Posted By gham
buy colour i meant the cards buy the way

Posted By R Joe
Given the apparent strength of feeling (and depth of knowledge) about the alignment of the various passport schemes, is this something that the IOSH Construction SG is already looking at, or if not, could look at, perhaps in conjunction with other SGs?

Regards RJ

Posted By Expat Safety
By the time you have wrote about it you could complete the test if your construction HSE knowledge is so vast.

Labourer or not, what is good for the goose is good for the gander!

Posted By Dave Wilson
You are missing the point,

Any scheme which improves and gets safety on the agenda I emplore, however when you are subject to 5 or 6 of these schemes just so that you can do your job and they are all telling you the same safty info, but for, I assume financial reasons, not recognised by each other then that is a really heavy burden on employers who interact with all sections of industry, commercial, private , utilities and public not exclusivly construction and its not the safety angle its the time, cost, days lost in meaningless safety training is where I am coming from.

Posted By Advanced Safety
Dave

I feel you are off the mark! I am CMIOSH, and am also MCIOB, but as a Charterd Builder and Health & Safety Practitioner, i sat the test! If for no other reason, it gave me an insight into the test itself. And as for the comment on whether Asbestos operatives nee to knoe the depth of a trench, yes they should! Excavation awareness is not a bad thing to have considering they appear on virtually every construction project.

Combine the above qualifications with 25 years construction site experience, do you feel i should have refused the test? Would be good to have your view.

Posted By Dan dan
In the scheme of things the CSCS card holds no value whatsoever, (unless you are trying to get on an MCG type site) My advice is just to sit the test, its only going to take less than 2 minutes of your time, at least we will be able to see our boys (and girls) working on site without some non safety profesional doubting our professional status and preventing us from visiting site. Let IOSH battle out the accreditation and exemption categories on our behalf.

Mind you saying that the accreditation rate / card holder rates have dropped / dwindled considerably since removing the experienced worker elements forcing all to undertake NVQs to gain a card

Posted By Is Kismet
I'm thinking of entering my 17 year old son, who is at 6th form college, for a card as a frequent visitor, with no H&S prompting from myself before he takes it, and he has never been on a building site.

Any comments on the validity of this?

Posted By colin
Most of the older tradesmen on site that I've met don't have an NVQ and have told me they wont undertake one either, the majority said they will go/return into domestic work instead

Grandfather rights only apply to those over 50 something years old which is ridiculous, When I was on the tools (10 years), I was trained on site and didn't have an NVQ, I was still professional tradesman.

I'm now a construction H+S advisor and every site I visit I ask tradesman for their CSCS cards at my company request, 5% have one and 50% have never heard of them. Most think its a money making scam and as different sites require different cards and why should they have to have multiple cards which they have to pay for.

Posted By Dave Wilson
GIve me strength!!!!

ALL and I mean ALL of our guys / girls ahve CSCS and myself so please do not repeat 'JUST DO THE TEST' I and all our empoyeees have, along with SPA / CCNSG/ Nat Brits Safe contractor / ARCA site accredited / HSE CHAS etc etc etc etc it goes on and on. Its all very well for you construction bods but when you have to do loads of other schemes as well it is very expensive and labour intensive for NO BENEFIT at all!!!!

THE POINT IS THIS - READ!!!

Why should none of these schemes which all do the same NOT recognise each other?

I am fed up with BORING, tweed jacket, elobowpatched H&S consultnats telling my Blokes that Sect 3 of HASAW says this and management regs says that. It is an absolute waste of my time, our employees / employeers times and reniforces the argument that this profession is full of totally uninspiring trainers!

get a recognised Safety card which doers the generic safety stuff and then specific targeted site induction for each site - not some namby pamby bit of plastic which has stopped all the death and injury on construction sites or am I wrong?????

Posted By IT
Calm down Dave!!!!!

Agree a single card recognised across all industry sectors would be GREAT ,unfortunately its not happening ,the Regulator nods and says great idea and nothing happens , goodness we cant even get agreement on the format of industry method statements and risk assessments ,one company want this the other company want that.

The MCG do support it and are currently auditing supply companies as to who has and who hasn't got the appropriate card, no card no site.

I would like to have a singular system, but unfortunately it’s not going to happen in my life time at least, until it’s sorted by all industry representatives whether you’re CMIOSH, IIRSM or LFL they will still require the card for the construction industry.

And of course what if you’re not a member of IIRSM, IOSH or any other worthy Body you still sit the test anyway.

No The namby pamby card has not stopped all the deaths in construction nor has the Government Regulatory body ,LA with all the legislation , other industry associations with thier ACOPS and Safety organsiations representing safety professionals , but they are all trying to achieve this significant step.

