I Quote 

Next month the Board will undertake more
public consultation and invites you to have
your say on the Board’s proposal to reset
the disciplinary levy. Here we outline the
key elements of the Board’s proposal and
encourage you all to make a submission next
month when the consultation period opens.
Essentially, the Board will propose next month that
the discipline levy be reset to reflect our current
assessment of the costs relating to the discipline of
registered persons only. In resetting the disciplinary
levy, the costs associated with prosecuting nonregistered
people working illegally would be reassigned
to a new prosecution fee that is proposed.
It is important to note that under the proposal there
would be no overall increase on the current level of
fees/levies a tradesperson pays. While the disciplinary
levy would decrease, a new fee, equal to the value
of this decrease, would be payable in the form of a
new prosecution fee. The prosecution fee will fund the
Board’s prosecutions of non-registered people.
The Board will also propose to take
the opportunity to reduce the fee for
the practical test of workmanship
for overseas trained people and
introduce new fees for several
categories of exemptions and
employer licences.
The Board will present
its proposal in full next
month when it begins its
consultation process.
Look out for more
information in next
month’s Info Brief.    

How dare they tell us what they are going to do before we are even consulted on this 
The way it reads is this is cut and dryed
What do you guys think?

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/pgdb-new-zealand-plumbing-gasfitting-and-drainlaying-board/30/pgdb-august-info-brief/809/

Hi Integrated
The PGDB's annual report is due out at the end of this month I think - their accounts are in there, but you can request further information under the Official Information Act.  At present the only people paying to prosecute unregistered or unlicensed people are practitioners through the disciplinary levy.  My understanding is that this is not legal and this is the heart of the complaint that was made to the Regulation Review Committee.  The disciplinary levy is only meant to be used to prosecute licensed people.  The PGDB have been misusing some of the displinary levy to prosecute people through the District Courts etc.  The Board, who police the industry, have not been very good at policing their own activities.  They ran to the Minister and said they would be insolvent if Government were to accept the recommendation of the RRC - and so we saw what happened in Parliament - the Minister, while acknowledging that the RRC were right, did not support the recommendation.

Now we have the PGDB playing with semantics and "Proposing" to fleece us just the same but splitting the name of the fee we will be charged. 
The solution to this - do what the Electrical Workers Registration Board does - seek government funding from the gas levy that is charged on everyone's gas bill.  This money is used by the EWRB to fund prosecutions of unlicensed sparkies.  At present not one cent of the gas levy goes to the PGDB - and so practitioners bear the cost entirely of prosecutiions. 

I don't think for one minute all legitimate, licensed practitioners don't want to see the bastards ripping our livelihood out from under our feet proesecuted, hung, drawn and quartered, but why should the cost be 100% borne by us - why shouldn't the public towards protecting themselves, and why can't government direct some of the gas levy to the PGDB to ease our financial burden.   

What are the alternatives for the PGDB - they have already stated that without the displinary levy they would be insolvent - what if consultation overwhelmingly comes out against the two fees proposed - what then?  Is it time to suck this big administrative bag of mistakes into DBH where it can join many other dysfunctional committees and at least rid us of a headache.  DBH is so slow, so dysfunctional, so inept that at least we wouldn't hear from them for a while.  It may even save us some money - no additional rent on the Terrace for flash offices, cutting staff (there are plenty of pen pushers in DBH already), share some economies of scale, save Board member's fees and costs... this list just goes on and on to make this a plus.

hi guys,Yes, when we have to put our charge out rates up because of increased fees/points training etc, there will be more D.I.Y. cowboys doing our work because Joe public will not be able to afford to employ us. The vicious cycle continues, cheers

Thunderhead - I think the Board gets the actual "costs" back in any cases through either the disciplinary system or the District Court, however fines through the District Court will go to the Crown.  I believe the PGDB keeps fines through it's own internal process.  These fines and costs never cover the actual costs though - and are only a % of them.  In fact the unlicensed people get off much more lightly as the fines in the District Court process seem to be much, much smaller than those imposed on licensed people in the Board's internal process.  The fines handed down in the District Court are imposed by judges, the fines to licensed people are obviously decided by the Board's Disciplinary Committee.

This is not a done deal - the PGDB are going to CONSULT us about what we think - we need to be very clear about how we feel about these proposed new fees.  If you look at the last round of consultation re competencies, according to the Board's website there were only 100 submissions received(over 80 from Federation members).  100 out of a possible seven or eight thousand individual practitioners.  We are our own worst enemies through apathy.  I hope like hell more than 100 people decide to put pen to paper on the upcoming consultation around fees.  Those who say nothing can't complain when nothing changes.  It's never too early to start forming your opinions and making notes ready for when they ask.  Perhaps consider asking that the PGDB approach Government for some of the gas levy from the public's gas accounts to go towards prosecuting member of the public and unlicensed people.

And if they ask and then ignore, well there's always another opportunity to go to the RRC.  In the meantime keep collecting those signatures for the petition to Parliament for a Commission of Enquiry into the governance of the industry.