Hi Wal
As usual a well thought out newsletter which captures the issues in a nutshell.  I'm tired of the detractors of the PGDF using the argument "they must be against upskilling" - this could not be further from the truth.  By far the majority of practitioners I come across in my working life love to learn new things.  They take every opportunity to discuss new products, solve an unusual problem and add to their skill base.  Upskilling has gone on in this industry since Adam was a cowboy.  What has happened is exactly what you said - "businesses" have formed around the requirement put in place by the PGDB.  These businesses are legitimate - and started because their was a 'need".  This "need" for a points based regime is likely to disappear if the disallowance as recommended by the Regulation Review Committee goes through Parliament in mid June.  Therein lies the opportunity for this industry to start to forumlate a proper plan to keep it's participants the best plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers in the world.  We need to agree on a new system that will be cost effective and purposeful.  I thoroughly agree that competencies need to be clearly identified at apprentice level and then worked through from there.  Where there is a perceived need to teach industry to rectify problems that have shown up through audits, accidents or complaints - then we should embrace these and work to improve our game.  On top of this we will always attend seminars/courses/conferences and the like which will expose us to new products and new ways of doing things.  Hopefully these will be at limited cost so that we can all afford to go and benefit from what we have learned.  The end result will be well rounded tradespeople and a "public" who are safe. 

It would be good if all of industry could agree on the direction going forward and put patch protectionism to one side.