There is a danger that some 85,000 Construction Related Occupation (CRO) cards issued by CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) will expire in September 2017 without the card holder realising as the cards near the end of a two-year phase out programme.
It should be remembered that the Construction Related Occupation (CRO) cards have been in use since 2005 but have recently been criticised as the ‘easy way’ to demonstrate Health and Safety competence on construction sites in the United Kingdom.
So CSCS has said that as part of its phasing-out strategy all 85,000 CRO cards issued since October 2015 will expire at the end of September 2017 and will no longer be available.
This decision all stems from a decision of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), which agreed that from January 2015 the industry should specify and promote card schemes carrying the CSCS logo with no equivalents accepted. The CLC further recommended that card schemes carrying the CSCS logo must only certify those occupations with nationally recognised construction related qualifications.
As the CRO cards cover more than 450 trades, the exact action that each card holder must take to replace their card will depend on their job and the qualifications they already hold.
In many cases, the CRO card holder will be required to register for existing or newly developed qualifications. In others, card holders will be asked to move to one of CSCS’s Partner Card Schemes that are more appropriate for their occupations. In an extreme case, their occupation may not be construction-related or no suitable qualification exists, so a CSCS card will no longer be issued.
A handy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) can be found at the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) website here
If you need to decide which CSCS card is relevant for your occupation and which CITB Health, Safety & Environment test you need to take, please head for the CSCS Card Finder page here