A GROWING chorus of concern has been raised over inconsistent and unaccredited training courses being offered in the South West.
Industry professionals have spoken about their safety fears due to unskilled workers conducting tasks in high risk environments.
The fears centre on training for the mining and construction industry, including licences to erect and alter scaffolding, conducting work in confined spaces and working safely at heights.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy South West regional manager Erin van Noort said she had received worrying feedback from industry pointing to inconsistencies in the quality, standard and delivery of some private providers.
Bunbury’s longest established private training company, WA Skills Training, runs high-risk courses to educate workers for mine site construction and civil engineering.
Company founder Bob Butson, who signed a multi-million dollar deal with the Malaysian government in March to train workers overseas, said something needed to be done about what he described as “dodgy” private training in the South West.
Mr Butson said some small operators were under-cutting his prices by offering a “quick fix” course.
“If this continues then I am going to close (my Australian operations) down because you either have to water down the standards or not run the courses,” Mr Butson said.
He said part of the problem was in the quality testing of regulations that applied to private training providers operating in more than one state compared with providers only operating in WA.
South West MLC Adele Farina said 323 registered training organisations were checked by Training Accreditation Council across 2013/14 and 35 per cent were significantly or critically non-compliant, which meant employees were at risk of injury or death because of inadequate training.
With the growing number of licenced private training providers cutting corners, businesses no longer have the certainty of knowing that their employees have completed all components of a qualification, she said.
“It is apparent that regulatory bodies are not adequately funded and as a result too much reliance is placed on ticking boxes rather than thorough investigation and the response to non-compliance is too soft,” she said.
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