Stuart Phillips

Given that the NZ Arb Assoc is affiliated to the ISA, and offers assessment for the ISA's certifications, you might consider taking the Certified Tree Worker or Certified Arborist certifications. AA Teccie Paul will probably be able to point you in the direction of someone that can assist with these, as I believe that UKAA is also an affiliate organisation. This route would give you a qual that is already recognised in NZ.

The current system doesn’t work but there is very little incentive to change it. For ‘read ‘tricky and more expensive’. Here’s some of what I think is wrong with what we have currently… 1. PUWER (Regulation 9) emphasizes the need for adequate training. Our current system places the emphasis on the ‘need’ for a ‘ticket’, a certificate. 2. Learners, with no previous experience, complete a 5 day course (often only working on softwoods) and are then expecting to be competent to work in different situations with numerous different species. 3. The quality control of instruction and assessment hasn’t always been all it could be (although I know that recently this has begun to be tightened up). The net result being that the industry accident rate is higher that anyone thinks it should be. A number of suggestion have been put forward for revising how we work, but usually these are relegated to the too expensive or too difficult piles. So, until either people get over the stage of tutting and saying, “something should be done”, or there is legislation to force change, it is what we are stuck with. All I would add is that the certification should be a starting point. PUWER Reg 9 still places a duty on employers to ensure staff are adequately trained. If we are saying that just doing a 5 day course isn’t sufficient then they are obliged to ensure that there is some further (presumably on the job) training. Oh, and as for the C&G and Lantra 'gravy train', call into their offices some time, and see how many of the staff are sat in 18 carat gold chairs, and how many Bentleys are in the carpark.

Try giving Matt Cooper at Trees Limited a shout ([email protected].). He may do it, or lis likely to know someone who can.

PUWER reg 9 says that you must be adaquately trained (emphasis on the training). For almost all purposes the Lantra quality assured course will fit the bill, and the certification will give evidence of training (emphasis on the training). The C&G ticket is a qualification (rather than a certification) and someone will put together a course to meet the requirements of the C&G assessment (the emphasis being on the qualification). In both cases they follow the usual recommendation of periodic refresher training and the standard often quoted is 5 years for regular users and 3 years for occasional users.

He is a first rate matey!

Felling 6-12 trees (according to the assessment schedule) including the set up and clearing up as well as the q & a, and including large trees, in 45 minutes. Pretty good going. Unless of course it was an assessor who was more interested in giving a Pass rather than checking competence. It does confirm something long suspected, that this qualification is not fit for purpose and is not being delivered appropriately by (some) assessors.

If anyone ever has a problem with Lantra quals, give Lantra a call. The units on which the NPTC e no ( and Lantra quals) are based on were all originally written by Lantra. As these quals came out in 2012, any not recognising the Lantra ones is just out of touch. There might be a temptation to think that getting everything done in 5 days is a really good time saving. But you want to make sure that you are properly trained, and assuming you have no prior experience, 5 days is not going to give proper training. If in doubt, go one the Lantra website and search the courses, it will show you the recommended durations for the difference courses. Or, do a quick Google search, and you will quickly see what sort of duration (and prices) different independent trainers are putting against these courses.

Cytokinins?

awarding bodies like Lantra and C&G produce qualifications, and these are regulated in England by Ofqual (in Scotland by SQA). They also produce certifications, which are non-regulated. Quals must meet the standards set by regulator, for the non regulated the awarding body pretty much sets its own standard. So, Lantra's chipper ticket is non regulated, and if you run it past the RFS for your cert arb, they won't accept it because its not a qual. Likewise the C&G utility certificates are not qualifications. felling large trees... not a qual.

C&G/NPTC still offer the unit for their own certification, but there is no corresponding regulated qualification like there is with the felling over 380.

There is no upper limit, the qual is simply "Felling and processing trees over 380mm". That said, the responsibility of the employer is to ensure that an individual is "adequately trained", and letting a newbie loose on a 'kin big tree the day after they completed their CS32 assessment is likely to fall short of this requirement.

As far as I'm aware there isn't one. As you know Lantra SSC developed the units used in both Lantra Awards' and NPTC's qualifications and, there was no comparable unit developed. It may be that, at the time, it was seen that there was such low take up so as to suggest it was not needed. … the lack of enquiries about it since would support that thought. That's not to say that there are not a dozen training companies who will offer you training for CS44 if you ask them.

See thread on refresher training