OFTEC’s New Suite of Oil Assessments
OFTEC’s Assessment Sub Group (ASG) has been working on a new suite of assessments to raise standards within the oil industry. This is a requirement of ISO17024 accreditation
A wide range of people have been involved in the ASG to draw upon the wide scope of knowledge available within the oil industry and to ensure the new assessments meet current legislation, regulations and industry practices. We have drawn upon inspection findings, complaint statistics evaluation, technician’s field experience and members warranty claims in this update.
The group has tried to include as many practical elements as possible to measure a candidate’s knowledge and understanding, to reflect the type of work undertaken by oil firing technicians and to assess competence as realistically and effectively as possible.
The new assessments are now in the final stages of production, requiring only some supporting documentation, a final “live” trial and then sign off by the OFTEC Scheme Committee (OSC). Once this is achieved they will be issued to assessment centres and Certification Bodies to allow them to get ready for implementation. The planned issue date is Monday 4th April 2010 and the implementation date is Monday 5th July 2010).
The structure of the assessments is somewhat different and includes a “core” unit which everyone must undertake from 5th July 2010. Candidates who undertake the current assessments before that date will not be required to take the core unit until they become due for re-assessment in 5 years time. More details will follow as we near the issue date. This will mean that candidates who have completed assessments before 5th July will not be able to go back after this date to complete other assessments from the current set, i.e. to add an OFT102 to an OFT101, because these modules will no longer be available.
Technicians who hold current suitable Heating and Energy Efficiency qualifications will be able to register using these rather than undertake OFTEC’s energy efficiency and/or heating modules. However, if the qualification runs out the registration class will also drop out. In current terms; if a technician holds an OFT105E using another Awarding Body’s energy efficiency qualification, if that runs out before the appliance qualification, then the appliance part will also drop out until the technicians registers a suitable current energy efficiency qualification.
Finally; we are currently concluding training and assessment timescales. The first review indicates that the full set of oil training and assessments can be undertaken in five (full) days, therefore approximately half to one day more than the current suite. Specific guidance on timescales has been included to ensure all candidates experience the same training and assessment experience.
More information will be issued in due course to keep you up to date.