It's a good question and one that appears on here quite frequently. There are industry standards, for example, FLT operators 3-5 years before a refresher. Other than industry standards any frequency can be chosen based on the risk and frequency of the task. If the training does expire it does not mean they are incompetent per se. However, it is good practice to give operatives periodical training/refreshers to ensure they do not fall into poor habits and are aware of any new working practices, PPE, etc. 

Edited by user 15 January 2018 11:40:11(UTC)  | Reason: missed out 'new'.

Just to reinforce what the other guys have said - the aim of refresher training is to make sure that skills haven't deteriorated over time.  If you suspect someone has a skills problem then the retraining needs to take place sooner.  It is important to remember that we are not talking about "licences" here training is not transferrable from one employer to another, if someone changes jobs it is up to the new employer to test the person's skills and to retrain if necessary.

Charlie, I think you are about to open a can of worms. I passed my driving test 40 years ago and have never had a test since. Does that make me a good or bad driver?

Most employers will show due diligence by taking a copy of the employee's driving licence to ensure they can legally drive. In truth, you can't do much more than that. 

I had one HR bod telling me my driving licence wasn't legal as there was no photo card (I still have my pink & green paper licence from a change of address originally issued as green paper)

Some employers do assess and enhance their road drivers skills - at one employment we used the services of a defensive driving instructor for our sales team as business impact mitigation. Interesting to see how many by their own admission "good drivers" ended up needing instruction after the initial assessment drive.

The development of telematics (full blown systems, balck boxe/apps from insurers) in to ordinary cars will prove interesting in the futuire assessment of driver capability

Hi WatsonD, Please do not think I am having a crack at you with the following, I am merely seeking to understand other viewpoints.

A lot of what we do or put in place as safety professionals has no legal requirement but I wonder if employers may have some moral obligation here for the employees who are on the roads as part of their normal working day and dare I say it, an oportunity companies to save money as a result of reductions in RTAs?

The following article seems to suggest this is the case.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/roadsafety/experience/traffic1.pdf

I am also curious as to why you think driver assessment and training will further alienate employees?

Sure, some may be put out but I think that if an employee sees a benefit in training they are usually ok with it.

Originally Posted by: WatsonD

Originally Posted by: Charlie Brown

Thanks all, pretty much what I was thinking. Just to take this a bit further then, what do we think about employees driving company vehicles? We typically get a drivers licence as teenagers and never have to take a retest unless we do something silly and lose said licence. Is this sufficient for drivers in the workplace?

As there is no requirement in law for this then I fail to see why you would put this in place. Unless your wish is to further alienate H&S from the employees of course.