Something unprecedented is now going on with some accreditation bodies. They might tell me I\u2019m wrong, but I don\u2019t ever recall a time when ABs stood up to defend assessors in the way that some have done over the Landmark fee increases rushed out by DCLG.<\/p>\n
More than doubling the commercial lodgement fee has obviously drawn most of the fire, but the three weeks\u2019 notice DCLG planned to give us is appalling, especially given that they signed off an Impact Assessment on this almost two months ago. Perhaps even worse is the complete lack of consultation over this. They didn\u2019t consult us, which is normal, though hopefully it won\u2019t be in the future and consultation with assessors\u2019 organisations will become standard procedure, but clearly they didn\u2019t consult the ABs either, making them very angry. <\/p>\n
Regardless of this, it has seemed in the past that the ABs were content to simply pass on official instructions to us without a murmur of dissent, even when the instructions were nonsense. A public servant who regularly sat in on meetings attended by ABs, told me privately last year that he was often incensed by the failure of accreditations to stand up for assessors in meetings.<\/p>\n
Well that certainly seems to have changed! Though why that is I\u2019m not sure. Maybe they are just angry that they weren\u2019t consulted. But it is also possible that the growth of assessors\u2019 organisations is making ABs realise that their world is changing. In the future they will not simply be able to email instructions to assessors and expect them to be complied with. Increasingly, assessors are expecting to have a voice in their industry, and a say in what happens within it. <\/p>\n