Now Now BAS - first of all misquoting me
I'm still waiting for you to prove the truth of that allegation.
BAS why don't you just accept that the 17th edition is the current standard - nothing to be ashamed of there - it includes all the good bits from the 16th edition and adds quite a few extra good bits.
It is the current standard, and nowhere have I said that it is not.
At the end of the day whether its under Part P, EAWR or H&S it prime purpose is to make all electrical work safe - even you must recognise the importance of that.
Of course I recognise that.
But I also recognise that there are other ways to achieve safety than complying with BS 7671:2008, and that no matter how much of a
good idea that is it is
not legally mandated.
And that is of
crucial importance to the situation faced by the OP, because with no such mandatory compliance his LABC cannot legally reject the work simply because it does not comply.
I only quoted that first sentence from Section 17 because that was the only one of relevance - it was no more "selective" than was your quoting of only part of the entire Act.
If you read the second part of that Section you will see that it says that not complying with the current Code of Practice might well make the charge of another offence proven, but that still does not make non-compliance with the Code of Practice an offence in itself.
If you read the second part of that Section you will see that it says that it is perfectly permissible to find other ways to comply with the provisions of the HASAWA -
the key thing to do is to comply with those.
How you do it is up to you, and BS 7671:2008 is the most sensible way, but it is not the only way, and that is exactly the same as the situation with the Building Regulations.
If you're in court charged with a H&S related offence then that will be because something unsafe has happened and you are being held responsible. It's hard to see how if you had truly complied with the relevant parts of the Code of Practice that you could be guilty of any failing related to that which would have resulted in something happening which got you into court.
If you have chosen an alternative to BS 7671:2008 then you would need to be just as sure that you knew what you were doing, and just as sure that you'd done it properly, as you would be if you complied with BS 7671.
If you screwed up and didn't do it properly then even if you had intended to comply with BS 7671 in reality you would not have done, so even if you starting out thinking that you were following the Code of Practice you would find that you had not, and you would deserve to be in court. But you'd be charged with an offence under the HASAWA, not with failing to comply with BS 7671.