Plumbers Criticise Health Dept’s Training Scheme

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22867, 10 February 1949, Page 2

Plumbers Criticise Health Dept’s Training Scheme

,(P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Feb. 10. The possibility that under the Health Department’s new training scheme for inspectors, unregistered piumbers with no practical experience would be directitoe plumbing work> throughout New ZlSland w&s raised In k remit to the cb|fference of New Zealand Master Plumbers Federation in New Plymouth yesterday. Reference was made to a recent advertisement by the department offering a year’s technical training to applicants for the position of health inspector. The minimum qualification would be two years’ secondary education and during the training period the applicant would be paid ££oo per annum. He would then be appointed as an inspector subject to examination, at a commencing rate of £275. Concern was expressed at the anomaly which would arise if this scheme was put into operation. A plumber with a lifetime of experience would, it was stated, be subject to direction from an inspector with little or no practical knowledge. What' was required was some form of appeal to a practical man when necessary, particularly in the case of a dispute between an inspector and a plumber. The position will be raised with the Minister of Health with a request that plumbers should be safeguarded against unnecessary interference by inexperienced inspectors.