TRAINING
ACRIB acts to address training
As UK training centres begin to re-open and the hospitality industry restarts after lockdown, ACRIB (the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Industry Board) will be reissuing a call, originally proposed in January this year, for Government action to support improved skills and training for our sector – particularly with reference to training for the use of flammable refrigerants.
T
he call was originally submitted as a policy paper earlier this year to the Ministerial Team at UK Government responsible for UK Global Atmosphere actions and implementation of the EU F Gas Regulation. It builds on the growing concerns expressed at industry meetings about a lack of awareness as to how to address safety issues related to working with, or having installed on a site, equipment containing flammable or low flammable refrigerants. In spite of ACRIB having issued a training specification for flammable refrigerant training which has been used to develop short courses by a number of providers, there remains a lack of awareness amongst equipment owners and users in particular, who are responsible for the safe use of equipment containing flammable refrigerants.
ACRIB Skills and Training Chair, Kelvin Kelly comments, “The refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump industries (RACHP) through ACRIB have been collectively calling on Government to introduce policy measures to define skills and competency to ensure the safe, effective market transition to new technologies”. The value of our sector is now much more widely appreciated by society – not only in terms of safe building maintenance but also supporting the food chain and medical facilities.
Whilst industry experts agree that a thorough risk assessment and good working practices can be implemented to effectively mitigate risks, the rapidly expanding market and low levels of awareness, have led industry to act to demand Government support mandatory training in
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the context of Government responsibilities and future liabilities in terms of implementation of Climate Change policy and the outcomes of the Hackitt inquiry.
ACRIB is asking government to support the safe transition to these new technologies by: Helping to raise awareness of skills issues by publishing a policy or statement of intent on training for the sector.
Introducing measures to incentivise training as part of policies to promote new green technologies
Implementing legislation to introduce mandatory training to be written into the next revision of the UK F Gas Regulation enforcement legislation
Mandating registration of technicians, to ensure transparency for end users of skills
levels of those working on their site and address their health and safety obligations.
ACRIB is an umbrella organisation for the UK RACHP industry comprising trade associations and professional institutes: ARC, BESA, CIBSE, FEA, CRT, FETA, CCF, IOR. It provides the ACRIB Skillcard scheme for the recognition of individual operative qualifications in working with the full range of refrigerants. For more information see
www.acrib.org.uk. ACRIB will be seeking further meetings with DEFRA to progress these four objectives. Details of results of these actions will be added to its website
www.acrib.org.uk and circulated through its members organisations. The full policy paper can also be found on the ACRIB website.
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