In June 2005 the National Consumer Council (now Consumer Focus) published a paper entitled "At a crossroads: getting the UK car servicing and repair sector back on track". The paper claimed that the car servicing and repair sector causes significant consumer detriment, which may cost consumers as much as £4 billion a year, or nearly £11 million every day. The paper added to the government's own mystery shopping research which indicated that half of garages offer a poor standard of service.

The Consumer Focus paper concluded that unless the industry introduced an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Approved Consumer Code of Practice then it would submit a Super Complaint to the OFT. It also recommended that the then DTI, (now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - BIS) should take steps to introduce 'regulatory solutions', should the industry fail to introduce a self regulatory Code.

The Sherpa Code Working Group (SCWG) was established in 2005 at the request of the DTI Retail Motor Strategy Group* (RMSG) to develop a sector-specific code to answer in response to the challenge of criticism by the National Consumer Council.

In November 2007, the RMSG gave approval to the SCWG to continue the development and introduction of the code.

Motor Codes Ltd was established in February 2008 to co-ordinate and operator the Service and Repair code and is a wholly owned subsidiary of SMMT.

The Code was soft launched to subscribers in May 2008 in order to allow garages to subscribe for the public launch in August.

The Code launched to the public on 29th August 2008, at which it was announced that the Motor Industry Service and Repair Code had completed the first stage of the OFT's Code approval process.

The Code now has over 5,000 subscribing garages and is aiming to achieve stage two OFT Approval.

Notes:

*RMSG is a senior level group of 25 retail motor industry representatives, facilitated by the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) to bring a joint approach to key industry issues. Membership includes consumer groups and large independent retailers, vehicle manufacturers, franchised dealer groups, trade associations – including the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA), the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), the Royal Automobile Club Foundation (RAC Foundation), the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The OFT's Consumer Codes Approval Scheme (CCAS) aims to promote and safeguard consumer interests by helping consumers to identify better businesses, and to encourage those businesses to raise their standards of customer service. The core criteria cover the organisation of the code sponsor, the preparation and content of the code, complaints handling, monitoring, compliance and publicity. The Enterprise Act 2002 (Part 1, Section 8) gives the OFT powers to approve and promote consumer codes of practice that meet the OFT's core criteria.

The OFT's Consumer Codes Approval Scheme consists of two stages. During Stage One the code must meet the OFT's published core criteria, which contain measures designed to remove or ease consumer concerns about undesirable trading practices. At Stage Two the code sponsor must prove that its code lives up to the promises made in Stage One by demonstrating that the code is being effectively implemented by its members and that consumer disputes are properly resolved.