The 12-months trading prerequisite for servicing membership has officially been scrapped as of 1 January 2017. We caught up with BPCA Membership Officer, Rachel Eyre, to find what these changes mean for future and current Servicing Members.

First of all, can you explain exactly what the change in criteria is?

“It used to be that you couldn’t be considered for full BPCA Servicing Membership if your company hadn’t been trading in pest control for at least 12 months, however as of January 2017, even a brand new company can apply for full Servicing Membership - assuming they meet all other criteria”.

Why have we dropped the criteria?

 “We believe by allowing newer businesses to join quicker, we’ll be able to provide more support to more pest controllers – as well as drive the quality of service provided by the UK pest control sector as a whole. It used to be that we could help train you as a pest controller, and then we could help you once your company was established, but we were limited to what we could do for those in the middle who were just starting their businesses. Now we can offer our support throughout a pest controller’s whole career.”

Does that mean that the standards for membership have gone down?

“Not at all. All other membership criteria still stand, so companies will still need to have the correct insurances in place, officers of the business must not be undischarged bankrupts, all technicians must be on a recognised CPD scheme and qualified to a Level 2 standard, as well as abide by all our Codes of Best Practice. The independent EN 16636 audit will also help ensure that even new companies are completely up to scratch.”

What will happen to the Probationary Scheme?

We will be keeping the limited BPCA Probationary Scheme to help companies meet the other criteria for full membership. We’re in the process of contacting companies on the Probationary Scheme who were previously unable to apply for full membership because of the 12-month criteria and then advise them how best to upgrade from a probationer to a Full Servicing Member.

If you’d like to know more about the criteria change, or membership in general, you can contact rachel@bpca.org.uk 

Rachel Eyre
Membership Officer

15 March 2017  |  PPC86

5 things you might not know about our Membership Officer

1. Rachel is the longest serving member of the BPCA staff team, having been here for 25 years in July.
2. Rachel is the designated BPCA first aider, although, to date, the only mouth-to-mouth she’s given was at the 1998 staff Christmas Party.
3. As well as swimming, gin tasting and eating out - Rachel’s hobbies include pole fit (no photo currently available).
4. Rachel’s the BPCA enforcer, who regularly investigates the fraudulent use of the BPCA logo. Despite regular requests to the management team, they still won’t provide a SWAT team to support her work.
5. Unbelievably, Rachel is possibly the only person in the UK who has not seen an episode of Friends. She says it’s because she’s too busy typing up committee minutes - we think it has something to do with the gin tasting.