Important changes happening for electrical workers

New Relicensing transition

We will be transitioning to a new relicensing model for electrical workers from July 2019. Each electrical worker’s licence will be smoothed to an individualised date.

Currently over 28,000 electrical workers renew their practising licence within the same three month timeframe every two years, a process which is no longer sustainable, as it causes a demand bottleneck for our services as well as competence providers. This strains sector resources and capacity during the relicensing period each time.

In order to make this transition as smooth and efficient as possible, for the next renewal round, all electrical workers will renew their licence before June similarly to previous years.

Following the 2019 renewal, your licence renewal date will be changing to an individualised date based on the date of first registration of your licence. During the transitional period, your licence length might be different from what you would usually expect. However, in the future, we will return to two-year licensing periods.

After our transition period, employers of electrical workers will also no longer be able to renew their employee’s licences, as each electrical worker will be responsible for their own licence. However, electrical workers will still be able to involve their employer in their renewals by allowing the employer to pay the fee while the electrical worker completes the declarations.

We will provide you with more information about the transition to a smooth licensing cycle in the coming months, including what it means for you personally (such as when your future relicensing date will be). There will also be further, detailed information available on the electrical workers Registration Board website in the coming months.

In the meantime, electrical workers should ensure their personal details are up-to-date in order to receive specific advice about the upcoming changes.

Fees changes

Changes to the electrical workers licence and registration fees will come in to affect from January 2019.

The Electrical Worker Registration Board fees were last reviewed in 2013. At that point the Board’s memorandum account had accumulated a surplus due to consistently over recovering costs. So in that year registration and licensing fees were reduced to below cost to return the surplus to electrical workers.

As the surplus has now been reduced, it’s necessary to increase fees to return to fully recovering costs. 

Following consultation earlier this year, a new fees structure will apply from January 2019, bringing fees back to comparable levels paid by electrical workers before 2013. 

The fee changes will ensure the scheme is adequately funded, provide for streamlining of administration, on-going support for increased professional development opportunities for electrical workers, and will make the fee structure fairer.

The table included below explains the new fees structure.