Hi Stern, We pay for it all too, although we are a management company (no site operatives) so only have Site Managers & Project Managers to train but cover the cost of everything. We put our managers through the NVQ L3 in Occupational Work Supervision to enable them to get a suitable CSCS card. Andy

Morning Stern, The other way to look at it is, if you require your workers to enter a site that requires all workers to have a CSCS card then shouldn't you ensure they have them? "No card, No access" as some sites say. Murray

Steve - disagree, Smurf is right - S9 would be applied through the self imposed requirements of the client and the contractor (not the individual/employee). Therefore it would be captured under MHSWR or construction law as part of the employers 'arrangements' made under statutory duties. If you like; self imposed compliance with a statutory duty. Once the employer states this is how they are meeting compliance of a goal setting standard their own words become the law and could be used against them. The only issue here would be the relationship of E'r and E'e - as you are aware, in construction type activities we have a myriad of different contractual issues to deal with to ensure we are talking about an employee rather than a self employed sub. The latter would make a significant difference to this issue imho.

Steve G, I've just re-read what smurfy was saying so I think that maybe we agreed after all. Sorry!

Seems mean. So large construction sites that require the wearing of gloves even if you are just walking around, could be charged to the employee ? If deemed not actually necessary for the particular job but the sub contractor. That could be fun. You don't need gloves for h&S purposes to walk through the site to your place of work. So you have to buy your own. However the job requires them, but you already have a pair why do you need another pair. HaHa Sorry

People ask me why I don't get involved in construction. Sorry IMHO it is a race to the bottom, in both cost & quality. You employ someone to do the job. You then want them to have certain qualifications and tickets. Why should you expect them to pay. You employed them, you pay. Why should individuals on not much more than minimum wage be expected to update their qualifications and competence when employed by you, at their cost. IMHO this is a very nasty trend. I don't like it. It's like paying to have a job, this is going back to the dark ages. ITIS... If one wants to extend ones abilities and qualifications then fine. However, a lot of construction operatives are on the breadline already because of the shoddy way that they are treated by employers, why on earth should they be forced to spend money that should be going to feed their kids & pay their mortgage on training and "stuff" that their employer needs, because they don't need them, they have a job, if their employer wants to use them on certain sites or for certain tasks, then it's down to their employer to sort it. Sorry I find the thought of this blinking abhorrent. This is just simply charging people to have a job, and it seems to be becoming more and more common, and almost becoming acceptable, which is simply disgusting.

Legally you could recover the cost from your employees but it would be a false economy, the effect on morale and company reputation would be devestating and believe me you would always lose more on production than you would gain in the couple of quid that would briefly show up on the company balance sheet.