Working Group 2 for Installers has recently completed the first phase of benchmarking competence requirements for six occupations identified as priorities for ensuring fire safety in higher-risk buildings. The report, due for release later this month, evaluates the current requirements for these pilot sectors including domestic plumbing and heating, rainscreen cladding, roofing, and fire detection and alarm systems.
The JIB and ECS welcomes the Phase 1 report and update on the crucial industry-led development of sector specific competence frameworks.
The report highlights where further action is required to ensure that individuals are deemed competent and have the requisite knowledge, skills, training and qualifications to undertake their role in line with the recommendations from Dame Judith Hackitt and the Setting the Bar Report.
Part of the report discusses the recent launch of CSCS Smart Check and the digital systems which have been available to ECS card holders for a number of years.
ECS has been engaging with the 37 other CSCS Partner Schemes through the CSCS Alliance to identify where each scheme lies in relation to the activities and outcomes from Working Group 2. This has been a productive and important exercise to ensure all the CSCS Partner Schemes are able to verify the standards set by industry and provide a simple checking facility for clients and employers. With the launch of CSCS Smart Check, a simple and free-to-use app which can be used to verify the 2 million+ valid CSCS and partner scheme cards in the UK, it has never been easier to verify competence.
ECS introduced a CPD recording system for card holders in July 2021 so that once industry has defined the required CPD relevant for each role, this can be built into the requirements of each card type and verified through application programming interfaces directly to the relevant awarding organisation or provider to confirm the status. This means digital card systems like CSCS Smart Check and MyECS, which work on real-time access to the ECS database, can confirm the latest position to clients, employers and other relevant parties on underpinning knowledge, vocational qualifications, CPD, fire safety awareness training (general or specific to a particular role) and other related aspects. The same is true of periodic revalidation of individual competence which, once defined, can be incorporated into the requirements of the relevant ECS cards and certification and is already the case with some other occupations across ECS.
Further to this, the ECS Check system for Clients and the Supply Chain launched in 2017 provides a facility for monitoring compliance with workforce composition levels and ration requirements, through all tiers of a supply chain, to provide essential visibility of workforce competence as set out in sector-specific frameworks. The ECS Check system now has more than 1,400 organisations registered to use this free-to-access digital platforms, which links into the existing digital ECS card system for audit and essential compliance.
ECS will continue to work with the industry stakeholders across Fire Detection and Alarm systems, and the wider built environment, to ensure the ECS digital platforms continue to provide a state-of-the-art system for employers and clients to verify competence.