Big Brother is watching you

At least this is the situation on BAA projects in London. The Airport Construction Training Alliance's Passport to Work scheme is being operated for all construction work on Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. Every construction-related worker who passes through any of the three airports is registered on ACTA's central database and issued with a card.

Information card
The card, which is about the size of a credit card, contains employees' names and photographs, identifies their occupation and lists their professional competencies. The card must be displayed at all times. Card-holders must also have been trained to a relevant standard - under the Construction Skills Certification Scheme of red, blue and gold cards, for example. ACTA is a non-profit organisation comprising BAA and its top-level framework contractors - including Mace, O'Rourke, Laing, Taylor Woodrow, Crown House Engineering and Amec - as well as all second- and third-tier suppliers. Its aims are to improve workforce competency, to reduce the number of workers passing through airport sites, to employ more workers from the local area and to improve health and safety.

The Passport to Work scheme has enabled ACTA to achieve some of its goals. In the areas of workforce competency and local employment, the organisation's success is especially outstanding. When ACTA was founded in 1997, there were 25,000 construction workers on the three BAA London sites and only 20% of them could demonstrate competence. Half had only been working at the airport for six months, half were there for the first time and half lived more than 20 miles away. As a result of the Passport to Work initiative, 2000 workers have now received extra training. Since the first card was awarded in November 1999, 28,000 workers have completed the registration process.

The information from the Passport to Work card is stored on a central database at BAA's headquarters in Heathrow, though all members of ACTA own it and can access it if necessary. Included in each employee's entry are name, age, training and a unique identification number. Employment history is also recorded: the names of former employers, workers' roles in their former jobs and the airport projects in which they have been involved.

Database
"The database tracks the training record of the card-holders," says ACTA project manager Ann-Marie Morrison. "If it is identified that they need training, the database will then flag up that need, follow them through their training programme and prompt you when the training needs to be renewed. First aid, for example, needs to be renewed every year, and the database will let you know when each card holder needs more first aid training through automatic prompts." Voluntary information on the database includes equal opportunities information and home addresses so ACTA can monitor how many workers there are from the areas local to the airports. This contributes to BAA's drive to increase local employment. Since December last year, contractors have also been able to register their workers online before getting to site to speed up the process. The ACTA website, www.acta.easitrack.com, has a step-by-step guide to registration and information on other ACTA projects, such as its One in a Million safety scheme and its airport-specific safety training. The online registration service is currently being used by 18 of ACTA's member organisations. Each member can log into the database through the site and view its own records. The information is password protected, so each contractor can only view its own entries.

Knock-on affect
The card can also have a knock-on affect on improving health and safety by ensuring that everyone does the job they are trained for, says Morrison. "If someone's card says they are a groundworks operative and they are laying ductwork, you know something is wrong. It's just another way of making people aware of safety issues and what each person is responsible for." The scheme can also save time for a site manager who is in need of specialist skills. "Because the database has details of the occupations and employers of all the card-holders," says Morrison, "when a specialist skill is needed for work on the airport, it is easier to track those contractors down, which saves BAA and its main contractors a lot of time and effort." And there's no reason why Passport to Work cards couldn't be used on any construction project. ACTA is working with the Construction Confederation to roll out the scheme across the whole of the Confederation's membership, in an attempt to create a fully-qualified construction workforce. The scheme is also a Movement for Innovation demonstration project, which has motivated other companies to consider adopting it. Main contractors Jarvis and Bovis Lend Lease, mechanical and electrical contractor Crown House Engineering and groundworks contractor John Doyle are looking to invest in Passport to Work databases of their own.

The Construction Industry Training Board, which helped ACTA with the management and assessment of the Passport to Work Scheme, is looking to implement a similar system for the Construction Skills Certification Scheme cards and related schemes, using Passport to Work as a model.

Intelligent cards
A second-generation card containing a microchip is not far away, according to CITB chief executive Peter Lobban. "We are now looking at using microchips in cards for a whole range of schemes, including the CSCS cards," he explains. "The idea is that the chip would hold the training history of the card holder, which could be read on a computer on site, without having to consult a central database." The construction trade union UCATT has been in consultation with BAA over the Passport to Work scheme. General secretary George Brumwell says Passport to Work is an ideal model for the rest of the construction industry to follow. "BAA is bringing about a bit of order to a very disorganised industry. Their requirements are very welcome," he says. "Having a fully qualified, registered and health and safety conscious workforce can only improve the quality of the industry." He adds that divulging all the necessary information to the database is acceptable, as long as people have access to what is written about them.

Industry standard
Bob Blackman, construction spokesperson for the Transport and General Workers Union, says it is essential that records of construction workers' training be kept. "It is very important that workers can demonstrate their competence, especially with regard to health and safety, or the industry would be more hazardous than it already is," he says. "We are very supportive of the Passport to Work scheme, and any scheme that provides a standard for the construction industry to follow on training. Passport to Work or equivalent schemes should be used throughout the construction industry." So the Passport to Work cards, including a microchip, may be a reality on all construction sites in the near future.

There will be no escape. The next time you think you are an anonymous cog in a vast wheel, remember that Big Brother is watching you.