 Richard Shore |
Richard Shore is managing director of Mentor FLT Training Limited, the UK's leading provider of training and associated services for all types of materials handling equipment and workplace transport.
To me, 'accredited training' means that a training course has been externally monitored by a suitably qualified and competent authority and has been judged to provide the necessary content and skills assessment to make the successful candidate competent in the skills they have been taught.
When it comes to forklift operator training and instructors, it is the Health & Safety Executive that decides what constitutes a suitably qualified and competent authority. There are, in theory, six accrediting bodies to choose from in the UK. The reason for this is partly historical but largely it's because they address different industry sectors. Two of them are traditionally concerned with the construction industry (CITB and NPORS), one with agriculture (Lantra) and three with industry, retail and distribution (AITT, ITSSAR and RTITB).
There are perfectly valid reasons for this industry sector differentiation. It's not the same operating a forklift in a busy, tightly packed distribution warehouse as it is in the wide open spaces of a construction site or a field. However, if you're recruiting staff, how do you know that their qualifications are relevant to the job you want them to do? And it's important that you do know, as UK legislation places the onus firmly on the employer to check that employees are suitably trained.
In 2000, the accrediting bodies got together under the chairmanship of the Health & Safety Executive and came up with the ABF2000 forklift test. This established a standard test for all operators to take at the conclusion of their training course and was a welcome initiative that has been (as far as I am aware) universally adopted. The next, and I think, crucial stage is that the curriculum for each course should also be uniform and then we will have what I believe industry wants - a nationally recognised qualification which means that when the employer is presented with a certificate of competence, it means the operator is competent.
There have been efforts to establish a standard scheme but these have been more about accrediting bodies finding additional sources of income, rather than a desire to deliver what industry wants and needs, i.e. a secure, standard and interchangeable licence to operate that is easily recognisable and which an employer can accept at face value.