About the Plant Sector Representative Organisation

Aims of the PSRO

The principal aim of the PSRO is to act as the Sector Representative Organisation (SRO) for the construction plant sector and advise industry, relevant authoritative bodies including the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) and other relevant parties over the necessary standards required for plant occupational-related training, assessment and certification activities.

As it overarching purpose, the PSRO supports the planning and actioning for:

  • a sufficient supply of plant operatives and associated occupations;
  • that possess a level of competence that optimises risk management and total cost;
  • who are trained and assessed against an agreed PRSO-devised competency framework that is well defined and understood by employers;
  • which has been arrived at in the most efficient and sustainable way.

All PSRO activities are measured aganist each aim to ensure advancment for its overarching purpose.

 

Constitution of the PSRO

In fulfilling the role, the PSRO has formed a Board comprising of representatives encompassing major stakeholders as listed below and is hosting both permanent standing and ad-hoc sub-groups to allow meetings of these stakeholders where required through industry initiatives and changes. The PSRO further considers feedback through various methods from employers, employer representative bodies and other relevant organisations to ensure that industry needs are identified.

The Membership of the PSRO Board ensures a balanced composition for the representation of both SME and large employers but is limited to major associations or federations representing construction-linked employers directly involved in plant operations including:

  • Build UK
  • Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA)
  • Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA)
  • Federation Piling Specialists (FPS)
  • Home Builders Federation (HBF)
  • National Federation Demolition Contractors (NFDC)
  • Scottish Plant Owners Association (SPOA).

The scope of activities under the PSRO Board are confined to:

  • Operation of construction-based plant, equipment and accessories;
  • Lifting Operations within the context of construction;
  • Installation, maintenance, examination and inspection operations;
  • Other relevant hire and supply activities that relate to the safe and efficient use of plant.

The PSRO Board Terms of Reference can be downloaded using the ‘Updates, Downloads and Links’ bar shown at the top of this page.

PSRO Ltd

The PSRO has been formed as a private limited company to ensure that it remains both impartial and transparent, maintains a pan-employer focus, supporting overall ownership by the construction plant sector and ensuring independence from individual federation interests.

PSRO Relationships

The PSRO Board interacts with other organisations such as CITB, CLC and CSCS at a top level to discuss and formulate strategies for card schemes and sector-required competencies. The Board is further advised by a Technical Review Group, a Certificating Bodies group and will hold ad-hoc working groups to investigate particular topics accordingly.

 

Objectives of the PSRO

The objectives of the PSRO include:

 

  • Identify employer needs against plant-based operational practices, including any barriers relating to certification, delivery and skills identification;
  • Make recommendations over industry requirements for training, assessment and certification to the CLC Skills Plan and relevant Standard Setting Bodies (SSB);
  • Define, in liaison with standard setting bodies and others, frameworks for competency that relate to plant occupation-based standards and certification, including apprenticeships;
  • Determine the impact on employers of certification body delivery activities against Government and construction industry initiatives, legislative and national requirements;
  • Review and report on certification body and national training and assessment standards against construction industry operational and safety initiatives, legislative requirements, new equipment and changed working methods;
  • Provide industry-agreed competency frameworks to guide the development of certification body standards and delivery methods including apprenticeships;
  • Advise relevant standard setting bodies and funding agencies on grant and payment support strategy policies for plant-related training, assessment and apprenticeship activities;
  • Provide guidance and advice in the event of any compliance issues arising around certification bodies interpretation of PRSO-derived competency frameworks and the practices and standards contained within.

PSRO Technical Review Group

The Technical Review Group work under a Terms of Reference and have a number of functions including:

  • The development and maintenance of a competency framework for plant occupations covered by certification bodies;
  • Provide a definition of each of the competency requirements for plant-specific occupations;
  • Review supporting qualifications and apprenticeships for acceptance by card schemes for the issue of training and competence-based cards;
  • Provide technical advice and guidance to standard setting bodies;
  • Provide technial advice and guidance to the PSRO Board.

 Technical Review Group Members

Technical group members are nominated by the PSRO board to represent each member’s interests. Those nominated have an up-to-date working knowledge of the sector, occupation or activity they represent within the construction and allied sectors, and have an understanding of plant-based training and assessment requirements.

PSRO Partnerships

Since 2015, the Construction Leadership Council’s specification for card schemes in construction requires that the relevant standard setting body (SSB) and the sector representative organisation (SRO) agree the minimum standard for qualifications and skills for construction occupations.

The recognised SSB for the construction plant sector is CITB. The PSRO and CITB have developed a Memorandum of Understanding which sets out the relationship between each party and where joint actions and projects will be undertaken.

Current work between CITB and the PSRO include the development of a set of short-duration training standards for plant operations and fulfilling the joint responsibilities required of CITB as the SSB and the PSRO as the SRO.

PSRO Competency Framework

This framework has been devised by the PSRO to be the principal method of ensuring that skills, knowledge and experience which benchmark competency are properly recognised by certificating bodies that operate within the construction sector. It further provides guidance to employers on competency requirements.

The primary aim of the framework is to review and map applications from certificating bodies seeking to bear or maintain the CSCS logo so that they are compliant as a minimum with the CLC requirement, along with any additional standards required by the plant sector. The framework only provides any additional requirements over and above the CLC card schemes in construction publication.

The framework was benchmarked against a number of industry-devised and regulatory requirements where plant-based competence forms a key component or subject matter and comprises of four parts:

  • Part A outlines the principles of competency;
  • Part B denotes the principles for certification and details the learning-journey stages and compliance requirements by both employers and certificating bodies;
  • Part C is a specification for compliance by certification bodies;
  • Part D is a guidance specification for employers.

For employers, this framework not only provides them with what card schemes should be complying with but also how they, the employers, should be managing the attainment and maintaining of competence for plant-based occupations and roles.

The PSRO Competency Framework can be downloaded free of charge from the downloads section using the link above