat pump installation into various roles. The ratios (1:2:10 of designer:electrician:plumber) seem to imply a fair number of people in the organisation (a couple of dozen).

My favorite moment from when we spoke to the installer who had attended the BPEC course was when a fellow attendee asked, "Where do you put the anti-legionella fluid?" Rather alarming.

I'm writing in response to your insightful blog post about the lack of substance in MCS certification. Your points resonate deeply with my current distressing experience, which I believe perfectly illustrates the "hollowness" you describe. Here's a summary of my situation:

• I invested in a heat pump and solar panel installation from an MCS-certified installer.
• My MCS certificate explicitly stated a 5-year Insurance Backed Guarantee (IBG).
• The installer has since gone into liquidation, leaving me with a faulty system that is costing more to run and not performing as expected (e.g., heat pump not heating house at specified flow temperature, solar panels generating significantly less than stated capacity).
• Upon trying to claim the IBG, I discovered no such insurance policy exists for my installation.
• Crucially, MCS has confirmed that they do not validate the information installers enter into their portal when generating certificates. This means installers can effectively "mark their own homework," leading to official documents containing factually incorrect information.

This situation exposes a severe flaw: despite the Scottish government (and indeed the UK government) advocating for MCS-certified installers, there appears to be no genuine protection for consumers, especially when installers become insolvent. It feels as though public funds are being directed towards a system that allows incompetent entities to operate under a veneer of accreditation, ultimately hindering our progress towards a green revolution. So far, I have taken the following steps:

1. Sent a detailed email to my local MSP, Angela Constance, highlighting the specific issues and the broader consumer protection failings.
2. Lodged a formal complaint with MCS, directly challenging their process for allowing fraudulent/incorrect information on certificates and demanding accountability.
3. Followed up with Gregor Poynton (UK MP), emphasizing that MCS's inability to validate its own standards is a UK-wide issue that needs to be addressed at a national level.

I'm now at a point where I'm seeking further avenues to raise this issue. Given your expertise and platform, I would be very grateful for any advice on what else I can do to escalate this systemic problem and ensure that proper safeguards are put in place for consumers investing in renewable technologies. Thank you for shedding light on these critical issues.

@adisharma I’m really sorry to hear what’s happened, and I completely agree that your experience underlines exactly the issues we’ve been raising with MCS for some time now. I've been saying it for years: MCS is not fit for purpose.

The fact that MCS confirmed they don’t validate the installer-uploaded info before issuing a certificate is staggering, but it sadly reinforces the point that a certificate is just that... a certificate. It doesn’t confirm competence, and clearly doesn’t guarantee compliance or meaningful oversight. It’s just data entry. And in your case, that lack of validation has left you without the protection you were promised, despite having followed all the “right” steps.

If you’re up for it, I’d really encourage you to turn this experience into an open letter (I’d be happy to publish it on the main RHH site if that helps amplify your plight) and I will send that link to all the major stakeholders at MCS (including Ian Rippon) for comment. The more we can expose the disconnect between government rhetoric (ie. "use an MCS-certified installer for peace of mind!") and the reality on the ground, the more pressure we can collectively put on those in charge to tighten the system.

@adisharma

I'm really sorry to hear about your experience which unfortunately, whilst relatively rare, is not unknown in the renewables industry, or indeed the construction industry more generally.  I am not the expert on routes to 'escalate' so will leave it to others to comment on this.

My personal experience in such cases (having been there myself with other parts of the construction industry), is that self help can become the only practical option, at least  sometimes.   If you do want to explore options to improve your systems without the help of your installer please feel free to post some details and I or others here may well have some suggestions.  I appreciate you may not be ready to take this step yet, so equally please don't feel you have to.  Many problems with heat pumps in particular come down to fairly simple controller configuration issues which the householder can in reality sort out.

Absolutely, please let me know if you need anything else from me.

Thanks James, the issues I have at a high level are:

1. Heat Pump: The heat calculations have not be done right per room and as the flow rate mentioned on the MCS certificate (45) is not achieving the desired heat output. Currently the flow rate is sitting at 55 which is the max it can go. What i need is to get the heat loss calculations done again to identify the right size of radiators for each room that will deliver the desired heat output at 45 flow rate. Don't think I am qualified enough to take this on myself. Do you have any suggestions?
2. Solar Panels: The MCS certificate says that i can get a heat output over 4KwH but in actual reality I have received ever anymore than 2.7Kwh. Not sure if there is anything that I can do to improve it.

@adisharma I'll work on a draft and send you a version to the email address you used to register on the forums. If there's anything else you'd like to add, please feel free to post/comment below, or send an email to editor@renewableheatinghub.co.uk

Sure thanks will do, much appreciated