What is the Group Competence Scheme?
The Group Competence Scheme (GCS) was developed by Energy & Utility Skills to meet a demand that originated from employers in the gas industry for an alternative approach to enable the re-assessment of Gas Safety competences.
GCS is not a replacement for Gas Safe registration. The scheme offers a radically different way to demonstrate gas competence of registered engineers and is an alternative to the Accredited Certification Scheme (ACS); it’s available to businesses of any size except for Sole traders.
Matters of Gas Safety (MoGS) competence is maintained through managed CPD, and in-house assessment based ‘on-the-job’ rather than reliance on a single “snapshot” assessment every five years – which can also allow engineers to work with out-of-date standards for a long period of time.
GCS aligns to existing employer statutory responsibilities and incorporates the same MoGS criteria as ACS and is certificated by a UKAS accredited certification body following an audit of the employer’s GCS management system.
Principles
The GCS is based on a 5-phase cycle model and 15 principles for the re-assessment of Gas Safety competences of registered engineers by the employers.
Registration
The organisation will need to determine how many employees will be in scope over the next 12 months (ie. how many will need to renew their Gas Safe Competences in that period) and sign the GCS Employer Agreement to obtain a GCS Licence. They will need to sign and send back a licence agreement and complete the template document that summarises what your GCS Operations Document will need to contain.
A GCS Licence is valid for 12 months from the date that the employer GCS Agreement is signed. The Licence cost is based upon the number of Gas Safe Registered employees within the newly licensed company.
The employees will need to renew their MoGS competences (ie. obtain another five years on the Gas Safe Register) during that 12-month period. Because it will inevitably take some weeks before the employer has built and prepared their GCS for external audit and subsequent certification (if their GCS meets the audit requirements), there will likely be some employees whose MoGS assessments are due prior to GCS certification. These individuals will need to renew via the existing ACS method, until the employers GCS is certified and may be used for employees’ Gas Safe Register renewal.
The important point is that a GCS Licence enables the employer to use the Energy & Utility Skills GCS Product (and the bundle of services) from day one (the signed Agreement).
While the cost of the Licence is based upon the notional number of employees renewing each year (on a cumulative basis), there is no guarantee that all those employees in the first year will be able to use GCS for renewal.
This is dependent upon how quickly the employer can secure certification of their GCS. There is therefore an incentive for employers to carry out the GCS build and preparatory work once they have a GCS Licence.
Renewal
GCS is for the five-year renewal of Gas Safe Register required MoGS competences. You must already be Gas Safe registered and hold either a current recognised qualification or valid ACS Certificate to be able to use the scheme as your re-assessment mechanism.
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FAQs
What is the Group Competence Scheme (GCS)?
The GCS has been developed by Energy & Utility Skills (EU Skills) to meet a demand that originated from employers. The scheme was conceived to provide an alternative approach to enable the re-assessment of Gas Safety competences for larger Gas businesses. It is, however, available to businesses of any size, except for Sole traders. The scheme has been through all the necessary accreditations and external recognitions and is now fully available for employers to use as an alternative to the Accredited Certification Scheme (ACS). The scheme is for businesses who wish to maintain their Matters of Gas Safety (MoGS) competence through managed CPD and in house assessment processes in context with the work they do and the way they operate, rather than using the ACS approach of an external centre-based snapshot assessment every five years. One of the problems with ACS is that it allows engineers to work with out-of-date standards for a long period of time. This can result in engineers rushing through an ACS assessment every five years. This leads to the possibility that people revert to their previous work practice rather than working to the correct standards. GCS alleviates this risk as employees are informed as soon as revisions to standards are introduced and monitored to ensure they operate in accordance with them.
Is the GCS a replacement for Gas Safe Registration?
No, you will still need to be Gas Safe Registered, but the GCS is a means of demonstrating to Gas Safe Register that your employees remain competent in MoGS.
If I am interested in the GCS for my organisation, what are the next steps?
