A PREPONDERANCE OF TICKETED SEAT WARMERS?
The attached image allegedly portrays the recent outcome of a not so competent UK dozer operator who holds a blue card and L2 NVQ in the same category meeting the Construction Leadership Council's (CLC's) one industry logo action for competence.
The CSCS claim all members of their 38 card schemes bearing their coveted logo provides assurance that the card holder is trained and qualified to do the job! Events on the ground would appear to disagree with the CSCS doctrine.
Is the offending operator's incompetence due to sheer bad luck on site or is he the result of a system that promotes what that great practitioner Nigel Williams aptly calls, "ticketed seat warmers" regardless of their ability to undertake even the most basic of machine applications?
Perhaps the operator embarked on his journey to a ticketed competence, at considerable personal expense, with a card scheme and accredited body that gullibly swallowed his claim of previous occupational competence and site experience and brought him to the centre for some questions and answers for the theory test, readily available for nought on the internet, and perhaps the bare minimum of training that merely reflected the practical test requirement of that particular card scheme.
While he was undergoing testing was a so called NVQ Assessor beavering away on a L2 portfolio of evidence in the background with pre populated nonsense, furiously snapping aways at images of him on his pre start checks posing with an oil dipstick and a polite reminder to the candidate regarding the L2 paperwork, "Just sign, here, here, here and here mate, but for God's sake don't date anything, we'll do that later!"
Yes, there are training providers and NVQ centres still around that play to the rules giving robust assessment and true measures of competence and are unafraid to tell a candidate, "Sorry mate, you're not meeting the national occupational standards, you've failed!" These centres are the exception rather than the rule and they appear to be fighting a losing battle against those who only see plant operator competence as a means of joining a gravy train to improve their bottom line on the reconciliation of income and expenditure.
The image displayed in this article is by no means a rare occurrence as a quick trawl of the internet will quickly reveal a whole range of equipment in a similar sorry state due to the total incompetence of the operator.
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The problems are ever -present but what is the solution? Quality assurance (QA) of the process is the proverbial weak link with many partner card schemes exacerbated by their box ticking mentality, on-line options and averseness to robust checks.
As for the CLC and CSCS and their logo and any challenge through the courts on their grand claims for their card holders they know they are not a regulatory bodies, are without legislative power in the sector and that their scheme is NOT a legal requirement! They would escape any forensic test regarding implied competence of a card holder in a court of law and a barrister would zero in on the operator, employer or contractor for any apportionment of blame for an accident.
How then are we to remedy the preponderance of "ticketed seat warmers" that litter the sector?
Chief Operating Officer NOCN Group
1 年Part 2 = We have recently been through the process of revoking cards, where it was found that the VQ process had not been followed, this was complex as we had to deal with a third party AO. You can imagine the reaction from those individuals who had paid ￡500 in good faith to obtain the VQ who had no recourse from the AO or Centre that they had handed their money to. We are fully aware of the issues and are working very hard to address them, the aim is replace what is current it with something new that works for everybody, including:- new individuals, owner operators, small medium and large contractors, employers. The Future has to be :- A quality robust cost effective way of ensuring competence which is driven by the learner, supported by employers and measured by competent people.
Chief Operating Officer NOCN Group
1 年Unfortunately there are so many connotations it is impossible to cover all of them within a short post. If followed and completed correctly the system can work. Mick Norton BEM MInstRE Cert Ed you often speak about a large Engineering Company that you worked for, this company followed the process and over time contributed to creating great operatives for industry covering a wide range of plant. Yes we had some assessors that could not really cut the mustard but they were soon found out and moved on. The problems are:- There are too many Awarding Organisations accredited to deliver the vocational element. There are differing standards of AO’s. There are regulators that are also AO’s. There are too many individuals take shortcuts. There are consciously incompetent assessors. There are unconsciously incompetent assessors. Then there are the brazen fraudsters. Trainers and Testers and companies willing to take risk. ?
Owner at GMK Plant Hire /SMSTS/ First aid
1 年There should be a traffic light system Green being an operator with ten years plus experience with no strikes or accidents. Orange being between 5 and ten years with a good record. Red for new starts . When you ask for a driver you pay for what you get then you can put the red card drivers on jobs that will give them experience without to much risk involved. Working around people and services get a green Loading muck get a red.
In my defence I was left unsupervised.
1 年Gavin Brain BA(Hons), FIQ, ASET can we all please meet up in a pub somewhere and actually sort it out so we can burn the card system to the ground.
Responsible Officer at EMPI Awards
1 年Part 4. Rory Sanders ?? is right, it needs binning and a complete rethink. But it won’t happen because too much money is at stake. As I said at the start, noble intentions, badly managed, without the proper checks and balances, not helped by operators who don’t believe in the value of lifelong learning and continuous incremental improvements. Sermon over. Did I miss anything Mick Norton BEM MInstRE Cert Ed?