CISRS has set out plans to reform its Overseas Scaffolder Training Scheme, with proposals that would lead to a single global baseline training standard for scaffolders by 2028.
The review, co-authored by CISRS Group CEO Clive Dickin and Head of Training and Education Paul Napper, says the current two-tier system introduced in 2013 is no longer fit for purpose and should not have been adopted in its present form.
The paper made public today comes as the OSTS scheme has grown to more than 30,000 cardholders across 22 centres in the Middle East, Caribbean and Africa, with CISRS saying global labour mobility and employer confusion over different card schemes have made reform increasingly urgent.
In blunt terms, the review argues that the split between the UK labourer and trainee route and the overseas OSTS Level 1 and above route has created structural weakness in the system. It says the arrangement was driven largely by commercial and market-access considerations rather than long-term workforce strategy.
CISRS also accepts that the current setup has had wider consequences. According to the paper, these include confusion in the market, pressure on employers trying to judge competence, and what it describes as a gradual erosion of confidence in the UK baseline standard.
A key finding in the review is that OSTS Level 1 already goes beyond the UK Labourer Card in both course length and technical expectation. One stakeholder quoted in the paper said: “It is increasingly difficult to explain why an overseas Level 1 operative has done more training than a UK labourer. The logic no longer stacks up.”
The review also makes a broader point about regulation.
It argues that, outside broad legal duties placed on employers, there is no tightly prescribed statutory competence framework for entry-level scaffolding labour in the UK. In practice, CISRS says this has left a fragmented market where UK labourers may enter with limited formal training while some overseas workers arrive with a higher baseline level of competence.
A single global baseline
Three strategic options are set out in the paper.
The first is to keep the current two-tier structure. CISRS says that would be the simplest option, but warns it would continue to carry reputational and compliance risks.
The second is to make the existing UK route the global standard. While that would strengthen alignment, the paper says it would still not prevent lower standards operating in some territories.
The third option, and the one recommended by CISRS, is to raise the UK labourer standard so it aligns with OSTS Level 1. The review describes this as the only credible long-term solution, creating a single global entry point supported by modular and technology-enabled delivery.
Throughout the consultation, centres and employers also pointed to confusion at client level. As one comment in the paper put it: “Clients simply don’t understand the difference between CISRS, OSTS and CSCS. To them, a card is a card.”
Under the proposed reform programme, the first phase in 2026 would include aligning system scaffolding courses with TG30, introducing UK-delivered courses into OSTS, explicitly positioning the OSTS card as an industrial card, and removing the requirement for overseas training providers to operate a UK headquarters.
A transition period would then follow, with both systems running in parallel while governance and delivery infrastructure are strengthened. The final stage, planned for 2028, would see the launch of a combined global programme and a single baseline standard.
The paper also acknowledges the risks attached to reform, including training capacity, rising costs, workforce disruption and the possibility that some territories may resist higher standards. But it argues that doing nothing would carry its own risks, including continued recruitment of minimally trained labour and further dilution of the CISRS brand. The risk register on page 14 rates both the status quo risk and reputational risk as high likelihood and high impact.
In a statement accompanying the review, Clive Dickin said the industry had changed significantly since OSTS was introduced and that reform was now both necessary and inevitable.
The consultation now opens the door to what could become one of the biggest changes to the CISRS training structure in more than a decade. The real issue is not just overseas training. It is that CISRS is now openly arguing that the UK entry-level standard itself needs to move.