To move forward you need to determine how many employees will be in scope over the next 12 months (ie. how many will need to renew their Gas Safe Competences in that period)and sign the GCS Employer Agreement to obtain a GCS Licence. You will need to sign and send back a licence agreement and complete the template document that summarises what your GCS Operations Document will need to contain. A GCS Licence is valid for 12 months from the date that the employer GCS Agreement is signed. The Licence cost is based upon the number of Gas Safe Registered employees within the newly licensed company. The employees will need to renew their MoGS competences (ie. obtain another five years on the Gas Safe Register) during that 12-month period. Because it will inevitably take some weeks before the employer has built and prepared their GCS for external audit and subsequent certification (if their GCS meets the audit requirements), there will likely be some employees whose MoGS assessments are due prior to GCS certification. These individuals will need to renew via the existing ACS method, until the employers GCS is certified and may be used for employees’ Gas Safe Register renewal. The important point is that a GCS Licence enables the employer to use the Energy & Utility Skills GCS Product (and the bundle of services) from day one (the signed Agreement). While the cost of the Licence is based upon the notional number of employees renewing each year (on a cumulative basis), there is no guarantee that all those employees in the first year will be able to use GCS for renewal. This is dependent upon how quickly the employer is able to secure certification of their GCS. There is therefore an incentive for employers to carry out the GCS build and preparatory work once they have a GCS Licence.
Will it be expensive if I need to have site inspections?
No, as the requirements are spread over the five-year cycle and should provide both cost and time savings over the period. More importantly, it ensures your competence and knowledge is maintained. Energy & Utility Skills has a simple calculator available if you want to see how the scheme could be cost effective for your business.
Can the GCS be used to register an Apprentice instead of them doing ACS at the end of their Apprenticeship?
No. GCS is for the five-year renewal of Gas Safe Register required MoGS competences. You must already be Gas Safe registered and hold either a current recognised qualification or valid ACS Certificate to be able to use the scheme as your re-assessment mechanism.
Is the GCS for commercial and domestic use, or domestic only?
The GCS may be used for all work activities and categories covered by Gas Safe Register. This includes domestic, commercial, and catering, LPG applications, metering, and Emergency Response categories.
Will the GCS require me to complete lots of additional paperwork and operate a quality management system?
There will be paperwork to complete but hopefully less than you need to for ACS. It won’t create bureaucracy for your business, particularly as a member of a cluster. Someone else will be managing the process for you. For a larger business running their own GCS, there will be more administration involved, but the cost savings more than cover the cost of this. Check the GCS calculator if you’re unsure.
How can I start to use the GCS?
Energy & Utility Skills is the scheme owner. To move from ACS to GCS you need to obtain a licence from them. The licence costs £50 and is renewed per Gas Safe Registered engineer in scope (the individual that will be using GCS to renew their safety competence when their five-year period expires). A number of support packages are available from Energy & Utility Skills to help you build and establish your GCS processes.
Who are the Certification Bodies (CB’s) currently involved in the GCS?
There is one CB currently participating in the implementation of GCS and is accredited to offer GCS audit and certification. The CB is below: Certsure (NICEIC)
How does the GCS audit process work?
The audit works in the following two stages:
a desktop exercise that reviews your documentation (ie GCS Operations Manual) to enable the auditor to understand exactly how your GCS operates (and who is in scope etc)
a field-based check that your GCS operates in line with what is declared at stage one For a GCS that only includes direct employees, this stage two exercise will involve sampling to check that the whole operation is consistently applied across the business.
In a cluster model like the proposed CORGI GCS, while the stage one element is identical, it would be necessary for the auditor to (stage two) audit each of the employers involved to ensure that everyone is compliant.
I am a one-man band. How can I assess myself?
Unfortunately, you can’t, because the GCS is a group scheme and therefore isn’t suitable for sole traders.
Does an employer need to buy a GCS licence for all Gas Safe Registered engineers or just the ones that are in scope for the first year?
The employer is required to buy a GCS Licence that covers all the Gas Safe Registered engineers due for Gas Safe Register renewal in the first year. When the licence is renewed after 12 months, the second-year licence needs to include the first-year cohort, plus those engineers who will renew in the next year. This is repeated every 5 years until all in scope engineers are included in the licence (which will take five years). Once this position is reached, the annual licence will include all engineers every year. The employer may, for a number of reasons, wish to exclude some employees from their GCS. In these circumstances, such excluded individuals will continue to use the ACS route for Gas Safe renewal when due. The employer’s GCS Operations document, which must define the scope in terms of employees included, categories they hold, locations etc. is key to enabling the audit body to understand the “how, who and where” of the employer’s GCS operation.
Does Energy & Utility Skills require an organisation to declare the names of the additional engineers and their Gas Safe registered categories?
If yes, will Energy & Utility Skills pass this list to the relevant CB, (or require the organisation to provide the same list to the CB)? Yes, on both counts.
Energy & Utility Skills will hold, via our own register (EUSR), a complete list of the employees in scope each year. We will need this to facilitate GCS Licence renewal (as employers will add new individuals every year for the first five years and there may be new recruits and some leavers who will need to be removed). The CBs will have access to this information as they will need to know when each employee’s renewal date is due.
