Competence Is Back on the Agenda. Here Is What Changed.

Two decisions from the bodies that govern scaffolding training have landed in the same window. The CITB has confirmed that training tied to the CISRS card scheme stays protected under its 2026 grant changes, even as funding shifts elsewhere.^[1] At the same time, the route into a CISRS card has been tightened.^[2] For the people who price and run the work, this is less about cards on a wall and more about what a client can ask you to prove.

What CITB and CISRS have changed

The CITB has confirmed that scaffolding training remains protected within its grant scheme for 2026, pointing to its role in training individuals to full occupational competence, and it will continue to fund short courses that form part of recognised routes to CISRS cards.^[1] In a year where grant support has moved in other trades, scaffolding was singled out to stay as it is.

The CISRS pathway itself has been reshaped. The time a worker must hold a Labourer card before attending the Part 1 course has dropped from six months to three. A CISRS Operative Training Scheme course now leads to a Labourer card rather than the older Trainee card, and a Trainee card is issued only after Part 1 is complete.^[2]

There are two ways the trade reads this. One view is that faster progression eases a long-running shortage of qualified scaffolders. Another is that tighter card definitions raise the bar on who counts as trained, and shift more responsibility onto employers to track where each worker sits. Both readings are being argued. Neither changes the fact that the cards on your jobs are now defined slightly differently than they were.

The safety picture, read two ways

The NASC reported that 2024 produced the lowest number of incidents in its roughly 80-year history among its member companies, with 73 incidents recorded across more than 300 member firms.^[3] Taken alone, that reads as an industry getting safer.

The national figures are harder. According to HSE data, falls from height remained the single biggest cause of workplace death in Britain in the year to March 2025, accounting for 35 worker deaths and more than a quarter of all workplace fatalities, with construction the hardest-hit sector.^[4] Falls in scaffolding still cluster around erection and dismantling, the phases where competence is tested most directly.

Both numbers are accurate. One measures a membership that invests in training. The other measures the whole industry, including the part that does not. The gap between them is, in plain terms, the competence gap.

Why competence is a contractual question

It is easy to read all of this as a training story. It is also a contract story. The Work at Height Regulations 2005 require that work at height is planned, supervised and carried out by people who are competent to do it. Your client's contract then names how that competence is evidenced, and on most jobs that means a valid CISRS card.

When card definitions change, the evidence you hold against a contract can change with them. A card that satisfied a pre-qualification last year may sit differently against this year's wording. The technical floor is moving too: the NASC expanded its TG30 system scaffolding guidance in its latest update to cover further birdcage configurations, part of a steady shift in what a competent person is expected to know about system products, not just tube and fitting.^[5] The paperwork before the dispute is the dispute.

A card proves you were trained. The contract decides what that proof is worth.