Posted By Neil Helling
First post so please be gentle! :-)

I have recently joined a family run business. We are a contractor within a 'major site' within the UK. We specialise in landfill management, plant hire, irrigation and have just started a construction arm!

Over the past three years the company have grown from 15 people to around about 75.

Anyway....enough of the company profile.....at the moment all our 'machine training is completed by an external training company. All the operators get after completing this training is an internal certificate which in effect is worthless outside of the 'major site' gates.

I'm looking at bringing the training in-house. We have enough 'competent' operators on machines / plant but they lack formal training experience.

I know from experience from working in a different sector that whoever we decide to complete our in house training has to complete a Train the Trainer course first.

I suppose after all this all i want is advise on that if we bring the training in house and all the paperwork is completed correctly and annual training is organised, completed correctly and on time is there any chance of us not complying with ANY regulation and placing the company in a situation where we could be prosecuted?!

Posted By Duncan Spencer
Neil

I would suggest that there are three things to be sure of: is the trainer sufficiently competent in the subject and can you prove that they are an able trainer? These two points don't always go together. The third is whether the course reflects and keeps pace with your knowledge of the 'real' signficant risks that your employees face?

You may consider external accreditation of your courses - it does help to prove a minimum standard, however, in my experience it is far more important that the training is tailored to fit your local risk criteria.

Hope this helps
Duncan