Welcome to the fourth UK Whitegoods meeting at Sibson February 2005 Training – A New Direction

The Industry Position Now The independent repair industry is now in a very poor condition with the major problems being that it is: Under-funded Under-resourced Under-staffed Not trained to a high standard Despite this, the quality of service delivered by the independents is, frankly, world class as a general rule.

Industry Changes The independent repairers have been under-funded for many years leading to the position that is now faced by the industry of having little capital to invest in the future of the businesses. Without some more investment from the clients that provide work to the independents they will not survive or be able to enhance their services. By contrast the manufacturers etc. want to see better services delivered before investing in the repairers A classic “chicken and egg” or Catch 22 position. So, the independent repair industry has to find a way to bring itself into line with the best practices as well as becoming more educated and professional which requires more training and knowledge.

How Does UK Whitegoods Help? What we envisage is a form of training grants scheme to be made available to independent repairers associated with the contributors. In effect a “pot” of money that the repairers can draw upon to aid their efforts to gain training. This scheme will be administrated by UK Whitegoods, run by Dave Conway but with the backup of the Advisory Council. Of course in conjunction with the contributors and UK Whitegoods we will also be seeking a reduction in training costs from various training houses throughout the UK.

So How does It Work? Really the concept is very simple… We ask that each company that wishes to take part in the scheme dedicates some money towards the training of independents. UK Whitegoods will then offer this money back in the form of grants to any independent for industry specific training that can be justified to receive the grant.

Why UK Whitegoods? UK Whitegoods is seen as “neutral ground” by most repairers. We are on the side of the independent repairs in effect, furthering their cause and trying to aid them in any way that we possibly can do. We have the infrastructure to deliver. We have the passion and drive to see the project through.

Why take this route? Traditionally no manufacturer, insurer or work provider would try to help in a specific area other than on specific products as there was no benefit to them. There would be no payback and, in fact, it may well help a competitor in the case of the independent repairers. We all know that the reality of the situation is far removed from that simplistic point of view…

Current Reality The reality however, is that there is a massive crossover in the repairers used throughout the UK by each client that offers work to the independent repairers. Whilst it may not be your own specific repairer that benefits from the pound notes that you donate, another four or five or your repairers may well benefit from your, or another’s contribution. Where the money came from is irrelevant in many ways, the benefits delivered are not!

Initial Targets The initial problem is that of the obvious one, CORGI training! Many repairers feel that they cannot justify the high training costs and, therefore, the investment in CORGI training. In many cases, even if they have CORGI, they are cutting back on the number of operatives or dropping it due to costs.

CORGI! Whilst we cannot seem to do much about the current issues with CORGI we can, collectively, do something about the number of repairers able to service gas products This fund, if everyone in the industry agrees to allow us the opportunity to trial it, could create up to FIFTY CORGI engineers a year nationally!

People On The Ground As you saw from the previous slide, this could create up to fifty new CORGI Registered businesses. Whilst a few may well not benefit any one network, the mere fact that the engineers are available, or have not dropped gas repairs, is of huge benefit to everyone. In effect, there are no losers!

Costs! Obviously there is a cost attached to a change such as this and the entire industry, if it wishes to progress, will have to fund it internally We would invite any work provider, insurer or manufacturer that is currently using an independent repair network to invest £2000 into the scheme for the year 2005/2006. The scheme is designed to be low cost, high yield and to benefit many.

UK Whitegoods Costs In the first year UK Whitegoods intends to run this scheme for no cost for several reasons… The costs, at this stage, are unknown as there has never been anything like this run before to our knowledge. We wish to encourage as many people in the industry to participate as possible We wish to maximise the amount of grants available to the repairers

The Future To encourage the growth and education of existing repairers as well as to fund, to some extent, new engineers into the industry making the process of training “new blood” easier and more affordable to the independent repairer. To offer training across a spectrum of domestic appliances. In other words, to seed a new generation of well trained engineers for the future!

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