I know nothing about having to do a 3 day course - but you need to prove competence of your FLT drivers.

HSE AcoPs L117 provides useful guidance.

If the training company that your manager has found are prepared to provide suitable training and then assess the capablities of your 2 experienced drivers and provide a certificate to deem them competent - what more do you need. Most FLT training providers I've worked with will always constantly assess the knowledge and abilities of the operators and modify the training to suit the individuals - this may covering the basics

Personally I've learnt more about managing H&S by doing the job rather than attending any course

If these were new employees with no experience whatsoever I would agree that a "novice" course would be appropriate.

As these are current employees, already driving without significant employer concern (otherwise I would hope they were taken off FLT duties) you are merely playing catch-up on the paperwork you would use to document a competence.

The refresher course is a trainer assessing the driver, and as stated this is dynamic, so the focus is on any opportunities for improvement of driver knowledge or skills.

You want paperwork, they have identified a method to obtain some which causes less business disruption.

For perspective consider a standard UK road licence - is there an absolute requirement for x days minimum driving experience before test?

I had to undergo a refresher course a couple of years back having not driven a fork lift for quite a few years. The two day refresher brought everything back and I passed with flying colours, thankfully. If these guys have been driving for a good while without incident, a refresher should be fine. They must be able to drive the truck well enough or I assume you wouldn't allow them to contiune. The refresher will just confirm this and highlight some bad habits they might have picked up. I work as a H&S Manager so am only a back-up driver if nobody else is available. If they have been driving for a good amount of time I can understand their relutance to be branded a novice. Put them on a refresher, get the certificate and let them get on with it.

I guess I would start from "are they competent?" not are they "qualified?". In the mean time what have you done with them? Are they driving the FLT's while waiting for the course / refresher?

A three day course sounds like something that is guaranteed to alienate them. A better approach is  to look at what they are doing and identify what they are doing wrong and what they are doing right( unless they are having loads of accidents they must be doing something right) and focus of any training should be  on building up what they know and  identifying any gaps in their competence.  They should be trained but you might also look at their supervision.  Did their manager understand that they weren’t fully trained and that he/she should have raised this issue, not waiting for Health and Safety to spot this?

Originally Posted by: thunderchild

Personally, I am not happy that I am being overruled and they are looking to just put them in for a refresher course but I know this will end up in a peeing up the wall competition and I don't want to go down that route unless I can fight my corner. 

There is no peeing competition when you engage as a team with others.

I checked this out with a level 4 AITT trainer who was doing on our site last week.  His take on it was you can't refresh training they haven't had.  As they have never had any training a refresher will not be suitable and they must do the full 3 day novice course.  He said that if any acredited trainer offers to do a one day refresher then be very wary with regard to the quality of the training and whether they are actually acredited.   So the concensus appears to be they need the novice 3 day course.

Edited by user 20 May 2019 14:53:38(UTC)  | Reason: Fat finger syndrome

I don't see an argument for not completing the full course, because one of the reasons for training is to protect the company from liability claims. 

Let's say one of the operatives who is currently so keen to avoid being labelled 'a novice' ends up having an accident. Will he, (or his widow/widower or co-worker's widow/widower) be so keen to agree, or will they be looking for any way to bring a claim against the company for compensation? If they have never done the full training and only refreshers, there could be gaps in the training, and they could argue that the 'employer failed to provide training as is necessary to ensure SFARP' etc. Section 2(c) HSWA

So to knock down the resistance why not use the approach that you are not filling in gaps in their skills, expertise or knowledge, but filling in gaps in your training records which they are obligated to comply with to protect themselves should they ever be unfortunate to have an accident. They might be more favoured towards it.