Tuesday, 01 December 2009

At a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Motor Group (APMG) on 1 December 2009, Parliamentarians heard that self-regulation must be accepted by the service and repair sector to avoid costly legislation and to improve consumer protection and satisfaction.

Motor Codes director, Chris Mason, joined by Colin Brown, director of consumer policy at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Richard Burden MP, APMG chairman, spoke compellingly about the need to set a minimum standard of service across the industry to improve the sector's reputation.

"We are determined to build on the early success of the Service and Repair Code, working collaboratively with industry to raise and maintain standards across the sector through effective self-regulation," said Chris Mason. "The Service and Repair Code provides garages with a hallmark of quality that consumers can rely on and presents the sector with a means of outing rogue traders that tarnish the reputation of their industry."

During the discussion, Mason raised the need for government to show its support for the Code by making subscription a requirement of being an MOT testing station. He highlighted the need to add even more garages to the thousands already subscribed in order to provide consumers with a broad choice of garages, each offering industry-regulated standards of operation.

"The incentive for independent and franchised garages to sign-up is clear," continued Mason. "As a Motor Codes garage, each subscriber plays a part in the regulation of the industry, whereas if government is forced to introduce legislation that imposes standards the rules will be out of the sector's control and will certainly cost them significantly more to comply."

Motor Codes Ltd offers three Codes, covering new cars, vehicle warranty products and service and repair garages. The New Car Code celebrates its fifth anniversary this month and benefits from full OFT approval. This Code covers 99% of all new cars registered in the UK and transformed the new car landscape five years ago, drastically reducing complaints by setting consumer-focused, industry-wide standards.

The Service and Repair Code is backed by government, industry and consumer bodies, and has almost 6,000 garages signed-up after just over a year of operation. Created by Motor Codes following a government request to create a means of industry self-regulation, the Service and Repair Code aims to replicate the success of the New Car Code and is currently making good progress through the OFT's approval process, having achieved stage one approval last year.

Garages can subscribe to the Motor Industry Code of Practice for Service and Repair for just £75 per year at www.motorcodes.co.uk. In addition to playing a part in the self-regulation of the sector, subscribing garages are entitled to a wealth of free marketing materials, independent arbitration in the event of a customer complaint and a listing on the search function of the Motor Codes website which is used by over 300,000 people annually.