Written question asked by Janet Anderson (Labour) on Tuesday, 19 July 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 21 July 2005. It was answered by Yvette Cooper (Labour) on Monday, 12 September 2005 on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

OFTEC Scheme

Question: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) if he will make an assessment of the (a) effectiveness and (b) coverage of the OFTEC scheme;

Answer: The effectiveness of the competent person scheme operated by the Oil Firing Technical Association for the Petroleum Industry Ltd. (OFTEC) in England and Wales was considered in a formal review in 2003. This concluded that it had achieved a higher level of building regulations compliance than would otherwise have been the case and had helped to raise installation standards. Since that time the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has kept OFTEC under informal review and believes that these conclusions remain valid.Since it was established in April 2002, coverage of the OFTEC scheme has grown steadily: the number of oil installers and servicers now stands at 7,500 registered technicians in the UK, of whom 5,600 are in England, an increase of 400 since January, compared with fewer than 3,000 registered technicians in April 2003 when the scheme was reviewed.Precise figures for the number of oil installers and services are not available but OFTEC estimate that there are approximately 10,000 in the UK, of whom 6–7,000 are in England and Wales.

Secondary information