New CAI membership applications are coming through at an increasing rate, so it’s no surprise that a large percentage of my time in the early months of the year was spent driving up and down the country assessing new member companies.I covered over 19,000 miles in just over 5 months.

For sometime the CAI Board have been acutely aware that existing members need more direct communication with us.  I know sometimes it can feel like ‘Who’s this guy, and what right does he have to come and tell me my business?’  I hope the vast majority of the membership who have ever had an assessment would agree they are always fair, and good advice is passed on where appropriate.  We can always pick up a few pointers ourselves on these visits, and we assess our members to ensure the highest possible standards are maintained, reassuring the public and relevant authorities, not least Digital UK, of a good quality level of service provided by experienced engineers from our member companies.

The demand for the CAI Basic Installations courses has increased so much so we now have training facilities in our new Watford Centre (CAI Head Office) Aldershot (Army Resettlement Centre), our northern centres, Sheffield (kindly supported and provided by Blakes Aerials) and our latest addition Glasgow (kindly provided by Colin and Tom at Eurosat Glasgow).  I now carry out around one training session a month at one of our centres, and the pressure is on to increase this type of course.

It is a source of pride in the CAI that our members and non-members alike see the benefit of these courses for their employees, and new applicant companies also take advantage of the training.  We are aware that many members are completing the courses to aid their journey through the NVQ, and these courses map over to the NVQ as Accredited Prior Learning.  This can dramatically reduce the time it takes to get through the NVQ, not to mention hours saved in completing workbooks for the college.

Increasing Assessments

The CAI has employed the recently retired Nick Ward on a part time basis, previously working for Roger Webster at Webro Cables Ltd.  Nick has a large amount of experience in the industry – not necessary at installation route level, but he has completed the relevant courses the CAI has to offer.  Try pulling wool over his eyes and you will see what I mean.

We have also found another full time Assessment Officer.  Ian Smedley has owned for many years a successful installation company in the Nottinghamshire area, and as I write, Ian is not only assessing new members along with Nick, but has also attacked the backlog of existing members who are well overdue an assessment visit from the CAI.

In August I passed my NVQ A1 Assessor’s course, while Tim Jenks, the CAI’s senior executive, is now also a fully qualified IV (Internal Verifier) for the NVQ.  The CAI is already a registered City & Guilds centre, so you can see an infrastructure is slowly but surely being built up by the CAI to fully administer NVQ training directly to the membership, either via a partner college or, in future, directly by ourselves.  The man-hours behind the scenes establishing a government-backed operation, ultimately funded by the Education & Skills Council, are immense and extremely complicated.  We are getting there and will succeed.

I would like to make a personal ‘thank you’ to all the guys who were guinea pigs whilst I completed my assessor qualification: Nigel May at TDS; Peter Leon at Mediacom’s; Kenneth Coffey of Get Digital Now; Wayne Wood and Ray Deacon at STC; and Richard Graham of Matthews Aerials.All these gentlemen are now fully qualified NVQ level 2 Installers, assessed by the industry for the industry.