If an employee has competence categories listed on the Gas Safe Register that include aspects that they no longer need, can the GCS be used to renew only those competences that are needed?
Normally the GCS may only be used to renew MoGS competences in the categories already held by the individual employee. However, for some specific job roles (eg. First Call Operative) there may be an alternative limited scope category that would be more appropriate and better aligned to the work your employees carry out. Provided that this alternative Gas Safe Register category contains fewer MoGS criteria than the one the employee was originally registered in and is related to the same work activities then it is possible to renew via GCS in the new category.
Please note however that it would not be possible to make this journey in the other direction when further renewal is required five years later. For more specific advice you should discuss this with Energy & Utility Skills.
Can Energy & Utility Skills assist organisations with putting their GCS system together and are Energy & Utility Skills able to progress this so that the organisation can speak to somebody about the support package needed?
Yes, Energy & Utility Skills will help you to establish your GCS. Once you have signed the GCS employer agreement and purchased the first year’s licence, you are entitled to two days consultancy from Energy & Utility Skills, which may be used for a number of aspects (depending on your requirements).
In addition, Energy & Utility Skills has a number of support packages available that can cater for any level of support you need. The packages include aspects such as the mapping of your existing processes, creating your GCS Manual, briefing of staff and managers, advising on how best to gather the evidence of competence in matters of gas safety. For more specific advice you should discuss this with Energy & Utility Skills
Are there any additional costs associated with Energy & Utility Skills aside from the £50 per engineer license or any further consultancy/set-up costs?
No, apart from the GCS Licence (£50 per in scope engineer) there are no additional charges or costs from Energy & Utility Skills (unless you choose to purchase an additional support package, which is not mandatory)
Does the GCS Provisions document cover all the criteria to meet the ACS standard meaning no further documents are required?
The GCS Provisions document covers all the criteria necessary for engineers that undertake domestic work. If you have any employees that carry out either LPG or Commercial gas work then there will be additional criteria that they will have to meet (GCS Provisions
documents to cover LPG, Commercial and Emergency as well as the existing domestic one will be developed as required).
What is the definition of employed as described within EN/ISO/BS 17021?
The definition we have used in the GCS has come from UKAS and is someone “directly employed by the GCS operating organisation” Our advice from UKAS is that this type of scheme (ie. a management system) may not be used for associates or others not under the direct control of the organisation. You may involve your contractors 6MR0074 © 2015 Energy & Utility Skills Group or supply chain employers via a cluster arrangement whereby all organisations share a common approach, documentation, and processes, but each employer is subject to audit on an individual basis. This protects you from any risk that, should one of the other employers in the cluster fail the stage two audit, this will not affect your own certification (assuming that your GCS audit is successful
Do you know roughly how much the external auditors would charge?
This depends upon the number of audit days needed, which in turn depends upon the size and complexity of the GCS being audited. Audit charges should be similar to those for the 9001 or 14001 scheme audits. You would have to speak to one (or more) of the two CBs currently involved with GCS to get a more accurate estimate of actual costs.
Does the GCS apply to Scotland and Wales?
Yes, GCS applies to the whole of the UK including Northern Ireland; GCS is applicable to all areas that Gas Safe Register covers (ie. Channel Islands).
Who selects the CB?
The employer may select any of the UKAS GCS Accredited CB’s. Currently there are two CBs participating (see Q9).
Are there any time constraints (or requirements) related to the GCS?
No. The employer decides how long it takes to build their GCS. The main point is that, until a successful audit has been completed and the employer’s GCS is certified, none of the engineers in scope may renew their Gas Safe Register competences via the GCS. If engineers’ five-year expiry occurs before this point, those engineers must renew via ACS. Once the GCS is certified, it will be subject to surveillance by the CB and must be re-certificated by them every three years.
Can the scope of my GCS be amended?
Yes, but only at GCS Licence renewal time, which is annual. At that point the employer may add engineers, locations, categories etc, or make amendments to their GCS processes. If the latter involves material changes that may impact on the maintenance of MoGS competence, it is advisable to notify the relevant CB to ensure that the GCS remains compliant with the scheme requirements.
Why does Energy & Utility Skills claim that the GCS is more robust than ACS?
Because unlike ACS, the GCS requires the employer to have processes in place that continually maintain the competence of employees. While ACS operates as a snapshot assessment every five years, GCS ensures that any changes in legislation or Codes of Practice are communicated and implemented on a real time basis. This aligns GCS with the requirements of the H&SWA that requires employers to ensure that their workforce is competent to undertake work on their behalf.