Why you should join FISA.....

[slasherscot]

well. I went for a new unit.....assisted fell with a hand winch, no need for a seperate refresher and it will last for 5 years

[Jesse]

Looked a good post:thumbup1: but i only got as far as " make and enforce " ... in this industry no one enforces anything. Should i have read more ?

[oakleaf50]

I done the fisa instructor course and was not impressed one bit! I know a lot of instructors that have went for it and did not get through the assessment process! I think this was decided before they turned up for the fisa instructors course. There is Windblow refresher and site supervisor course coming on line now! Tom is correct there system was not looked at in detail especially for the smaller contractor. At the start of the process fca had a say what fisa was going to be about but there was massive disagreements and fca were black balled! It's a shame the fisa idea could of made the industry a safer place to work! If the you look at the accident records I think that won't be the case!

[Dave177]

When FISA was first introduced I thought we were all onto a good thing. A forestry specific organisation that is here to improve health and safety and reduce levels of red tape....Winner!!

So far all that seems to have happened is a lot of position changes within the management structure of the organisation, arguing and the introduction of poorly thought out FISA refresher courses, which, were already offered by both NPTC and LANTRA.

 

In order to be compliant on some of our FC contracts and to be a little bit safer I wanted to book onto the FISA FM works manager course for myself and another member of staff, and the location that these are run ... North wales or South Scotland we are based in Surrey!! When questioned about this and asked to put on a course in the midlands/south of England I was told it was not in their interest to do so.

 

Am I a paid up member of FISA .... Yes

Am I a member by choice ..... NO

Would I be if I didn't have to due to FC Contracts ..... NO

[Pete Hart]

When FISA was first introduced I thought we were all onto a good thing. A forestry specific organisation that is here to improve health and safety and reduce levels of red tape....Winner!!

So far all that seems to have happened is a lot of position changes within the management structure of the organisation, arguing and the introduction of poorly thought out FISA refresher courses, which, were already offered by both NPTC and LANTRA.

 

In order to be compliant on some of our FC contracts and to be a little bit safer I wanted to book onto the FISA FM works manager course for myself and another member of staff, and the location that these are run ... North wales or South Scotland we are based in Surrey!! When questioned about this and asked to put on a course in the midlands/south of England I was told it was not in their interest to do so.

 

Am I a paid up member of FISA .... Yes

Am I a member by choice ..... NO

Would I be if I didn't have to due to FC Contracts ..... NO

 

Didn't think it would be long before I saw a post from you on this thread dave 😉

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

I thought the Arb Association are already involved with FISA? they were supposed to be responsible for the upkeep of the arb related AFAG guidance and FISA would be doing the AFAG guidance on forestry side. Probably both would be covering guidance that crossed into forestry and arb.

 

This would mean someone like Paul AA Teccie or Simon Richmond acting on behalf of the arb industry, surely they would keep tabs on excessive amounts of training and refresher courses being demanded by FISA knowing full well that the arb industry has loads of small specialist companies that can't afford to be financially overburdened with repeated training costs?

 

Morning all, an interesting thread.

 

Firstly, if I may, to say that refresher / update training has always been a requirement of the PUWER Regs and AFAG/FISA 805 'Training and Certification', and rightly so. The recommended time period for a professional user, so not me anymore , is every 5 years.

 

Secondly, I have had conversations with HSE regarding the FISA 'mandatory training' situation and been reassured they have no intention to introduce that in the arb sector (remembering of course the HSE didn't introduce in the Forestry sector, FISA and the larger organisations did due to their poor accident rates.) Nonetheless it does highlight the issue and means we need to think more seriously about it perhaps.

 

Thirdly, never been there myself, but many of our scheme Lead Assessors do accident investigation and the very definite feedback I get is that HSE / coroners etc. are generally more interested in training / refresher training than NPTCs / Lantra's etc. (perhaps in part not being aware of them.)

