Page 3 under the title Summary of Achievements, contains the following headline paragraph.
[The number of CORGI registered businesses at the end of March was 44,120 with 97,214 operatives registered, with those businesses comprising 92,936 individual operatives. This compared with last year’s figures of 44,692 registered businesses and 95,566 registered operatives, with those businesses comprising 93,780 operatives.]
I found the paragraph confusing therefore I telephoned Corgi for a clarification and promptly received a clarification following a returned telephone call.
Visitors should note that Corgi are charged with the duty (by the HSE) to maintain a register of competent businesses, not primarily a register of competent individuals. For obvious reasons Corgi must be told which individuals are employed and what their skills are.
The first figure of 44,120 refers to (as it was put to me) Corgi Registration Numbers, including my own.
Corgi registered businesses include the vast army of sole proprietors. Many Corgi registered businesses (builders etc) may not have a gas competent person at the helm and will therefore employ a competent gas operative or sub-contract to another Corgi registered business who is or has a gas competent operative. This is because some customers, like Housing Associations, insist on employing a Corgi registered business.
There is no reason why a sole proprietor business engaged in (say) kitchen fitting could not be a Corgi registered business, as long as they engage a Corgi registered business who is or has a gas competent operative to carry out their gas work.
All Corgi registered businesses have a Corgi registration number and a Corgi registration card. In the case of sole proprietors there is one card bearing the photograph of the sole proprietor engaged in gas work. In the case of Corgi registered businesses (say a builder etc) their gas competent employees will each carry a card bearing their own photograph BUT the card will headline the name of the Corgi registered business.
Gas competent employees of Corgi registered businesses cannot undertake gas work in their own personal time. If gas competent employees wish to do that (a good idea to enhance skills) they must register as a Corgi registered business in their own name. Because of this the figures supplied by Corgi in the annual report may not appear to make sense at first.
Operatives is taken to mean people who have proved individual competence to Corgi and thus are available for work.
The current total of 44,120 Corgi registered businesses apparently includes 97,214 operatives. However, as 4278 of those operatives are employees AND are also registered in their own name as a business, those operatives have been counted twice (unavoidable). Corgi have therefore helpfully discounted those 4278 in the second figure of 92 936 operatives, to accurately reflect the actual number of people (my words) available for work.
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