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The Electrical Safety Council (ESC) has announced plans for major growth and an expanded remit, which will include stepping up its work on electrical product safety and potentially moving into the wider energy safety arena.

In its new strategy, the charity sets out how it will strengthen its position by enhancing activity to improve the safety of installations and launching new initiatives around product safety.

The charity will be taking practical steps to re-assert its independence and impartiality, to include re-structuring the wider organisation to ensure charitable work of the Electrical Safety Council and trading activities of the NICEIC are clearly distinct.

This will include appointing a new director general for the charity in the next few months. Incumbent director general Jim Speirs will focus solely on his role as executive chairman of the charity鈥檚 trading subsidiary NICEIC Group.

David Dossett, chairman of the charity鈥檚 board of trustees, said: 鈥淭he Electrical Safety Council is a well-respected and influential body for consumer safety, which already works with the electrical industry to improve technical knowledge and standards. Now we鈥檙e ready to do more.

鈥淲e want the whole of the industry to raise its game on safety. We want to help empower consumers to make better choices. And we want to support local trading standards teams to enforce standards.

鈥淚n pursuit of our charitable aims, the council also has an aspiration to serve users of other energy sources and would expect to evolve naturally into related energy safety areas, most likely working with like-minded partners.

Steve Bratt, chief operating officer at the ECA, said: 鈥淭his is a logical next step for the charity and one which the ECA supports. We鈥檙e already working together to address issues of counterfeit products, and in other areas of shared concern.鈥