Card "not evidence of competence" says training scheme manager - Site chaos leads to CTA doubts

Serious concerns over the effectiveness of the Certificate of Training Assesment (CTA) card scheme for plant operatives were raised this week after a backhoe loader operator wrought havoc on sites in Loughborough.

The CTA card holder - passed as competent earlier this year by an Construction Industry Training Board approved training centre - was sacked last Friday by Derek Fitzgerald Plant after a string of accidents in his first week on the job.

The 45-year-old operator knocked over a pedestrian on site, damaged Fitzgerald Plant's backhoe loader and stoved-in the door of a truck he was loading in three seperate incidents.

The CITB claims there are currently 229,000 CTA card holders. Serious questions regarding the level and quality of assessment being carried out by the CITB's accredited training centres were being asked this week in light of the events.

Majorie Fitzgerald, managing director of Derek Fitzgerald Plant said: "A CTA card been issued when it shouldn't have been. It is frightening that this operator was assessed and passed as competent."

She added she was "alarmed" that the centre which carried out the assessment had asked whether she could be sure that the operator was who he said was.

"If he wasn't, the whole CITB/CTA system for issuing and monitoring operator cards needs some serious sorting out."

Brian Pells, assistant manager of the CITB's CTA unit said: "A CTA card is not evidence of competence, it is evidence of training achievement. it is down to the employer to prove competence."

Ian Carmichael, general manager of Furlands Training Centre, the organisation which approved the operator, said that the centre is carrying out its own probe.

The affair may dent industry confidence in the reliability of CTA registration. Fitzgerald said: "Although I will still ask to see a CTA card I'll never rely on it again. The only way to get a good operator is by word of mouth."