OK so I log into the boards website maybe once a month as I have been doing a few free or inexpensive cpd on line courses and wanted to check my points were being acknowledged by board staff. 

I had over 70 points in the 2012-2013 licensing year, some I am sure were due to expire. When I logged in back in early April 2013 to check up on how many I still had for the next license year it said 24...... Full well knowing that the 24 had come from 2 exam passes in 2012. Having three licenses to upkeep I realised I needed a boat load of points. Since I work on infrastructure for now I decided to put the license debacle on hold while I sorted out some cpd, not that I was that keen to get it sorted as thanks to the board/govt this industry is poked and I don't need licenses to actually work the job I currently have.

Anyway, logged in last week again as the utility company I am employed by put us through a pipe locating course as we use pipe locator's daily and I have been waiting to see the points appear. To my amazement I now had 0 points and a small note underneath that read "included 24 points transferred from 2012". I was like , no s**t...I now have 0?? Unreal. The points from the locate course had not come through yet but in the meantime id gone from 24 in mid April to 0? So the points I earned in May were gone too....

So yesterday I got a call from a staff member at the Board. I was asked why I had not re-licensed, so told him the truth. Its too expensive, the 24 point cpd requirement is a joke and I don't have enough points. Also told him I am currently not under the jurisdiction of the board or the act and work with infrastructure instead. I also told him I wished I'd become an electrician as the costs in this industry are out of control.. I said $60 a year to be an electrician about 5 times until he eventually listened. His response was, "not for long" which is an interesting statement to make. He then said he presumes that is what is going to happen but is not scare mongering. Electricians look out, your next.....

So he told me I actually have ample points and should re-license. I said would you if its going to cost thousands and you are not using the qualifications right now? I asked how I could still have points as the board who know everything and never make mistakes state I have 0. Yes 0.

He replied it was a 'small glitch' in the system and had now been fixed. I told him I had not uplifted any licenses as the system told me back in April I had only 24 points spread between plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying which was clearly not enough which makes me incompetent as per board policy. Technically that makes it a little more than a small glitch letting someone know they are incompetent and cannot uplift a license when in fact they are competent.

It turns out I now have 76 points including 58 transferred from the last licensing period. I have no idea how this could have happened. I can only account for 54 that possibly have not expired. I logged in this morning and it has been changed to state 76 as he said. I have gone from 0 to 76 in a week. WTF???

So its not all bad news. Just goes to show though they are in an absolute shambles as is the industry thanks to their meddling. How much are they spending a year on cpd related stuff at their offices and they stuff up a practitioners CPD like that. If I went and paid for dozens and dozens of points to catch up it would of been a big mistake, not that the board care. Just as well I hadn't spent too much on courses to gather more points.

If anyone else has had their points botched by a bunch of incompetent self proclaimed masters of industry (PGDB) I would love to hear about it, Cheers 

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/licensing-and-up-skilling/45/the-latest-board-botch-up/1539/