Highways Passport Client Study
The Highways Passport is transforming the way the network’s workforce is managed, whether directly employed or in the supply chain.
The SkillGuard system branded as Passport is endorsed by Highways England and sponsored by their Supply Chain Safety Leadership Group. Passport covers the roads workforce, providing construction and maintenance services across the country.
Innovative and easy to use, Passport provides a great opportunity to work collaboratively across companies and projects to improve standards for the highways sector. It ensures the safety and wellbeing of all those who work on the strategic road network and, at the same time, is leading the way in driving substantive and measurable improvements in efficiency, consistency and resource planning.
Passport is a critical component of how Highways England contractors can help ensure everyone goes home safe and well.
As all contractors share the one system, they each benefit from the visibility they get as workers move around the supply chain, as well as reducing the need for delivering unnecessary duplicate training events.
The powerful Passport database and smartcard provides a single, transferable record for every worker, enabling up-to-date, real-time validation of an individual’s authority to work today, enforcing safety standards at all times.
As well as storing any number of qualifications, skills and competencies held by a person, the system provides evidence of workforce achievement of Highways England’s common induction training (HCI).
The system helps in the management of fatigue and logs key occupational health data, such as work restrictions, putting it at the heart of every contractor’s H&S practices for Highways England.
The software and apps behind Passport are from Reference Point, the UK’s leading supplier of mobile workforce technology and innovation. User support, training and other services are managed by Mitie – the same partnership that provide Network Rail’s Sentinel.
To illustrate the system’s features and benefits, three major contractors describe their use of Passport.
A-one+
A-one+ are a highway engineering provider with the expertise and resource to maintain, design and construct motorways and trunk roads. For more than 10 years, they have worked in the North East, Yorkshire & Humber and more recently Kent and Sussex.
A-one+ strive to improve the standard of motorways and trunk roads throughout major areas of England. The implementation of Passport ensures:
- Authentication of who a personA-one+ is, their skills, their qualifications, their competencies and their credentials.
- Competencies surfaced on the smartcard are ones that can be used today - protecting the workforce and the company.
- Comprehensive audit trail of information and activity by project, site, individual and team.
- Proven robust system that assures employees, customers and suppliers that Health & Safety is a key component in the business.
The Health & Safety Passport is a great opportunity to bring the industry together to provide consistency in excellence across all aspects of health and safety.
Chris Davis | Area Maintenance Supervisor
A-One+
Galliford Try
Galliford Try are a FTSE 250 business and one of the UK’s leading housebuilding, regeneration and construction groups. Galliford Try are divided into three business units, with the Construction and Investments Division responsible for infrastructure, highways, rail and water.
Regardless of the contract of work being delivered, Galliford Try have adopted the Health & Safety Passport on all its new schemes from October 2019.
The benefits as a direct result of the implementation of the Health & Safety Passport include:
- Real-time visibility of skills, qualifications and training across the workforce and the supply chain.
- 100% compliant within Galliford Try’s Highways business.
- Data intelligence is used to ensure appropriate resource allocation for planned work.
- Complete confidence and assurance that the workforce is competent and safe - today.
- Comprehensive suite of management information including skills and competence gap analysis.
- Transferability of data across the whole division; regardless of contract, project or location.
The Health & Safety Passport Scheme delivers a complete competency management system, which we then use to manage our workforce and resources effectively and smartly.
Mark Bridges | Health & Safety Manager
Galliford Try
Kier Highways
Kier are the UK’s leading highways service provider, working with an extensive range of partners from key central organisations like Highways England through to a number of Local Authorities, who are collectively responsible for the roads we travel on. For over 90 years we have helped clients to deliver various road, bridge and tunnel projects, and have handled everything from planning, programming and delivery of major road schemes through to routine maintenance and operation
The Health & Safety Passport was launched within Kier Highways late 2017, with over 2,500 individuals issued with a smartcard. To date the Passport scheme has delivered:
- All training records are logged, which has removed duplication and saved administration time.
- Validation of an individual’s skills and qualifications.
- Spot checks are captured and recorded.
- Centralised transparent system across a transient workforce.
- Training standards are consistent regardless of where an individual is within the supply chain.
- Full user adoption and acceptance.
- Comprehensive reporting and management information.
Toolbox talks delivered onsite are seamlessly completed instantly using the system, which has resulted in the elimination of paper and a reduction in both manual and administrative processes.
The final stage of the Passport implementation will include capturing working hours, fatigue monitoring and recording swipes, which complies with HSE guidelines.
With a workforce predominantly over such a huge expansive network, the Health & Safety Passport provides us with total confidence that we are putting people to work safely.
Tracey Lucas | People - Talent, Development and Inclusion Manager
Kier Highways