Gas installer in IE
What this register publishes today, what is missing, and the smallest change that would move it up.
What was found
The best real-world evidence in the index that impersonation is the actual problem. Gas work for domestic customers is a criminal offence unless you are on this register, the public can search it by county, and every registered installer carries an ID card showing name, code, validity date and photograph. What makes the row worth reading is the enforcement record. The regulator has prosecuted people for carrying out illegal gas works while falsely claiming to be registered, including one man whose claim was disproved by a records check, and, most pointedly, a former registered installer who went on claiming registration after his had been terminated. That case is the revocation problem in a courtroom: the credential was real, then it was not, and the only thing standing between the public and the lie was somebody thinking to check. A card with a photograph is a good answer to impersonation in a doorway and no answer at all over email.
What it publishes
| Check | Answer | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A public page per licence | Yes | Gives a reader something to look at and a checker something to archive and attest against. |
| A bulk export | No | Lets a consumer hold the whole list instead of fetching one licence at a time, and lets anyone hash it. |
| Machine readable | No | A CSV or JSON rather than a page built for a browser. Decides whether checking can be automated at all. |
| Signed | No | Makes the file impossible to forge or mirror convincingly. Nothing reaches grade A without it. |
The next step
Give every licence a stable address
The register exists but lives behind a search form, so there is nothing to link to, nothing to archive and nothing to attest against. A permanent address per licence costs little and moves this row to grade C on its own.
A grade describes a register, not the authority behind it and not the quality of its supervision. An authority can run an excellent register and still sit at grade D because it is a search form.
If this row is wrong, it gets corrected with the correction published beside it. The index is useful only if it can be argued with. Tell the lab.