Morning Watkins101

Your question got me scurrying to see if there had been some major amendment to the scope of the Construction Skills Site Manager Safety Training Scheme aka SMSTS to expand it to include environmental issues, as done by IOSH in its "Safety, Health and Enviornment for Construction Site Managers"

Personally I am not keen on the idea of trying to squeeze ever more content into a course of fixed duration as the effect is liable to be to dilute the content of the core material.

Anyway, with some relief it appears that the scope of SMSTS has not been extended to include environmental issues. appendix-g_site-management-safety-training-scheme-smsts-_v0303.pdf

This comments:

"9.2. Examination paper

The paper consists of 25 questions, selected by CITB, covering all aspects of the course. The exam must be taken at the end of the course.

Each exam paper has:

• 18 multiple choice questions (each worth one mark)

• 7 questions in multi-response or short written answer format (each worth two marks)

The two mark questions all relate to the seven health and safety focus areas. The higher marks recognise and reward the increased complexity of the question and response required.

The seven health and safety focus areas are founded on construction ill health, injury and fatality statistics:

• Working at height

• Vehicles/pedestrians

• Manual handling

• Asbestos

• Dust

• Noise

• Vibration."

So, unless someone has introduced something like squirrels into the one mark multiple choice questions DESPITE environental issues NOT being in the course syllabus, then the exam should not be covering such issues.

Hence, it follow that I am rather surprised that squirrels come up in a test for any Black or other "card".

I do think that it is important that those responsible for construcdtion projects take ownership of environmental issues, but there are dedicated training programmes for this. 

Not really any different from saying that it's a good idea for school pupils to get qualifications in both English and Maths and not expecting questions on algebra to come up in the English exam!

Edited by user 18 July 2025 16:12:04(UTC)  | Reason: Mistake

Hi Peter, 

The test I was refering to was the CITB Managers and Proffessionals H S & E test required for the Black CSCS card. 

I quick google shows there is growing discontent with how this test has evolved over the last few years. The last pass rate I can see it a little under 70 % of people taking it acually managing to get the 90% pass rate required to pass the test. 

Originally Posted by: peter gotch

Morning WatkinsD

Your question got me scurrying to see if there had been some major amendment to the scope of the Construction Skills Site Manager Safety Training Scheme aka SMSTS to expand it to include environmental issues, as done by IOSH in its "Safety, Health and Enviornment for Construction Site Managers"

Personally I am not keen on the idea of trying to squeeze ever more content into a course of fixed duration as the effect is liable to be to dilute the content of the core material.

Anyway, with some relief it appears that the scope of SMSTS has not been extended to include environmental issues. appendix-g_site-management-safety-training-scheme-smsts-_v0303.pdf

This comments:

"9.2. Examination paper

The paper consists of 25 questions, selected by CITB, covering all aspects of the course. The exam must be taken at the end of the course.

Each exam paper has:

• 18 multiple choice questions (each worth one mark)

• 7 questions in multi-response or short written answer format (each worth two marks)

The two mark questions all relate to the seven health and safety focus areas. The higher marks recognise and reward the increased complexity of the question and response required.

The seven health and safety focus areas are founded on construction ill health, injury and fatality statistics:

• Working at height

• Vehicles/pedestrians

• Manual handling

• Asbestos

• Dust

• Noise

• Vibration."

So, unless someone has introduced something like squirrels into the one mark multiple choice questions DESPITE environental issues NOT being in the course syllabus, then the exam should not be covering such issues.

Hence, it follow that I am rather surprised that squirrels come up in a test for any Black or other "card".

I do think that it is important that those responsible for construcdtion projects take ownership of environmental issues, but there are dedicated training programmes for this. 

Not really any different from saying that it's a good idea for school pupils to get qualifications in both English and Maths and not expecting questions on algebra to come up in the English exam!

Hi Watkins

I appreciate that you were doing a test not the SMSTS but it seems to me that a similar scope would be appropriate to both.

So, the SMSTS test wouldn't ask you about e.g. EDI and I wouldn't expect EDI issues to come up in a Black Card H&S test.

That is NOT to say that EDI isn't important!!

A few years ago I was part of a "Health and Safety Forum" involving a Client and each of their Consultants in relation to a huge infrastructure programme. We realised that some bioversity issues represented a significant threat and decided to take those into the scope of what the Forum was doing, mostly as nobody else was biting the bullet. However, we fully realised that this amounted to mission creep and didn't try to pretend that somehow biosecurity risks fell into the box marked H&S.

It was a pragmatic decision for the programme. An entirely different proposition to expanding the scope of a test that is clearly marked "H&S".

If the sector WANTS to broaden the scope then they should rename the test AND consider the resource implications.