By Abrar Hussain-Aziz, Stakeholder Manager at Gas Safe Register:
So what is Gas Safe Register?
In 2009, Gas Safe Register replaced CORGI as the registration body for all gas engineers in the UK. This means that anyone working on gas legally needs to be registered with Gas Safe Register. Gas Safe Register maintains the register of all qualified professionals, providing them with guidance and advice, as well as inspecting them on a regular basis. Gas Safe also provides gas safety advice for consumers, along with a postcode search which helps them find an engineer in their local area, and a complaint service which offers an inspection of any gas work they have concerns over.
What does Gas Safe look to achieve?
Simply, we look to ensure that people are staying safe in their homes with all gas appliances worked on by an approved and qualified engineer. We’re looking to eliminate instances of illegal and unsafe gas work that put members of the public at risk from dangers such as carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, fires, leaks and explosions.
How does Gas Safe go about this?
We aim to protect the public from unsafe gas work through:
- Our national investigations team tracking and reporting illegal gas workers
- Anyone working on gas outside of Gas Safe registration is working illegally. We have a team dedicated to investigating instances of illegal gas work, and reporting the details to the Health and Safety
- Executive where possible for them to consider taking action.
- Regular inspections of Gas Safe registered engineers. Our team of inspectors covers the whole country (and is more than 80 people strong). They spend much of their time visiting registered businesses to ensure that they are working to current standards and are aware of any changes in regulations.
- Educating consumers and raising awareness of gas safety. We look to do this continually through campaigns and communication channels such as our website and social media. Since 2011, we’ve co-ordinated Gas Safety Week, which is a national event in September promoting gas safety awareness. The week has really taken off amongst the industry, and become more successful year on year as we look to promote our key safety messages to the general public.
- Investigating reports of unsafe gas work. As well as the Investigations team above, our inspectors will also look into any reports of unsafe gas work carried out by a registered business, visiting properties where possible and ensuring that any unsafe work is corrected and the registered business involved improves working practices to ensure that safety standards are complied with.
