Blue Tongue is the first WA company to offer VOCs for Rail Signalling Technicians

When was the last time you checked the verification of competency (VOC) status for all your rail signalling technicians? Yesterday? Last year? Two years ago? And what about your contractors — do you check every single new person before they start to ensure competency across your network?

If you’re like the majority of rail leaders these questions are probably making you break into a cold sweat. That’s because completing a VOC audit on every single person working in your rail signalling teams is time consuming and complicated, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up to date with the competency status of all staff and contractors.

Until now, there hasn’t been a way of outsourcing this critical yet time-consuming aspect of your job. But that’s all changed.

Blue Tongue now offers a VOC audit and verification service. By partnering with us, you can save time and money on this critical component of rail safety, ensuring your staff and organisation are up-to-date on all the latest network requirements, without having to dedicate your own already stretched resources to the task.

A new national framework to streamline competency

Our offering aligns with the new National Signalling Assessment Framework, which was recently introduced by the ARA. This framework is designed to provide a national recognition of competency across the country in order to boost safety and productivity across all rail networks.

Although still in its early rollout phase, we expect to see this framework adopted industry-wide within the next couple of years. Blue Tongue is currently the only Western Australian organisation to align with this framework.

It can be challenging for Network Owners to stay on top of VOCs

VOCs are important to ensure a safe and reliable network, but there are a number of challenges in keeping them up to date. The audit and verification processes have to be completed by a qualified SME, and workers and supervisors can’t upload their own results. Also, VOCs are not just ‘one and done’. Staff members need to be verified every few years, and every new contractor should be VOC’d before they begin work with you.

Ensuring competency within your business is a lot of work, and it’s ongoing. Have you got the capacity to stay on top of this? If not, then you might consider working with Blue Tongue training to manage your VOCs.

The Blue Tongue advantage

With over 25 years of safety and training experience behind us, we’re currently the only Western Australian company affiliated with the new national competency framework. We’re able to complete audits, provide verification, and upload results into the national database.

We work with you to ensure that VOCs not only adhere to the national framework, but are also tailored to the requirements of your network. If there are compliance gaps for any workers, we can recommend a training plan to help fill those.

A demonstration of worker competency is critical to ensure safety across all rail networks. Rail signalling work can be dangerous, as individuals work with complicated equipment where errors can have serious or even fatal consequences. Why take the risk? If you’d like to learn more then get in touch with Blue Tongue today.

We can help you stay on top of VOC compliance for your staff and contractors. Please get in touch with Stuart Brown for more information. stuart@blue-tongue.com.au