As featured in Waterline Autumn 2024
Challenges with Training in Water Hygiene and Water Treatment
By Matt Morse, Independent Consultant, Dragonfly Water Consultancy
The Challenge
There is a wide variety and choice of trainers and training organisations in the marketplace for our industry. It can be difficult, particularly for duty holders and responsible persons, to choose appropriate training when some of the training offered appears to have the same title with hugely different cost and duration.
The Legal Imperative
The need for training stems from the various legal requirements set out in HSWA, MHSWR, COSHH, and others. These generally use the language of suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training with an expectation that individuals will be suitably competent to discharge their responsibilities safely. The law does not, and largely cannot, be specific on the content and extent of training required, as this will vary with individual circumstances. The requirement is to do enough to achieve the output, but determining what enough is can be a balance between going too far and spending excessive resources to not get to the point of suitable competence.
Suitable and sufficient is one of those wonderfully vague terms that is open to interpretation. For training, we can consider suitable to mean ‘is the training in the right subject areas and does it cover the appropriate things?’ Sufficient means ‘have those right things been covered in appropriate depth, in an appropriate way, has it resulted in a competent individual?’
Dutyholder Competence
It is a common misconception that if a dutyholder brings in a contractor to perform a specialist task, the dutyholder does not need to be competent in that task. While it is true the dutyholder might not need to know the ins and outs of technically doing the task, they absolutely must have the competence to be able to oversee that contractor, to check their work. One example that highlights this is the Faltec Europe prosecution a few years ago. The duty holder’s defence included throwing their contractor under the bus because they expected the contractor to be responsible. The sentencing observations included several statements about the lack of suitable and sufficient training and competence within Faltec to enable them to oversee their contractor.
“35. ….Rather than employing skilled and experienced staff itself, the company is actually seeking to outsource its regulatory responsibilities concerning safety, whilst it does not have an adequate system in place for reviewing the actions of its subcontractor. This is illustrated by the lack of any written documentation of standards and systems of review, and by the limited experience and training of the two people charged with the obligation of receiving the reports of the subcontractor.i”
Dutyholders therefore have to be suitably trained and competent to discharge their responsibilities. For oversight of contractors the dutyholder or responsible person has to be able to recognise what good looks like to enable them to be assured that risk is managed. I was recently asked at a legionella focus group how many duty holders attend appropriate training? I had to answer that in twenty five years of delivering training for duty holders, I could count the true duty holders that attended on the thumb of one hand!
Training Courses and Training Providers
There are many training courses and many training providers in the market. Simply for legionella awareness training the course can vary in cost and length considerably. Thirty minutes of online training to three days of residential training – the content cannot possibly be the same. The real question is, what is suitable and sufficient?
Some courses are accredited, some are regulated, others are not. Some awarding bodies are simply putting their own name to the training, some are externally backed, some are externally regulated by the government. How do we unpick the value in all of these? There are some basic questions to ask that should give some insight into quality and accountability:
1. Is the training regulated by OFQUAL? – there will be a set syllabus of content that must be included, assessment with external and internal quality assurance processed and formal backing from government. This level of training normally leads to a recognised Qualification.
2. Is the training from a learned body or society that is involved in the industry like WMSoc, CIBSE, BSRIA or similar? – these organisations have significant technical backing for training content, but the training is not regulated by OFQUAL and the course content can vary.
3. Is the training accredited by a third party awarding body? – these may give some assurance of quality but ask further questions – does the awarding body:
a. Set or check the course content?
b. Check the training delivery?
c. Check a proportion of the assessments?
If the answer to these three questions is no, then the accreditation would appear to be largely decorative.
4. Is there a syllabus or course content synopsis available from the provider? – this should give some insight into the material that will be covered.
5. How long does the training take? – appropriate time spent training depends on role and the risk of the setting. For example, a day in the classroom will not make a competent risk assessor, but it might give a dutyholder the knowledge for general competence to check basic hot and cold water management by a contractor.
6. What is the delivery method for the training? – classroom presentation or online delivery can be limited in teaching practical aspects, does the course include practical, hands on training or assignments?
7. Who is going to deliver the training? – like legionella risk assessment, selection of a provider should include consideration of the individual that will be delivering it. Are they from the water hygiene industry? If not the depth of reactive response to questions and discussion could be limited, at worst they may simply read out the slides! The best trainers are those who have been there and done it, broken it, then fixed it again.
