On 1 July 2026, the Building Safety Regulator and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published the mandatory technical competence (MTC) framework for self-certification schemes in England and Wales. Industry bodies had been waiting for it for some time, and it changes how scheme operators assess, record and publish competence.

This article covers what the framework says and what it means for the systems schemes run on. It is not legal advice, so always work from the published documents.

A new name, and a firmer framework

The first change is the name. The government now refers to self-certification schemes, previously known as competent person schemes. Most installers and customers will keep using the old term for a while, but your website, documents and systems should start using both.

The framework sets out the assessment requirements that scheme operators use to assess businesses and the individuals working within them. The competences are task-based: they describe what a competent installer must know and be able to do to carry out a type of controlled work, and then certify it, to the standard the building regulations require.

Which work it covers

The framework includes categories for:

  • air conditioning

  • electrical

  • fenestration

  • heat producing gas appliances

  • insulation

  • liquid fuel

  • plumbing and heating

  • roofing

  • solid fuel and biomass

Each category has its own criteria, assessment methods and technical expectations.

Work that spans several competences

Some jobs draw on more than one area of competence. The guidance gives the example of installing a solar photovoltaic system in a home. These are covered by skills matrices, used alongside the MTC criteria.

For scheme operators, that means one installer may need to be assessed against several sets of criteria for a single scope of work. Your records need to show which criteria were assessed, when, by whom and against what evidence.

Two requirements worth underlining

  1. A business cannot be certified until it has been fully assessed against the relevant MTC requirements. There is no room for a business appearing on the register while its assessment is still in progress.

  2. Scheme operators must maintain a public register of all certified individuals and organisations, including sole traders.

What this means for your systems

If your scheme runs on spreadsheets, a general CRM or an ageing bespoke system, it is worth checking it against five questions:

  1. Can you record assessments against each MTC criterion, not just a pass or fail for the whole business?

  2. Can one installer hold several competences, assessed separately and mapped to a skills matrix?

  3. Does your system stop a business going live on the register until every required assessment is complete?

  4. Does your public register include every certified individual and organisation, including sole traders, and update the moment something changes?

  5. Can you show an auditor the evidence behind every certification decision?

If the answer to any of these is no, it is far easier to fix now than after a regulator, an auditor or a complaint finds the gap.

How 16i helps

We build platforms for certification, inspection and registration schemes, so competence records, assessments, certificates and the public register live in one system. Assessment criteria are configurable, so when frameworks like this one change, most updates are a settings change rather than a rebuild. See software for self-certification schemes.

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