Digital Authorisation and Competency
Passport for the Utilities Workforce

 

EUSR and Reference Point work in partnership on SkillGuard for Utilities giving asset owners and their supply chain, real-time verification of the workforce’s authority and competence to work.

SkillGuard for Utilities is a sector-wide database which holds all necessary training information about site workers, confirming quickly, easily, and in real-time, their authority to work.

Employers and other authorised third parties populate the system with information to confirm an individual’s authority to work, including qualifications, permits to work, licences, training records as well as EUSR registrations, which can be trusted as they are all verified.

SkillGuard for Utilities has a wide range of features which reduce costly and time-consuming duplication of training and data entry. It’s easy and quick to check that the direct or indirect workforce is ready to work safely with the appropriate authority.

The reporting function in SkillGuard for Utilities can be used to provide workers’ details, at any site, at any time, by region, or role type. If there is an incident, it’s quick and easy to see who was on site at the time.

Each worker has their own up-to-date record, moving with them as they work across various locations. It is easily accessed by them, their employer, or a Site Card Checker, via the database or by scanning a virtual or physical smart card via a secure app. Records can also be checked centrally in advance of workers arriving on site.

The system behind SkillGuard for Utilities, provided by Reference Point, is the same system already used by Thames Water for their Safety Passport, as well as Network Rail Sentinel, Highways Passport and Tarmac OneCard.

Thames Water has been using the system for over ten years, and their feedback has been invaluable in informing development and updates. They have seen a number of benefits which are unique to the system:

Gareth Mullen, Head of Health Safety & Wellbeing from Thames Water, stated:

“One of our biggest challenges is ensuring that each one of our thousands of contractors who work across different sites and different employers has the right competencies, and that those competencies are up to date.

We value EUSR schemes because we know the training and assessments meet employers' needs and can be trusted, so we can let people on-site with confidence.

With SkillGuard for Utilities, we can pre-check everyone ahead of arriving on site, and we can also spot check anyone at any time, which is especially useful in the event of an incident.”