HSE ISSUES REMINDER ABOUT TRAINING CERTIFICATES AND
PLANT OPERATOR LICENCES

HSE press release: E019:03 - 7 February 2003

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has today issued a warning about training certificates and plant operator licences.

The warning follows an HSE investigation in the South East which found evidence of malpractice by one individual plant trainer operating throughout the United Kingdom. As a result, Prohibition Notices have been served on David Harris and his company Future International Training Ltd.

These Notices require an immediate halt to the issue of training certificates, plant operators licences or any other indication that training and testing has been carried out unless a proper scheme has been followed. They also require a halt to the practice of claiming affiliation or accreditation to the Association of Industrial Truck Trainers (AITT)/Independent Training Standards Scheme & Register (ITSSAR) and other nationally recognised organisations such as the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), Lantra and City & Guilds where no current accreditation exists. Mr Harris and his company did hold accreditation with AITT/ITSSAR until 21 April 2001. However, this accreditation was not renewed.

HSE takes this opportunity to remind employers, employees and the self-employed that in the wrong hands work equipment operated incorrectly can cause major injury or death of the user, other workers or members of the public.

Under health and safety legislation, employers and the self-employed must ensure that workers are properly trained to operate plant and work equipment. To help employers and the self-employed comply with their legal requirements several nationally recognised training providers have developed schemes to train and test plant and machinery operators. Once trained and assessed under these schemes plant operators are usually issued with a plant operators licence which is typically valid for five years. Renewal is by reassessment.

Other health and safety courses, such as the detailed registration scheme for streetworks operatives and supervisors or the more general "safety awareness training" are frequently completed with the issue of a training certificate and a credit card size identity card. Employers and the self-employed have come to rely on these as evidence of competence in particular categories of plant.

Employers and the self-employed must satisfy themselves that they have adequate arrangements for complying with training requirements imposed by health and safety legislation. Part of these arrangements should involve checks to ascertain the validity of training certificates or plant licences. If the authenticity is in doubt, the accreditation body whose name appears on the certificate or licence can be contacted.

Employers and the self-employed must not allow people to operate plant or equipment unless they are competent to do so. If people require advice and guidance on training or competence issues, they should contact their local office of the HSE.

Notes to editors

1. Where an activity involves, or will involve, a risk of serious personal injury, an HSE Inspector may serve a Prohibition Notice stopping the activity immediately or after a specified time period, and not allow it to be resumed until remedial action is taken. A Notice is served under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HSW Act). Failure to comply with a Notice is an offence and could lead to a fine of up to £20,000 and/or six months in prison on summary conviction by a Magistrates' Court.

2. Section 2(2)(c) of the HSW Act places the duty on employers to provide "the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees".

3. Regulation 13(2) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 similarly requires that "every employer shall ensure that his employees are provided with adequate health and safety training".

4. Regulation 9(1) of the Provision & Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 requires that "every employer shall ensure that all persons who use work equipment have received adequate training for the purposes of health and safety, including training in the methods which may be adopted when using the work equipment, any risks which such use may entail and precautions to be taken".

5. Section 3(2) of HSW Act places a duty on "every self employed person to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that he and other persons (not being his employees) who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health and safety".

6. Section 7 of HSW Act places a duty on each employee to "take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work".

7. Within the construction industry the Major Contractors Group (MCG) have recently committed their members to having a fully trained workforce on all MCG sites by December 2003. The scheme MCG has opted to use is called the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS). To work on these sites workers need to obtain a credit card style CSCS card. Where workers have existing plant licences, etc, from an organisation accredited to the new scheme they may be able to transfer existing entitlement into the CSCS scheme. Further information on the scheme can be obtained from http://www.cscs.uk.com

8. Further information on Lantra, the Sector Skills Council for the environmental and land-based sector is available on http://www.lantra.co.uk

9. Further information on The National Proficiency Tests Council (NPTC), who provide an up-to-date skills assessment service for land-based and a range of other industries is available from http://www.nptc.org.uk

10. Details of local offices of the HSE can be found either in the Yellow Pages or on the HSE website.

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