Output of Training
I’m often told that ‘so and so is competent because they have been trained in a classroom’. This is a nonsense – training often leads to knowledge, this can be developed into skills and both of those are components of competence, but training in isolation is never a guarantee of competence. In practical subjects like legionella risk assessment or water treatment, classroom training alone will not lead to competent operatives.
Assessments that follow training sometimes look at knowledge alone with tests that ask questions like; list such and such…, what temperature…, how many, etc. Better training assessments might examine understanding and look a little deeper, but knowledge and understanding does not equal competence. Only assessments that look at practical skill and competence through observation should certificate competence.
I’ve seen a one day classroom legionella risk assessment course output a ‘certificate of competence’ as a legionella risk assessor without any actual check on the learner’s competence. There are more advanced risk assessment courses that include a check on the learner’s real world report output that gives a competence certificate, but without checking the input side of the work, how can the assessor be sure the learner did not miss fundamental risks in their survey?
The path to competence in the specialist service providers realm is likely to include training, mentoring, practice under supervision, and feedback. The 10,000 hours ‘rule’ to become an expert is often quoted as the kind of practice required, but the core of the original paperii describes three main things; putting the hours in, those hours being meaningful practice that explores weaknesses/aids development and constructive feedback. Competence in any subject follows this principle.
Who Judges Training Suitability and Sufficiency?
When things go wrong, a breach of the law, case of illness or a death, the court and the regulator are likely to be making an assessment of the competence of the individuals and the quality of the information, instruction, and training they received. That’s the worst case, hindsight scenario, and far more likely to happen if it wasn’t suitable and sufficient.
To judge adequacy of something with foresight when the requirement is ‘enough’ can be difficult. Where does the line lie? Duty holders have to try and make this judgement, sometimes with limited information, instruction and training themselves. They must select contractors and make reasonable enquires about their competence. Schemes like the Legionella Control Association (LCA) can assist with the LCA Buyers’ Guide, but they cannot take on the legal responsibility of the duty holder.
Legionella risk assessors must also make this judgement as part of the overall assessment of risk. Are the individuals involved suitably and sufficiently informed, instructed and trained to be able to manage the risk effectively. If they’re not, the risk is greatly elevated and there has to be a recommendation to put it right. Some individuals claiming to be risk assessors will tick a box for ‘training certificates present in the logbook’ or similar. In my opinion, this is not good enough. A judgement must be made based on the actions and knowledge of the site personnel involved in risk management. If the responsible person shows the risk assessor the system, do they understand the system themselves, do they understand the control measures in place? From the records, when events occurred that required an action, was the right action taken? If there is a previous risk assessment, have they completed the actions recommended by it? All these methods allow an assessor to form a judgement of the competence of the people managing the risk which is critical to forming an assessment of the residual risk.
When auditing service providers, I often see reasonable evidence of training and competence assessment for individuals in the field performing tasks but less so for the managers, business owners and senior staff. That is not to say they are not competent, but their formal training often was some time ago and their CPD in the meantime may not have been kept up or recorded that well. Having said that, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The judgment of competence here normally hinges on having done the right thing in the work they are directly responsible for. If a disinfection report template calls the process a sterilisation and the method statement calls for 50ppm of peroxide for an hour or a QA check of risk assessments should have picked up an obvious error and didn’t, then it is often clear evidence that those at the top of the chain are lacking.
Fitness for Purpose
A balance of suitable and sufficient training on one hand and not overspending resources on the other means there must be a level of training that is fit for purpose. Those writing the method statement that claims to comply with the British Standard have to be familiar with that standard, probably actually have a copy of it, and be familiar with the technical aspects of the task that won’t be found in HSE guidance. Those carrying out the task need to be competent to carry out that task and follow the instructions. It needs an artist to draw the paint by numbers picture, but to colour it in, you’ve only got to stay within the lines.
What Do You Think?
It’s sometimes suggested that there should be a set syllabus for legionella training. A standard set of topics that should be covered in any awareness course for example. What do you think? Would that be a good thing?
The apprenticeship end point assessment planiii for Water Treatment Technician includes detail on the content that is assessed. This is considered by OFQUAL as a suitable level of knowledge, skills and behaviours for competence in the water treatment industry, including legionella risk assessors and treatment technicians. Do you think this would make a good basis for a minimum standard in our industry?
i – Appeal Court transcript:
https://crimeline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/faltec-rev.pdf
emphasis added in bold for this article.
ii – The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance:
https://bit.ly/3TT5H4N
