Hi Birchall

In short,

For sponsorship of PTS staff you must be Achillies Link Up Core Audit approved. this is to do with monitoring work hours for PTS holders. to undertake any Network rail work you must be Link up approved. the minimum level is supplier, but this level will not allow you to sponsor staff.

It is all to do with monitoring their work hours to ensure they do not exceed the Network rail working hours policy. past evidence showed PTS holders double shifting etc. your client or principle contractor should be able to sponsor them (Network rail will not).

Sponsorship involves giving the employees contracts agreeing to abide by working hours amongst other things. their are also formal contracts that must be given to sub sponsors and organisations that sub sponsor agreeing to monitor record and inform the primary sponsor of hours worked for PTS holders. their are other issues involved such as drug and alcohol testing and medicals etc.

when the PTS holders book on with the COSS (charge hand) he will swipe their cards, if they are not sponsored or sub sponsored by the contractor or any one who is not do2wn on the work package plan he will send them away.

in short you will have to pass this up the supply chain or sub the work out.

Russ

And you need to be aware that once an individual has a PTS card he needs to keep a log of hours worked, and must work at least a set minimum number of hours per year on or near the track otherwise the card will lapse. If you are only looking to do occasional works - it may be impossible to maintain this level of rail activity, so will probably not be worth pursuing...

Depending on the work, it may sometimes be possible to get a track visitor permit, but there are very strict rules about how many of these can be issued per year, and the rules were tightening even further last I checked.

Sometime seems as if its all intended to keep it all in the family, although that may be just an unintended consequence.