Plant industry criticises CITB health and safety test again

The Construction Industry Training Board's (CITB) health and safety test has come in for further criticism from representatives of the plant industry.

The test has lready been criticised for not being tied into a health and safety training regime.

Now Alan Joyce, of the Highways & Construction Training Association, has questioned: "Where's the back up through training for those who failed, or those who can't read?

" All the CITB do is provide a test book. The test needs to be linked to training or respond to a training need, and to specific plant items. Anything else is just a smokescreen."

Criticism was also targeted on cost and availability: one plant trainer estimated that operator pay and travelling expenses added up to £190 per test, excluding downtime and machine standing time; another said it had been waiting five months for date to be set.

Another plant trainer added: "If the availability and cost of the tests is bad enough, the test itself beggars belief.

"The principle is one thing, but for an organisation to review an operator's competence on the basis of such an inappropriate test is fundamentally flawed. Is it right that they may lose their livelihood through an inappropriate test?"