The All Party Parliamentary Gas Safety Group held seminar and discussion of issues relating to skills and competency in the gas industry at One Birdcage Walk on 13 July 2011 between 12.30pm and 2pm.

The Gas Safe Register is currently holding a review into the competence requirements for registration. A final report is due to be submitted to the HSE in the autumn.  Conclusions from the report may be developed and implemented for the improvement of gas safety for the purposes of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.

The Register’s review will focus solely on gas competence in relation to registration requirements and its impact on the delivery of safe gas work and consumer gas safety.

With this background in mind, the APPGSG, together with the Council of Gas Detection and Environmental Monitoring, invited a number of speakers to give short presentations on a range of key issues relating to skills and competencies in the gas safety arena.

Baroness Finlay, Chair of the current APPGSG inquiry into low level carbon monoxide exposure gave a short update on the inquiry’s progress followed by contributions from Phil Burnett (EU Skills), Jamie Cooper (Gas Safe Register) and Richard Phipps (BPEC), who spoke about routes to gas safe registration, the use of gas detection equipment and the smart meter programme respectively.  This was followed by a question and answer session.