Page 10 - Plumbheat Magazine

Newsleaks
Local
Association News
Edinburgh and District
At the Annual General Meeting on
18 May Edinburgh and District said farewell to Stephanie Lowe who has decided to step down from her role as Branch Secretary. Stephanie has been working with the Association in this role since April 2014 and we would like to thank her for all her hard work and enthusiasm. Committee member, Ralph Shaw, has now taken on the role.
William Wilson opens new branch in Glasgow
LEADING SCOTTISH based plumbers’ merchant and bathroom specialist William Wilson has invested more than a quarter of a million pounds in a custom designed branch and showroom at Unit 6 Houston Place on the Kingston Bridge Trading Estate Glasgow.
The company, which is now part of Wolseley UK, moved into the recently refurbished building on the first of August.
Deputy Managing Director Robin Mackinlay said: “We’re convinced this new location will deliver an enhanced
level of service to our customers. Not only is the location more central and accessible, there are obvious benefits to having our sales counter and bathroom showroom under one roof.”
Mr Mackinlay continued: “Our new premises will feature a new and spacious sales counter and we’ll have increased stock lines. We’ll also be developing a 3000 square foot bathroom showroom with over 40 displays and we’ll be offering a free CAD bathroom design service.” •
SEC Group: latest news
SNIPEF makes a substantial contribution to the work of Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group Scotland, SEC Group Northern Ireland and the UK- wide SEC Group. SEC Group is the only organisation to exclusively represent the interests of specialist contractors throughout the UK. It enables SNIPEF to have direct access to UK Government and through SEC Group Northern Ireland and SEC Group Scotland, to respectively, the Northern Ireland Executive/Assembly and the Scottish Government/Parliament.
SEC GROUP deals
with issues – mainly commercial issues – which are common to all the member associations within SEC Group in Scotland. The SEC Group membership comprises: British Construction Steelwork Association, Building Engineering Services Association, Lift and Escalator Industry Association, Electrical Contractors’ Association of Scotland and the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation.
Retentions
The protection of retention monies is currently a priority issue for SEC Group. SNIPEF has been encouraging member firms to write to their Westminster MPs to
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support SEC legislation to ring-fence cash retentions. In this way retentions will be released promptly and will not be exposed to insolvencies up the supply chain.
During September the
UK Government is likely
to publish its review of the retentions system. As soon as it is published SEC Group and SNIPEF will be providing guidance on how to respond to it; all member firms will be encouraged to respond.
Pressure is also being applied on the Scottish Government and on the Central Procurement Directorate in Northern Ireland to address retention security.
Payment
Carillion’s recent financial woes has exposed the
precarious nature of the very large UK construction companies. Three years ago Carillion had sought to acquire Balfour Beatty; at that time the joint balance sheet deficit of both companies was £1 billion!
SEC Group has been generating considerable press publicity to highlight this as a strong reason
for using project bank accounts (PBAs) across the whole of the public sector. PBAs enables every firm
in the supply chain to be paid from one protected “pot”. Scottish Government mandated them from 31 October 2016 for projects over £4 million procured
by Scottish Government bodies. Northern Ireland has mandated them to projects over £2 million. This has been achieved by constant
SEC Group pressure.
In September SEC Group
Scotland plans to release a report on the payment performance of Scottish public bodies (other than local authorities).
Feedback
SNIPEF member firms are encouraged to send feedback to SNIPEF on issues which they believe to be industry- wide. These can then be taken by SNIPEF through
SEC Group either through Westminster or the devolved governments. •
Autumn 2017