Training and Certification - ACRIB statement 16th January 2008
ACRIB STATEMENT 13th MARCH 2008
DEFRA confirmed at the Stakeholder meeting of 28th February that they are in the process of drafting legislation concerning the training and certification requirements. They are working closely with ACRIB on issues related to this. A draft is expected to be available for public consultation from June and the legislation likely to come in from February 2009.
A Statutory Instrument SI2008/41 came into force on 15th February this year which listed the existing C&G 2078 and CITB Refrigeration Handling as the current legal minimum qualifications to handle refrigerants covered by the F Gas Regulation until new qualification schemes become available. These are also included in the list of current qualifications acceptable for those working in the mobile (car/van) air conditioning field.
Whilst those holding existing qualifications (ie City and Guilds 2078 or CITB Refrigerant Handling) will be able to continue to work legally until 2011 employers would be well advised to ensure that their existing workers have achieved the new update qualification as soon as this becomes available. The training capacity in the UK is limited and there are approximately 30,000 individuals who will need to be reassessed to the updated qualification standard. The next few years will allow employers to spread the time and cost obligations sensibly.
ACRIB is helping industry and training providers to be prepared well in advance of the deadlines and the updates to the existing refrigerant handling qualifications are now nearing completion. ACRIB, CITB and City and Guilds together with SummitSkills have held a number of meetings with DEFRA on this matter. The updated qualifications will be available soon this summer and will be based on a practical skills test and a multiple choice theory test. The National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs or SVQs) designed for trainees are being updated to take into account the F Gas Regulation requirements.
Training providers have yet to go through a re-accreditation process to ensure that they have sufficient knowledge and equipment to deliver the new qualification. ACRIB, with the awarding bodies, is developing strict standards of assessment for the new qualifications. It is in everyone’s interest that the new qualifications have a real and lasting impact on improving skills to reduce leakage and demonstrating that our workforce has met the minimum standard as specified in the Regulation.
The ACRIB Register will be accepting the updated qualifications as evidence of competency to join the register when these are available
ACRIB STATEMENT 16th JANUARY 2008
The European Commission has now finalised its detailed requirements for the training and certification of engineers working on stationary refrigeration and air conditioning equipment under the European Fluorinated Gases Regulation – known as the F Gas Regulation.
Whilst most UK engineers have been assessed in refrigerant handling to the City and Guilds 2078 or CITB standard over the past 15 years, the new F Gas standard will be a much more thorough and wide ranging examination. It will include a range of observed practical assessments and a multiple choice examination which will test the knowledge of underpinning principles.
Since the Commission finalised the requirements in December 2007, industry representatives through ACRIB have been working with existing awarding bodies (City and Guilds and CITB) to come up with a top-up qualification for those who already have refrigerant handling or S/NVQ qualifications. The new F Gas qualification is still under development and consultation, and will be presented to UK Government at the end of January.
Given that the whole of the existing workforce of up to 40,000 engineers will need to take all or part of the new assessment, one of the key briefs was for this to be as efficient as possible in terms of the time taken. It is expected that it will take approximately 4 hours for each candidate to be assessed by a qualified assessor. The level of training needed to get technicians up to the standard necessary to pass the assessments will depend on the prior qualifications, experience and knowledge of the individual. It is likely that this could be up to four days however, because much of the assessment is theoretical and covers principles of refrigeration required to assess performance of systems and their energy efficiency.
Training providers and colleges should be able to register to deliver the new qualifications early in the Spring with the first assessments going ahead in early July, when the requirements for F Gas Personnel Certification were due to come in. However with the current limited provision of training and the significant changes and challenges that the new F Gas qualifications will present, it is expected that it will take some years to get the whole of the UK workforce re-certified. Only those who have taken the new F Gas assessment will be recognised as competent throughout the whole of Europe, so in order to work with F Gas refrigerants, the sooner the new certificate is obtained the better.
The Commission requires that all technicians should have obtained this new qualification by January 2009. However the UK Government will be consulting in the early summer on whether to allow a further three years (up to July 2011) for existing personnel to obtain the new qualification. ACRIB is pressing to ensure that the UK is granted an extension of the full three years to complete certifications. In the mean time , of course, the existing certificates C&G 2078 or CITB equivalent continue to be the existing national legal requirement for both F Gas and ODS refrigerant handling.
The ACRIB voluntary register provides proof of competence through a register and card scheme.