What Does the Card Mean and How Can You Use it as an Employer to Assist Your Business?

In May 2017, TICA took over delivery of the CSCS affiliated Skill Card for all Thermal Insulators as an additional part of our role as the Sector Skills Council (SSC) and Standards Setting Body (SSB).

The role of TICA as SSC and SSB is to define what qualifications look like within the Thermal Insulation Sector, and what is necessary to achieve the relevant skilled worker card.

The card itself does not mean that an individual is competent – it simply means they have undertaken the correct qualifications in line with the SSC requirements.

We are all aware that in any discipline, two workers with an identical qualification can hold significantly different skills, strengths and weaknesses.

This briefing note aims to guide TICA employers to ensure that you understand what qualifications an individual has, how you can identify them, and what further checks are advised before you can decide if an individual has the relevant skills and competencies for the role that you wish to deploy them onto.

In other words, is this person qualified and competent to do the job I want them to do?

The TICA Skill Card team issues the following cards:

Apprentice – Red Card

Experienced Worker – Red Card

Skilled Worker – Blue Card

Advanced Craft – Gold Card

Supervisor – Gold Card

A full explanation of our cards and compliance for the scheme can be found here.

At our AGM in October 2017, members agreed to ratify our proposal for TICA to accept and implement the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) mandate issued in January 2015 that ‘all employers, contractors, trade associations and clients will promote and implement the requirement for a fully carded workforce displaying the CSCS logo with no alternatives accepted’.

Following that decision, TICA has issued much guidance to our members informing them of our industry plan to ensure compliance.

We have spent time consulting with our members through regional meetings, webinars and newsletters, and are in the process of developing our industry plan that will be made available to CSCS by mid 2019. The anticipated plan will detail a completion date of 2022 by which time TICA members will only employ individuals who possess the correct Skill Card bearing the CSCS logo.

Members are currently being contacted by the Skill Card Team (alphabetically) to issue any additional cards required, and to plan for delivery of any site based NVQ requirements to fully qualify their workforce.

If you have not already been contacted, the Skill Card team will be in touch in the coming months.

A fully carded workforce is now part of the criteria for TICA membership and all new members will be asked to demonstrate how they meet (or plan to meet) this requirement in advance of being offered access to the organisation as part of the new member audit procedure.

Members should consider the following when looking at an individual Skill Card:

What qualification does the individual hold?

• Indentured apprenticeship
• NVQ + Competency Assessment
• NVQ + Technical Certificate
• NVQ only
• Level 2 or Level 3

What work experience have they gained?

• What sector has the experience been gained in
• What materials have they had exposure to and experience with

When recruiting Thermal Insulators, members should be asking for evidence of an individual’s Skill Card and not indentures as this could severely limit the number of applicants and is not necessarily the correct evidence to show that an individual is qualified or competent to carry out the role of a Thermal Insulator. Indentures can also be extremely emotive when made available to the wider workforce who may look to separate who they believe is, or is not, qualified often on extremely subjective terms that could be deemed discriminatory.

We recommend that all TICA members should be asking for evidence of an applicant’s Skill Card detailing the relevant qualifications at the initial recruitment phase with immediate effect – if not, the list of cards that are required to be issued to fully qualify that member’s workforce will exceed the FOC allocation that TICA have originally allocated and the process of carding a workforce will never be complete.

If TICA members have any further questions relating to the Skill Card implementation within their own organisation, please contact the skill card team.