 

So, to protect yourself AND your staff, you do need to be able to demonstrate an 'active' system of skills review and updates where/when/if necessary. I would suggest "up-skilling" wherever possible, and applicable, e.g. CS31 up to CS32/33 up to CS34/35 etc. (and yes I know that's old money now.) Also, accident stats, safety performance, longevity are other important considerations. IMHO, albeit not exclusively, there is often a greater need for refreshers / updates in the aerial aspects, rescue/climbing/rigging etc. due to advances in equipment / techniques / technologies.

 

I wholly acknowledge the financial implications of training, a 'tripe whammy' in effect, BUT it is a significant 'control' issue for risk and needs to be viewed as an investment (I know, easy for me to say, to promote it as such and hopefully you'll get 'buy-in' and commitment from staff.)

 

Lastly, we are involved with FISA on the review of the leaflets that cross both industry sectors to ensure 'arb' is represented (this avoids having a separate set of leaflets / guidance.) The aerial leaflets are still HSE/AFAG, and the group is still active, and these are coming our way.

 

Finally, FISA have told me, albeit I've asked for a written position statement but nothing to date, that 'arb' activities will not require FISA refresher training...but they will require evidence of suitable 'refresher training' to work on their sites.

 

Hope this helps, a little, n apologies for the verboseness (if such a word .)

 

Cheers all, n take care out there..

Paul

Edited January 27, 2015 by AA Teccie (Paul)

[daltontrees]

All interesting stuff.

 

It seems t me entirely plausible that forestry and arboriculture be subject to different safety regimes and therefore refresher training standards. I am curious about how many treework accidents there are in forestry per employee compared with arboriculture. Surely that is the sort of thing that should be informing any difference of standards (or the same standard) between arb and forestry?

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

All interesting stuff.

 

It seems t me entirely plausible that forestry and arboriculture be subject to different safety regimes and therefore refresher training standards. I am curious about how many treework accidents there are in forestry per employee compared with arboriculture. Surely that is the sort of thing that should be informing any difference of standards (or the same standard) between arb and forestry?

 

Hi Jules, I hope you're well.

 

Exactly, the problem is the HSE RIDDOR reports don't differentiate between the different industry sectors. Hence FISA, originally, representing the larger organisations within the forestry industry sector, were able to identify chainsaw etc. accidents, of which there were many (apparently) and hence the mandatory refresher training requirement was introduced.

 

Arguably, I would suggest, the skills requirements, and therefore the corresponding need for refresher / update training, is much more diverse in the 'arb' sector and hence more challenging.

 

regards..

Paul

[agrimog]

I would not be involved with anything FISA has touched, there is so much in house fighting that the whole thing will implode in the not to distant future, it is not being run to promote safety, rather to financially benifit certain large contractors, till it becomes a seperate body, financed by subscriptions, and not dependant on those who seek to control a certain part of what is in effect a publicly owned resource, it will be nothing but a bag of sh1t....please excuse my language

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Really good thread Tom!

 

I remember a topic similar to this in a thread back away about FISA / training etc.

 

One might think the Federation of Small Businesses might take an issue such as this (overly burdensome admin / training / HSE (if it is considered overly burdensome?)) but when I looked at joining, and suffered almost 2 hours of patronising tripe from the local FSB rep who knew NOTHING of the arb sector, did not know how many from arb industry were signed up, with FSB nor anything that might have proved useful or how to deliver it, I decided against - almost had to throw him out of the house in fact!

 

So high accident stats in forestry (a matter of record) (and probably no surprise given some of the cavalier comments about chain brake use in the 'chain brake under warranty' thread) are not identified and separated to a particular sector - if it's chainsaw, it's chainsaw (and that probably includes chainsaw accidents by casual / home users too??)

 

From what Paul describes, it sounds like it's not possible to drill down into professional arb for statistical purposes which would allow targeted training requirements so we all get the overarching requirements.

 

Totally agree that the big boys and training providers are obvious beneficiaries and open to a suspicion of 'icing their own cake!'