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Delays for Plumbers' Gas Installer Registration Scheme

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has admitted that the new gas installer registration scheme will be introduced nine months later than originally planned.The Health and Safety Executive has announced last summer that they have set up a competition for a new gas installer registration scheme for the next five years. According to the original plan, a winning candidate was supposed to be announced in early 2008 with the new scheme in place by early summer 2008.A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said that the announcement on the winning candidate was now subject to a delay because “effective transition arrangements” from the old scheme to the new one were still being finalised.The current scheme for gas safety registration, to which many plumbers and heating engineers subscribe, is operated by CORGI. Other organisations running to win the franchise include the National Association for Professional Inspectors and Testers (NAPIT). Last year, the Health and Safet ...
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Cost of Heating and Electricty to Rise 40 per cent

As oil and gas for heating reach new records on the commodity market, latest estimates put the increase in the cost of domestic gas for heating and cooking at 40% this winter. Such large increase means a typical household in the UK is going to pay £400 more on average for heating and electricity on an annual basis. With UK households already under pressure with higher costs of fuel and food and higher mortgage rates, the new increase will put additional pressure on struggling homeowners. The increase is far higher than analysts predicted recently.It is estimated that the price hikes will be introduced during the summer months, when heating bills are not at top of peoples minds, to make them less controversial. Furthermore, it is likely that the price increases will be introduced in stages rather than as a single large increase.The latest price increase will put additional pressure on the financial systems trying to put a lid on a growing risk of inflation. Large increases in the ...
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