Lantra or city and guilds

[Scoop]

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. 

I am rope access and am going to be doing my chainsaw courses for another avenue to work in.. I'm torn between advice from different people on what qualifications to do.. I've heard both sides from different people and looking for some advice on which of the two quals would be better to do. I don't want to have to do some twice as rope access has enough re-valing of tickets as it is so what is the best route to take city and guilds or lantra?? Cheers for any advice. 

[spuddog0507]

16 minutes ago, Scoop said:

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. 

I am rope access and am going to be doing my chainsaw courses for another avenue to work in.. I'm torn between advice from different people on what qualifications to do.. I've heard both sides from different people and looking for some advice on which of the two quals would be better to do. I don't want to have to do some twice as rope access has enough re-valing of tickets as it is so what is the best route to take city and guilds or lantra?? Cheers for any advice. 

Hi NPTC city and guilds all the time may be more expensive but more company's & organizations recognize NPTC.

[Bolt]

Hi Scoop.

 

The Lantra and NPTC quals are completely identical and completely interchangeable.  There was a time when NPTC was the only suite of units that were recognised by industry  (Lantra did 'hobby user' units), but that was years and yeeeears ago.

 

If you set out doing, for instance, Lantra saw maintenance, this is recognised by NPTC as a prerequisite for their crosscutting unit.  You can chop and change provider at any point.  You are not locked into either one or the other set of unit's. 

 

Should you encounter any employer who only 'recognises NPTC' they are clearly well behind the times and probably best avoided.

[jfc]

Scoop, as far as I know the basic lantra chainsaw course only covers felling trees to 200mm, if you want to do the aerial chainsaw course you need the 380mm felling ticket, which was nptc only. My knowledge is a from about 5yrs years ago so may be out of date. The lantra course is fine but as you are from rope accessories background I assume you will want climbing tickets eventually. You can easily top up the lantra to nptc 380mm but if you end goal is climbing it may be simpler to do nptc.

[Bolt]

30 minutes ago, jfc said:

Scoop, as far as I know the basic lantra chainsaw course only covers felling trees to 200mm, if you want to do the aerial chainsaw course you need the 380mm felling ticket, which was nptc only. My knowledge is a from about 5yrs years ago so may be out of date. The lantra course is fine but as you are from rope accessories background I assume you will want climbing tickets eventually. You can easily top up the lantra to nptc 380mm but if you end goal is climbing it may be simpler to do nptc.

Hi jfc.  you are, indeed, about 5 years out of date.

 

Lantra did once confine themselves to a sub 200mm felling ticket, but they now offer identical (and interchangeable) tickets to NPTC (more correctly City & Guilds).

 

The NPTC 'CS' units used to be 'certificates of competence' but NPTC C&G and Lantra collaborated to replace them all with a series of incomprehendably  numbered qualifications a few years back.

 

It therefor does not matter which awarding organisation you go with initially, as you can change camp whenever you feel like it because they both recognise each others units as valid prerequisites.

 

The only difference is that NPTC C&G do not provide much training (Historically, Lantra did your training and NPTC did your assessment), whereas Lantra do training and assessment.

 

The best way to choose where to put your money is going to be ...

the training / assessments center's personalities 

the training / assessments center's facilities

the training / assessments center's location

the training / assessments center's  price

 

 

[Stuart Phillips]

2 hours ago, jfc said:

Scoop, as far as I know the basic lantra chainsaw course only covers felling trees to 200mm, if you want to do the aerial chainsaw course you need the 380mm felling ticket, which was nptc only. My knowledge is a from about 5yrs years ago so may be out of date. The lantra course is fine but as you are from rope accessories background I assume you will want climbing tickets eventually. You can easily top up the lantra to nptc 380mm but if you end goal is climbing it may be simpler to do nptc.

Since 2011, when LANTRA SSC wrote the units for the chainsaw and aerial qualifications and then C&G /NPTC and Lantra Awards developed their qualifications based on those units, the qualifications have been completely interchangeable. 

 

When it comes to training, Lantra quality assures (and insures) their training instructors.  C&G/NPTC have assessors, some of whom offer their own training aimed at the qualifications.  As Lantra develops training courses as well as qualifications, the training courses are periodically updated ( we are shortly to release updated aerial training materials to our instructor network) and, whilst they will support the qualifications, they may well include a broader content than the bare minimum required to pass the test.

For completeness, Lantra also offers refresher courses for foresters and arborists, so that it is possible to train, qualify and refresh through one system...  or  you can mix and match.

 

Lantra does still offer the felling to 200mm assessed training course for the "occasional user", that is to say, farmers, fencers etc.

[Tommy_B]

@Bolt, are you involved in the delivery of Lantra felling qualifications? Could you point me in the direction of the Assessment guidance for the Lantra felling assessment? I'm quite familiar with the City and Guilds one and would like to compare.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tommy

[Bolt]

30 minutes ago, Tommy_B said:

@Bolt, are you involved in the delivery of Lantra felling qualifications? Could you point me in the direction of the Assessment guidance for the Lantra felling assessment? I'm quite familiar with the City and Guilds one and would like to compare.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tommy

 

The Lantra Assessments were referred to as 'Benchmark Assessments'.

 

The were accessed via a password protected section of the Lantra website, and for some reason never publicly published.

 

As I remember, in line by line comparison they were identical (the order was a little different, but the wording was the same) to the NPTC assessment schedules, but this is not surprising because, as Stuart has explained, Lantra and NPTC wrote the qualifications based on a series of units produced by Lantra SSC.

 

I believe the Benchmark Assessments have since gone from the Lantra website (no idea why), but I have some saved as PDFs from a few years back.

 

Tommy_B, if you are really interested, feel free to PM me an email address.

 

 

[Stuart Phillips]

2 hours ago, Tommy_B said:

@Bolt, are you involved in the delivery of Lantra felling qualifications? Could you point me in the direction of the Assessment guidance for the Lantra felling assessment? I'm quite familiar with the City and Guilds one and would like to compare.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tommy

Hi Tommy

Drop me an email at [email protected] and I will happily send copies across to you.

 

Stuart

[Scoop]

Cheers guys, thanks for all the replys. It sounds like they're the same quals but more companies still recognise the city and guilds? To save a possible pain in the arse I may do the majority of the tickets as city and guilds then. I've been told lads have been not given work because they had the lantra ones so may as well save the ball ache and just get the c&g. Thanks very much for the advice.