I don't think that upskilling is a bad thing at all - but there is a demarcation between the sort of thing you should need to do to keep a practising licence, and the sort of personal upskilling you might do out of interest, or to learn about new products at the merchants etc.  Master Plumber members agree to do continued professional development as part of our membership - no problems with that you have a choice.  Also remember that Master Plumbers were asked by their members to provide courses so they could obtain points - no problem with that - and no different to AA members getting AA rewards - it is after all a membership based organisation and there for the benefit of members.  I agree that non-members should be charged a differential - otherwise why would members pay a membership fee if everyone got everything they got.  It is not Master Plumbers issue that the Board introduced a points based scheme - that decision belongs to the PGDB alone.

In an ideal world I believe the following should apply to Competency Based Licensing (which is different to continued professional development):
Mandatory courses for all practitioners around Codes and Legislation as soon as there is a change - with a 12 month window of opportunity to undertake either a face to face course, or perhaps an on line course.
The Board may decide from time to time to make some courses mandatory based on evidence they gather through disciplinary action over a 12 month period i.e. if they start to see a lot of issues around LPG installations I would accept that they make an LPG course mandatory for all.  This would clearly DEMONSTRATE A NEED and also meets the criteria of protecting the health and safety of the public.  Like wise with plumbing or drainage issues - where they pull information from disciplinary hearings they could put this before the trades and then necessitate a course around it.  (Disciplinary action = cases against practitioners) - as opposed to prosecutions through the court for members of the public who try to practise plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying.  In addition to this people could keep their own "learning log" for professional reading, product upskilling, and any other pertinent courses and send this in with their licence application.  This would give the Board a basis to select people for audit along with other criteria they may set down.  Mandatory courses would need to be economic and not impose undue costs - and given the numbers this should be relatively easy to enforce.

Hi Robbo

did the m.ps. with their influence ,c.e.o./chairman/board members, drive the decision which the board then introduced,cheers

It would certainly seem so after the government decision regarding the regulation review comity recommendation. As the dis-honarable minister has openly stated he was lobbied by masterbaters and suppliers who were probably under pressure from the very same masterbaters who caused the problem in the first place.