Most scaffolders training courses on average are around £1000, for most people, paying for there own training is on the expensive side. With the current economic downturn the cost of living is on the rise but wages stay the same. To put it simply everybody is skint.

Should we now see training centres adopt some type of finance package for would-be scaffolders and scaffolders looking to progress in obtaining their Advanced Scaffolder CISRS card ?

Well,  industry rumours suggest just this, training centres across the country are currently exploring new types of credit schemes as a way of getting more candidates through its doors and more scaffolders progressing up the training ladder. One idea is, training centres could adopt a credit scheme like a student loan, whereby a pre-arranged amount would be taken out of candidates weekly income.

Currently in the United Kingdom there is 5,500 CISRS Trainee Scaffolders, 15,000 CISRS Basic Scaffolders and only 8,000 CISRS Advanced Scaffolders. Looking at these numbers you can see the large majority of trained scaffolders are not progressing with training to achieve an Advanced Card status.

Could offering the rumored finance packages change these statistics? I am sure the training centres would hope so….

If training centres do adopt this type of financial assistance this would undoubtedly be a positive improvement to our industry. But what does need remembering, as one person pointed out to me, is that your employer still has a legal duty & responsibility to train it’s workforce to industry standard. So any credit schemes that do evolve, shouldn’t be used to take that responsibility from them.

By Daniel Norton

Would you take on credit for scaffolding training ? It would be interesting to know your thoughts on this, let us know in the comments below.