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13 MILLION
HOMEOWNERS FEAR
HIRING A TRADESMAN
»»HOME IMPROVEMENT
marketplace, Plentific.com’s
latest insight estimates that
13 million UK homeowners
fear hiring tradesmen to
carry out home improvement
work.
According to Plentific.
com’s survey, 87% of
homeowners fear hiring
tradesmen and their key
concern seems to be finding
a reliable professional. 59%
said their biggest hurdle is
finding a tradesman that they
know for certain can do their
job properly.
The nation is relatively
relaxed about projects
sticking to a timeline;
homeowners were more keen
on getting their projects done
to a high standard. A fifth
(19%) get concerns about
their work being completed
on time, with half (51%)
fearing that their finished
project will not meet with
expectations.
The region with the most
confident homeowners was
the South West, with 19% of
local homeowners replying
that they had no concerns
about hiring a tradesman.
This is a big contrast to
concerned Londoners, of
which only 5% said they
felt completely comfortable
doing so.
There was a lot of variation
at regional level. The biggest
worry in Brighton was getting
ripped off, as 74% of local
respondents said they feared
their job would be unfairly
overpriced; a much higher
statistic than the national
average of 51%. When it came
down to trusting tradesmen
in the home whilst on the
Co-Founder, Cem Savas
job, the cities with the biggest
fear factor were Cardiff
(45%), Liverpool (44%) and
Manchester (40%), which all
showed greater concern than
the national average (33%).
Age also appeared to
divide confidence levels on
certain issues, with 68% of
homeowners aged 55 and
over voicing concerns about
the reliability of tradesmen,
compared to 45% of
respondents under 35.
Cem Savas, Co-Founder
of Plentific.com, said:
“Our survey shows why
homeowners may hold back
when hiring a Pro without
seeing proper verification.
These days people need
more than just word-ofmouth recommendation,
which is why we created
Plentific. We’re here to
change the way people
feel about hiring a trade
professional. We provide
a transparent marketplace
with verified and customerrated trade professionals,
our guarantee and a secure
payment service, enabling
homeowners to feel
confident about getting their
job done.”
WILL YOU BE
AFFECTED WHEN THE
DATA PROTECTION
ACT IS REPLACED?
»»IF YOU HOLD DATA ON
individuals, you will be affected
when the Data Protection
Act (DPA) is replaced by the
General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) in 2018.
This change will bring
significant implications to any
businesses processing personal
data, particularly those with
e-commerce, marketing,
retail and wholesale business
operations.
The EU GDPR directive,
which comes into force on the
25th May 2018, aims to protect
privacy and personal data with
clear penalties for those who fail
to comply with the legislation.
WHAT IS “PERSONAL
DATA”?
This act covers all data
and meta-data held about
employees, prospects,
customers, suppliers or anyone
else, where they are referred to
as an individual, opposed to
a company. For example, this
does not apply to a company
recorded as ‘Some Org Ltd’,
but would apply to ‘Joe Bloggs,
Managing Director at Some Org
Ltd’. Therefore, any company
that stores names and addresses
is likely to be required to comply
with this regulation.
POST-BREXIT - DOES THIS
STILL MATTER TO ME?
When the directive comes
into force in 20 months, the
UK will still be governed by EU
regulations. At a point when
the UK leaves the EU, the
GDPR directive will be used by
the UK as a base for writing a
replacement data protection
directive. What’s more, if UK
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | NOV/DEC 2016
organisations intend to trade
with EU organisations, they will
need to adhere to the GDPR, so
this matters to most businesses
regardless of Brexit.
HOW DOES GDPR DIFFER
FROM THE CURRENT
DATA PROTECTION ACT?
Overall, the scope of GDPR
is greater than the DPA, and
it is easier to define the point
when breach occurs. More
responsibility is placed on the
holder and processor of data
and full control is firmly with the
owner of the data.
THE KEY CHANGES
INCLUDE:
• When data is collected, the
purpose of this must be
made clear
• A company must delete
data if no longer used
for the purpose it was
collected
• The subject has the right to
be erased on request
• Firms handling a large
amount of data, or sensitive
data, must appoint a data
protection officer (DPO)
• All businesses in the EU
must be complaint, as
must companies trading
with organisations within
the EU
Surprisingly, 44% of IT
professionals are uninformed
of these new rules according to
Computer Weekly and in the
experience of OpusVL, very few
companies that the software
supplier has talked with has
even heard of the impending
GDPR.
Source: OpusVL