By John Feary

Leading registered training organisation Civil Train has achieved a significant breakthrough for Western Australia’s new civil construction apprenticeships with the signing of a new agreement with the City of Stirling.

Under the agreement, Civil Train is delivering training to Certificate III in Civil Construction and Certificate IV in Civil Construction - Supervision level for employees of the northern metropolitan local government area, Perth’s largest in population numbers.

Stirling has taken up the scheme first introduced nearly two years ago to extend the formal recognition of civil construction qualifications as a trade.

Above: Trainee Mark Wainwright operates an eductor truck in the City of Stirling.

A spokesperson said the agreement fits the City of Stirling’s commitment to the continued upskilling of its civil maintenance and construction staff.

“The training allows our employees to further develop their skills and overall helps to improves the services we deliver,” the spokesperson said. “This can also feed down to provide benefits for the industry in WA.”

One of the benefits of the agreement would be on safety. “Training often makes employees consider the work they are doing, with safety becoming front of mind. For longer-term employees, training has the bonus of refocussing attention.

“Employees working in the civil maintenance and construction areas deal with high-risk situations so training – tool box or prestart – can help with a safety focus.”

The agreement should also further expand the potential employment pool for the council, which already has a strong reputation for recruiting from a wide variety of backgrounds covering all ages from school leavers to people who have retired and come back to work.

Karyn Grant, the Operations Manager for Civil Train, said the agreement would deliver the advantages of the 36-month apprenticeship that puts civil construction on an equal footing with traditional building trades.

The training will be delivered via on-the-job assessment of operations that utilise specific tools and equipment as well as sessions at Civil Train’s Jandakot premises covering general small plant and equipment operation, hand and power tools as well as management and procedural activities.

Existing workforce members will also be able to take advantage of credit transfers for their demonstrated skills and prior learning in areas such as traffic management and plant operating.

Above: City of Stirling apprentices Jack Ayre and Stevan Trajkovski.

Ms Grant said the extension of training as a goodwill measure to Stirling’s current workers, as well as new entrants, would be an incentive for them to enhance their work skills and standards. The mature age people on the council include many from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Financial support for the program by the Construction Training Fund, which covers employers and employees for any wage difference in the transition between traineeships and apprenticeships, is a further impetus.

Stirling has 18 maintenance crew and four construction crew taking the Certificate III in Civil Construction plus four supervisors taking the Certificate IV in Civil Construction - Supervision.

The council expects the training initiative will set the City of Stirling apart from many other local governments. “It means that the city can present itself as a local government employer of choice for WA’s civil maintenance and construction industry,” the spokesperson said.

At the same time, it hopes the initiative will be taken up by other local government bodies.

“If the city is able to encourage more local governments to upskill their employees, then that can only be a good thing. It is certainly a program that the city would encourage other local governments to take up.”

From Edition 4, 2023 of The CCF WA Bulletin. See Publications for more.