The customer who is selling the house
A solicitor emails asking for the building control compliance certificate for a consumer unit you replaced eighteen months ago. You check. The electrical installation certificate is there. The notification was never made. Nobody remembers why: the job ran over, the electrician assumed the office would do it, the office assumed he had.
Now you're notifying late, explaining to the customer, and wondering how many others are in the same state.
Why notifiable work slips through
Whether a job is notifiable is a judgement the electrician makes on site, under your scheme's guidance and your qualified supervisor's rules. That judgement is rarely written anywhere the office can see. The job sheet says 'CU change' or 'new circuit to garden', and the admin person either knows what that implies or doesn't.
The submission itself is usually simple. What fails is the handover between the person who knows the job is notifiable and the person who logs into the scheme portal.
| Handover point | What typically happens |
|---|---|
| On site | Electrician knows it's notifiable, says nothing |
| Job sheet | Description too vague for the office to tell |
| Certificate issued | Seen as the end of the job |
| Scheme portal | Logged into in batches, when someone remembers |
| Building control certificate | Arrives by post or email, not matched to the job |
Mixed jobs make it harder. A call-out to replace a faulty socket turns into a new circuit for a garden office once the customer mentions it, and the job sheet still says 'socket repair'. Subcontract work adds another layer, because the firm that booked you may assume you notify, while you assume they do. Unless someone writes down who is responsible on each job, both sides can walk away thinking it is handled.
What a missed notification leads to
Your scheme has its own expectations about notifying promptly, and your qualified supervisor will want to know the process is sound. Customers find out at the worst moment, usually a house sale. Late notifications take longer to sort than on-time ones, and an assessor looking at your records will notice gaps.
None of this is dramatic on a given day. It builds quietly, which is why it's easy to leave.
The notification tracker we build
- Job-close questions: when the electrician closes a job on their phone, a short set of questions your supervisor writes decides whether it is flagged as notifiable. The electrician answers; the system records it.
- Notification record: flagged jobs get a record with the address, work description, certificate reference and completion date already filled from the job and certificate.
- Portal-ready details: the details are laid out in the order your scheme's portal asks for them, so whoever submits it copies rather than hunts. Where a scheme offers an upload or API route, we use that instead.
- Status tracking: each notification sits in a list as flagged, submitted or confirmed, with its age. Anything unsubmitted past the limit your supervisor sets is flagged to them.
- Certificate return: when the building control certificate arrives, it is matched to the job by address and reference, filed, and emailed to the customer.
- Look-back report: a monthly view of notifiable jobs against submissions, so gaps show up before an assessment does.
A list you can trust
The office no longer has to interpret job descriptions. Every notifiable job has an owner and a status. When a solicitor asks for a certificate, you find it by address, and you can show when the notification went in.
Your electricians answer a few extra questions at job close. That's the whole change for them.
Signs your notifications need this
- You have found jobs that were never notified.
- Notifications are done in batches, when someone gets round to it.
- The office has to ask electricians whether a job was notifiable.
- Building control certificates arrive and are not matched to jobs.
- You would struggle to list last quarter's notifiable jobs quickly.