The BSGA Column
Perfecting practices with the Constructions Skills Certification Scheme
To secure the future of the industry, president of the BSGA, David Allen, talks about how the use of industry cards can help professionals in their workplaces.
J
ust four letters that I would imagine everyone in the trade will know. Who would
have thought they could become such an important part of the business landscape when the scheme was launched in 1995. Sign and graphics businesses have
been dealing with the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) really since the beginning, but it wasn’t until the 2000s that the process was toughened up in response to multiple fatalities including a mandatory Health and Safety test. Signs and graphics companies don’t
fit neatly into one box or for that matter into a particular sector, but at the BSGA we recognised that we would need to embrace the scheme and so the Sign Installer card was created.
The scheme’s effectiveness We can argue about the effectiveness of the scheme and its usefulness, but when it was conceived the landscape looked a lot different to today it was seen as a way of increasing knowledge across the sector and provide a transportable qualification for those in the trade, a choice not a necessity. But times have changed not least
because of the Grenfell Tower disaster. Where it was shown that competencies weren’t checked. As a response to the requirements of the Building Safety regulator, super sectors were created to look at and improve methods of proving site competency and get its house in order. The various elements of a building project where split, signage considered part of the envelope group and subsequently interiors. It illustrates the reach of our trade that
through this contact was made with the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS) and by working together we hope now to bring a range of cards together that will go
| 64 | January/February 2026
some way to answering the requirements of the Building Safety Regulator. The NAS and the BSGA are working
collaboratively to bring about the new SICCS Commercial Signage Installer Provisional Card, ensuring those in our sector can gain site access now that the green labourer’s card will not be issued to installers in future. While the leadership team from the
NAS and the BSGA develop the new qualification for Commercial Signage Installers, creating the competence frameworks required for a new SICCS/CSCS Experience Commercial Signage Installer (blue card) over the next 18 months. While in development the life span of the new provisional card will cover all access to site. The CSCS was originally set up so that members of the profession could demonstrate their competence and qualifications on site and having a card with those qualifications shown on it was at the time revolutionary,
Why do we need a card? Without it we felt that sign installers would end up with some form of
requirement that was designed by others and wouldn’t serve us well, which has happened in the past. Hopefully by working together with the
NAS we stand a better chance of getting a suite of qualifications that really are of use to the trade in demonstrating its skills and proving its competencies’. There’s no doubt the current route
to getting the original CSCS card isn’t suitable for many, but it’s also worth noting that the landscape looks a lot different now to when the original scheme was developed. We have 12 months to develop the
qualification for the new SICCS card developed in conjunction with the NAS. It’s anticipated that it won’t just be for
signage installation, surveying but also surface application and many others. There is lots of work to do and not long
to do it. A wide range of experience will be called for to enable this to happen. It’s also a golden opportunity, seen in the right light that I truly believe will give the trade a scheme that will allow the us to be able to demonstrate key competencies hopefully making it easier to identify those who aren’t suitably qualified to be on site.
www.signupdate.co.uk
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