Posted By Derrick Robinson
I think most of my points will already have been covered in other responses but there is nothing like the CSCS scheme to make you want to get things off your chest so here we go.
Firstly, those of you who are visiting sites on a yellow visitors card are probably on the wrong card anyway. If your primary role on the site is to provide health and safety advice then you should hold either health and safety officer of health and safety manager. At the moment the only route to these cards is by industry accreditation or NVQ. I entirely agree that it is wrong that NEBOSH and/or IOSH membership are not accepted. There are proffessional membership and academic routes to other cards but it is up to us as an industry to take this up with CITB if we want to go that way.
It is also vital that we get some cross recognition of cards. In my own case this would be between CSCS and CCNSG as most of my people need both. I do not believe that CITB are against this as far as I know it is primarily the MCG who want a single system with as few exemptions as possible. Once again it is up to us industry stake holders to push this forward.
What is the policy of IOSH and the Construction Specialist Group on this? Are we in any form of discussion with MCG or CITB?
I think many people are confusing the health and safety test with health and safety training. On most of the sites we work on people need to have completed the test i.e. hold a card to get through the gate but the main contractor will require further evidence from us that they have had appropriate health and safety training. No one is suggesting that one thing should be a substitute for the other.
I think we as H and S proffessionals need to set an example. We may not like the CSCS system as it stands but it the one in place and it is our job to enforce it. Try to change things through the proper channels, lord knows there is plenty to go at but in the mean time take the test, get the right card and stop winging.

Posted By Dave Wilson
Hazel,

Although another 'card' for my collection in the garage would be nice, my main gripe is the endless duplication / expense / days lost / dependant on the type of site you are visiting

Contstruction - CSCS / Food SPA (Food)/Chemicals SPA (chemicals)/ SPA / CCNSG for others if you work in an industry which regularily send staff to these sites it is extremely frustrating to have to pay and have your blokes off work as they do not recognise each other.

Its the same with CHAS / Nat Brit SAFEcontractor / UDVB and some companies are forcing you to undergo 3rd party evaluation just so you can get to tender for work - with no promise of any. We are safety management accredited by our own industry association yet still have to jump through the hoop with 4 others schemes asking the same stuff - why is the question?

Someone feeling guilty - Photo to follow soon!

Posted By Hazel Harvey
Dave,
I do completely sympathise with your view. Unfortunately most of this proliferation is outside IOSH control, so all we can do is represent our members interests to the bodies concerned. Our construction specialist group do favour the CSCS so perhaps we should select this from the schemes and lobby the other for mutual recognition?

I am happy to take your views on this one so that I can feed back to the members responsible for policy on this one.

Hazel Harvey
Director of Professional Affairs

Posted By Anne Mallory
I would just like to add to Hazel Harvey's comment on appealing to the CSCS panel. I am the chartered member referred to who recently has won an appeal for a H&S Manager's card.
Although my chartered status and membership of IOSH was part f my submission I also provided copies of all my qualifications, letters of support from IOSH and IIRSM, details of all my contract work as a health and safety consultant and offered references from clients if required. I also sat the CSCS Manager's test.
I am uncertain as to the extent of detail required for a submission but it did take a couple of days to put all the relevant information together.
A. Mallory

Posted By Glyn Atkinson
And heaven forbid the return to the days of which closed shop union you had to be in as well ???

Mechanical union guys trying to tell the electrical union guys what to do?

Down tools, brothers !!

Looks like the teaching side of these card courses is the thing to be in - totally renewable work source readily available !!

Posted By Stupendous Man
Words fail me...

On one hand you have the voice of the chartered member, John Gilbertson in the letters page of this months SHP lambasting those who he sees as trying to gain 'easy' membership of the institution (don't get me started on that one!).

Yet here we have people who want to get an industry standard card without doing the test.

Contradiction I think...

Posted By Robert K Lewis
I think we need to be clear sighted about the value of any of these cards with respect to competency in H&S. None of them have a remote ability to verify competency - they are simply basic tests of knowledge and cannot claim any better than that. If you look at the end of the current CDM acop draft you will see it as the start of a process, not an end in itself. Yes the CSCS also verifies an NVQ which is competency assessed when undertaken by decent training organisations but it verifies no greater competency than that. Similarly the CPCS recognises that it is initially a certificate of training and the competency is verified during work. The sooner the construction industry recognises the fact that none of the cards verify competency the more we will be able to establish real and lasting changes to H&S in the industry.

As for IOSH members - those who are verifiably active in construction, undergoing formalised CPD via a chartered institution and hold at least TechIOSH should not be wasting valuable time having to establish proof to a clerical assistant at the multifarious boards running these cards. This is not about elitism but rather proper use of valuable resources.

The issue for the member who posted above was that CSCS refused to give a H&S managers card because they did not accept her professional position in construction. Very soon most H&S people without a.n.other NVQ, or recognised equivalent, in a construction related skill or profession will only receive the visitors card. For me I believe that decoupling of the H&S will have to happen sooner or later and the card numbers reduced, I think, to 2 - Resident to site and Non-resident.

Bob