Ground Breaking Safety: Underground Service Protection
USP is a project that brings together experts from multiple sectors and disciplines, to enhance the standards of Underground Service Protection by delivering a universal competency framework.
Could your business benefit from competency training?
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Who We Are
We are a collective of industry experts dedicated to protecting underground services and preventing harm
“The USP Competency Framework is about supporting everybody to enable them to do their job safely and effectively. We have a panel of the UK’s leading experts in their fields with everything from human factors specialists in the aviation industry, to regulatory specialists, to skilled surveyors and even leading equipment manufacturers.
What we’re trying to do is bring everybody together to the table to have that joined-up conversation about how can we do better as an industry, and how can we remove a lack of competency as one of the causes for service strikes and service damage.”
USP Founder
Dave McPherson
Could your organisation benefit from our competency framework?
Underground Service strikes not only cause danger at the point of work, but also create significant cost and disruption to members of the public, communities and businesses alike.
WHY WE EXIST
Why Was The USP Competency Framework Created?
In our industry; Competency in the duties relating to underground services is inconsistent at best with gaps in training, knowledge and experience being the norm, and not the exception.
Poor Planning
Opportunities to eliminate or significantly reduce the chance of service strikes are often missed at the design and planning stages
Lack of resources
Whether through budget cuts, cost saving, cutting corners, or simply not understanding what resources are required; a lack of resources can hugely increase risks.
Skills Gaps
Having adequate skills, knowledge and experience makes a huge difference, without these, we put ourselves constantly at risk of making poor decisions.
Unsafe Work Methods
Working around Underground Services requires great care, as the risk of damage and harm can be extremely high, and yet often unsafe work methods play a role in service strikes.
Undetected Services
Whatever the reason, whenever work Is conducted in the proximity of undetected services, we run the risk of both damage and harm.
End Result: Loss of Control
It takes a careful sequence of events before breaking ground, to ensure all reasonable care is taken. Without these steps, there is a loss of control, at which point the outcome is left to chance.
Could your organisation benefit from our framework?
The USP Competency Framework sets out the competency requirements for the 6 Key Duty holders required for a start to finish process.
WHO'S INVOLVED WITH THE USP COMPETENCY FRAMEWORK?
Meet some of the experts involved with USP
Why Their Opinion Matters
A core team of 20+ experts working together to protect our Underground Services
The protection of underground services is a complex subject because it covers such a huge range of sectors and disciplines, and requires a broad range of skills and experience, from a wide veriery of different backgrounds to be effective.
Any meaningful solution therefore requires us to work together, pooling our resources to ensure that we can benefit from wider industry experience, sharing knowledge and best practice.
Because of this, our team is made up of both subject matter experts, and industry leaders in their fields, drawn from a wide range of sectors and disciplines, so that the challenges can be understood from all angles.
What our experts say
Why Get Involved In The USP?
I'm involved in the USP because I want to reduce utility strikes, simple as that, and although there are number of ways of doing this, the approach the USP has taken by bringing people from different backgrounds and different interests in the wider sphere together, has the potential of really make a step-change.
So the “why?” for me with USP Project is that it's a foundation and a framework that is potentially applicable to anyone. I think the key thing is that this framework can be applied to anyone from someone work on their own in the middle of a field to a team of 100 working the middle of central London, its framework that can help anyone do the right thing at the right time.
I’m involved because we are utility surveyors; we’re talking to the persons who are purchasing utility surveys but also those building the projects, those designing the projects and other aspects as well. It's the first time that I can recall all parties are getting involved. So why wouldn't I get involved?
I think the USP is a great initiative, it's looking at the overlap between the different layers of service protection and isn't just concentrating on the people on the ground, we need to stop immediately pointing to the operative if something goes wrong. The process should be tracked back all the way through the hierarchy that leads us breaking ground in the first place.
Since taking on the role of training manager at Radiodetection I have been actively driving initiatives to improve the overall quality of training available for our products in the UK. Part of our initiative has been to encourage the adoption of the use location specialists to undertake training on Radiodetection products. When Dave approached me with his proposal I could immediately see that one of his aims was very clearly aligned with ours in that we both firmly believe that those teaching cable location and avoidance should ideally be experts in EM location with a proven track record of delivering industry leading training. I am very much looking forward to seeing the adoption of this new program which concentrates heavily on practical skills during training, employs a rigorous assessment regime and strongly encourages CPD in its learners.
Ground Breaking Safety in Underground Service Protection
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