Do SpanSet run 'Train the  Trainer' courses?

Answer - SpanSet do not normally offer instructor training for our industrial height safety training courses.

There are two main reasons why we do not offer this.

The first reason is that with the advent of BS 8454: 2006 (Code of practice for the delivery of training and education for work at height and rescue) any person or company must be able to demonstrate a number of key attributes:

• Control over the content and delivery of their training.
• A good base of knowledge in the subject and experience in the field
• Competency of the trainer and regular review of the knowledge

To satisfy these demands and others under the standard, we would have to assess a potential instructor as a competent and experienced user of the equipment and then look at developing them into an instructor. This process usually takes several months when developing one of our own training staff.

We would then have to address what syllabus they teach, how they will deliver it and how their trainees are assessed.

In addition to this the instructor would then need regular auditing and retraining to ensure that they maintain the required standard.

This process requires quite a large amount of commitment from both ourselves and the instructors employer and therefore it is not normally undertaken.

We normally only carry out this process for other SpanSet global companies, the Police and the MOD, both of which have given us the time to develop a new trainer.

As a further hurdle we must satisfy our insurers that we are not opening ourselves to a greater level of risk and therefore they demand a high level of control from ourselves over any training delivered by an instructor who was trained at SpanSet.  

Because of this SpanSet would not be able to justify training people to instructor level, unless we were happy that the individuals were backed by a company or organisation who could provide adequate support for them.

Most companies normally find they cannot justify the expense this would entail and normally rely on using our training staff to deliver the training to their employees direct, thus ensuring that they have been trained in accordance with BS8454, but without the same level of commitment in time and money that using an in-house trainer would involve.

If you require any further information regarding our industrial training courses please feel free to contact us.