A Word From Our Course Attendees . . .

Commissioned by Dumfries and Galloway Council, David Clapham, our resident expert on private water supplies, recently took on some hands-on risk assessment training in the beautiful Scottish countryside.

This followed on from his classroom-based course on PWS regulations with the same group of environmental health officers, with the aim of delivering some practical sessions to make sure everyone feels confident with the required processes. It will also help to foster a team that can be supportive of one another going forward.

Some feedback received from attendees:

'I am new to private water supply risk assessments. The on-site training was extremely valuable to get first-hand experience of the things that we learned in the classroom.'

'The on-the-job training offered a mentored real-life application of skills learned in the classroom, and provided a useful backup if officers encountered unusual situations with particular risk.'

The overall approach taken was designed to give an awareness of the regulations and increase ​the competence​ of the group when​ carrying out ​the risk assessments themselves. Officers were responsible for arranging the visits, setting out the risk assessment fee and obtaining pre-risk assessment information from the client. The site visits ensured expos​u​re to some of the potential types of supplies that can be found (borehole, spring, well, etc.) and their differing set-ups in the field (pardon the pun!). The group averaged two site visits a day, sometimes in challenging locations (despite being in his element, David commented on some very steep climbs), with the afternoons spent ​back in the office writing up the ​reports.

The combination of classroom and practical training gave the attendees a comprehensive – and hopefully valuable – experience of the entire process, from beginning to end.

Please get in touch if arranging this type of training is something you would like to explore in your area, and see the training website for the next set of dates for online training.